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Vishwanath Kulkarni

Indian companies benefiting from the offshoring wave are doing a bit of sleuthing. They are making sure their US clients' data is safe by screening potential employees.

GOOD things don't always come free of trouble, it seems. Take, for instance, the offshore outsourcing wave favouring Indian shores.

As US companies send more business to Indian companies here, a significant chunk of data that is critical in nature is getting offloaded here for processing.

The responsibility of making sure that this data is not misused lies with the Indian companies, or the vendors in this instance. In the absence of proper data-protection laws, these vendors have started taking steps to prevent leaks in manpower-related security.

As a first step, companies have begun background checks on their potential employees. Employee screening, considered critical in emerging markets due to lack of criminal databases, involves hiring an external agency to conduct personal and background checks.

As the industry witnesses a significant churn in employees because of high attrition rates, screening the background of potential employees becomes imperative considering the fact that quite a chunk of potential employees lie about their education, experience, and so on to gain jobs.

A study of 3,000 screenings by risk management consultancy firm Hill & Associates (India) Pvt Ltd has revealed that 30 per cent of the candidates had falsified their resumes.

Pre-employment screening has started gaining ground with Indian vendors too, says Ashish Sonal, country manager, Hill & Associates. "At present, about 30 per cent of the requests we receive for pre-employment screening are from Indian firms," says Sonal. Global firms that carry out pre-employment screening and that have been operating in India include Kroll, ChoicePoint and Intelysis.

Indian firms such as Globe Detective Agency also carry out pre-employment screening. The monthly volumes of all the players operating in the pre-employment screening could be in the range of 8,000-10,000 screenings, says Sonal.

Hill & Associates says it is the market leader in pre-employment screening but declines to comment on the volume of its operations.

Says Rahul Verma, director, HR, Accenture "People are clearly our most important asset. We partner with our employees during their entire lifecycle with the organisation, this includes the recruitment process too."

"We undertake stringent due diligence to ensure that we hire the right people for the right job," Verma says, adding Accenture has an in-depth and rigorous pre-employment screening process which has proved to be useful in multiple instances.

"For example, one of the pre-screening initiatives we undertake includes verification of the candidates' qualification and experience.

This physical verification ensures that only candidates who are appropriately qualified join Accenture. We invest in this process as it reflects on our values of high ethics and integrity," says Verma.

vishwa@thehindu.co.in

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