How To Track An Effective Leadership Screening Process

By Author: naman Vohra
Total Articles: 42

Leaders are the most highly-visible people within an organisation as they are the people who regularly represent the organisation in media outlets. Employees at higher hierarchical levels are given a greater level of authority, power and access to classified information so that they can utilise it in furthering the interests of the company. Therefore, hiring an executive is a major decision that presents an opportunity and great risk. Unlike traditional positions, executive positions generally require special treatment—especially in regards to compensation. It is vital to make sure you are making the correct hire, which can sometimes be difficult because candidates often overstate qualifications and embellish their experience and results.

Witnessing all the risks associated with hiring a wrong leader, some companies have come up with the concept of leadership screening. Executive Screening is a program designed for top management in an organisation which needs to be screened with greater thoroughness. Executive screening of senior leaders goes beyond the regular background check process and it includes additional checks apart from the regular checks conducted on the other employees. Executive screening also ensures that ensures that the senior executive hiring is clean and compliant to various global AML and other regulatory standards like FCPA, UK Bribery Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act etc.

Organisations can hire credible third party background check companies which are experts in providing a tailored background screening program and they utilise proven methods to dig out information that is vital to the informed leadership hiring decision. The executive screening services provided credible background screening companies are equipped to perform the background details of a leader from locations all over the world as leaders in today's global economy have experience from all over the world.

A dedicated leadership screening process should have the following characteristics:

A focused media search designed to identify key information about the candidate
Full Financial regulator screening report as part of the process (if required)
An evaluation of the information gathered
A tailored final report

Apart from the above characteristics an ideal executive screening process should be efficient enough to screen a leader at various customised levels to suit the specific needs. Following checks needs to be covered by an executive screening program apart from the regular checks in order to dig out background details of a senior executive apart from the regular checks.

Employment history
Education and qualifications
Professional reference check
Education Qualifications
Address verification
Criminal Record Check
Regulatory Authorities Database Check
Credit and Integrity Risk database Check
Indian National Identity Check
Overseas Verification
Character reference
Gap verifications
Indian Court Record Check

With all these checks in an executive screening process, an organisation can expect to mitigate the risk of senior level fraud to a large extent.