With pandemic-led mobility restrictions and strict social distancing norms, conducting physical address checks became nearly impossible in the last year. Even as the states have relaxed mobility rules, vendors for address verification are not likely to be welcomed by candidates in their houses anytime soon. Moreover, reverse migration out of cities has led to candidates being scattered across the country. Some organisations are even looking to reverify all their employees in the aftermath of the big shuffle. Building vendor networks in isolated parts of the country in the pandemic era is challenging.As HR teams grapple to emerge at a new normal, verification and onboarding processes have been going through their own revolution. Learn how our Digital Address Verification (DAV) solution – Footprints – is simplifying and streamlining the address verification process and consequently, candidate onboarding journeys.
At Experian, we recognise that HR teams are striving to transform onboarding and verification processes to be digital ways, to ensure faster and safer candidate onboarding. Hence we launched Footprints in January 2020. The product provides instant access to multiple address databases for up to date residential address information for any individual across the country. The solution has helped users verify millions of addresses over the last year, making the process more efficient, accurate and predictable. There are many different models of address verification services. They generally involve online forms that take the candidate’s information, conducting a physical check to verify the address and generating a report for HR and hiring teams. The work is largely done by field personnel, who visit candidates’ homes and meet them to complete the check. However, due to Covid-19 restrictions, these forms of address verification have become extremely difficult to conduct.
While organisations have been scrambling to meet the challenges posed by reverse migration and verification of their teams, they are also forced to alter hiring practices. Some may have even ditched physical address verification completely. However, it is important that employers do not loosen their onboarding processes in the quest to find a balance between speed and safety. Meeting regulatory requirements for candidate onboarding through reliable digital means is more important than ever, especially since the country prepares for a new normal where mobility and interaction continue to be restricted.
The modern world is highly digitized and this is a boon for sharing economy businesses. Without trust background, a lot of businesses that cater to our needs on a daily basis would be useless. People we don’t know drive us to our destinations, and we sleep in houses of people we have never met before. This speaks volumes about how the modern economy is greatly dependant on trust. The HR industry too has evolved and employee background verification processes have never been made simpler and faster. Before digitization, this was a long process of collecting all pertinent records of the potential employee and going through them manually to make sure there were no discrepancies. Not surprisingly, building trust took a long time and required extensive work. However, with new technologies and innovations, pre-employment checks can now be conducted with just a few clicks using software like Verisys that leverage cutting-edge technology to collect data from thousands of databases at one go.