Introduction

If you’re involved in recruitment within the healthcare sector – be that care homes, private healthcare, NHS, complementary therapies and so on, you will know that finding, hiring and keeping the right people to look after your clients and patients is extremely challenging, particularly in today’s climate.

Getting the right information about people before they step over the threshold is one of the keys to ensuring safe, long-lasting hires. But we’re not going to be writing about the people who work on the front line in this post – that’s coming soon. Here, we’re going to consider the executive and senior management roles – the people who run the business, because these are just as important – in fact, the stakes are even higher.

Challenges

The challenges in the public sector are a little different from in the private sector, however everyone is recruiting from the same pool of people, and you all have to go through the same process. After you’ve done your advertising, assessment, shortlisting, interviewing and you get to the point of considering hiring an individual, what information are you likely to have? Perhaps some standard checks, like DBS, Right to Work, maybe a reference check, perhaps a CV check – some even go further and do credit checks or other diligence, but what does this tell you about what that individual is going to be like once they join your organisation? How well do you really know them?

Lord Sugar’s henchmen on the BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ have shown time and again that CVs are not always strictly accurate, we all know that a DBS check only tells you about criminal convictions and an interview will show the candidate at their very best. So, what can you do to complete the picture? What can you do to find out what someone is really like as a person, how they might behave at work? According to SP Index, the UK’s market leading specialist, the answer is simple, a Social Media Check.

Online Checks

Using only publicly available information, they carry out objective, fair, compliant, and balanced Social Media Checks, using a team of highly skilled researchers. Time and again, they are able to alert potential employers to individuals whose online behaviour could represent a risk in the workplace. Some examples of this include: Racism, Misogyny and Comments about older or less fortunate people.

Perhaps they have posted text or pictures that don’t align with your stated ethics and principles, or maybe they are a member of an organisation that doesn’t represent what you do in a good light – there are many ways in which an individual can bring disrepute to your organisation, and the cost can be enormous.

The business case is quite straightforward. Out of all the checks that we carry out on healthcare senior roles, 25% show as either ‘Amber’ or ‘Red’ – meaning that we have found some evidence of behaviours, such as those listed above, that don’t meet your standards.

Competition in the healthcare sector is fierce and companies are starting to realise that they should be doing everything they can to ensure that once an executive is hired they’re not going to become a costly mistake. As one of SP Index’s clients said: “Why wouldn’t you? For us it’s a no-brainer!”. If you’d like to know more, contact us directly or speak to your background check provider – more than likely they will be Powered by SP Index.