Employee Rescreening vs. Continuous Monitoring

If you work in HR, you’ll know that employee retention is just as necessary as recruiting new ones. Learning how to manage current employees should be just as much a priority as learning what makes a great advertisement.

In this short article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about employee rescreening and continuous monitoring, from differences to methods.

What’s the Difference Between Rescreening and Continuous Monitoring?

During the initial recruitment process, all employees are required to go through a series of background checks. This ensures the person involved:

• Is who they say they are
• Is safe to have around other employees (and maybe customers)
• Has the required qualifications for the advertised role

This has been standard procedure for many years, and we don’t see this initial recruitment process changing any time soon. However, for some reason, the screening of employees seems to end there – in the initial recruitment space. Rescreening and continuous monitoring look to change that, introducing a more dynamic approach to employee oversight.

Employee rescreening involves periodic checks, often every six to eighteen months, to verify an employee’s continued compliance and integrity. However, continuous monitoring is an ongoing process happening in real-time, that alerts employers to any relevant changes in an employee’s status or behavior, ensuring immediate awareness and response.

As you would imagine, rescreening is when some of those initial checks are run again. This is to check that your employee has continued to meet the standards you hold for your workplace. While checks for education wouldn’t be necessary, others, such as drug and alcohol tests, motoring checks, and social media monitoring, might become necessary.

In contrast, continuous monitoring doesn’t wait for an interim period to pass before running checks. Applying continuous monitoring to the workplace ensures employers are always informed about their employees’ compliance and behavior across various aspects of their lives.

Employee Rescreening

While they take different approaches, it’s essential to understand the advantages of both methods of employee checks.

Benefits of Employee Rescreening

• Maintain current records – Ensuring your records are kept up-to-date is essential for various reasons, including but not limited to insurance claims. It’s important to know your employees well.
• Create a deterrent to questionable behavior – if your employees are aware that rescreening takes place regularly, they will be more transparent about changes in their life, and this will also act as a deterrent.
• Remain compliant with industry regulations and requirements – To avoid fines or other punishments; it’s paramount that workplaces adhere to their industry’s rules. Rescreening will make this much easier and less time-consuming when running commonplace audits.
• Catch problems that may have been missed during initial checks – Mistakes happen, and information can pass an employer by. However, you can protect yourself from potential damage by ensuring rescreening is in place.
• Preserve and protect their safe workplace – When you initially hired your employees, you should have promised them a certain work life. Safety and protection come into play here. Without rescreening, you could be putting your internal and external clients at risk.

Continuous Monitoring

While they might have similar objectives, there are certain benefits that continuous monitoring offers that rescreening does not.

Benefits of Continuous Monitoring

• Enhanced security – What better way to ensure the security of your workplace than by constantly monitoring it? Continuous monitoring offers the highest protection possible. This is especially true in comparison to rescreening, where information may be missed for months.
• Risk mitigation – Similarly, you are able to know of and act against risks much quicker. In fact, you can know of risks immediately. This means you are working with a preventative method rather than a reactive one.
• Employee trust – Your workplace and its staff will be grateful and feel looked after, knowing they are at no risk of unwelcome employers and the dangers they may pose. In short, it makes for a stronger workplace.
• Rapid response to red flags – You will no longer have to wait for red flags to turn into actionable consequences. Instead, you can act on them immediately and ensure your business’s and your staff’s safety.
• Adaptability to changing circumstances – Having a constant eye on the kind of people you have hired means you will find yourself with a new skill in your arsenal – adaptability. Furthermore, this is a transferable skill you can apply to other aspects of your business.

4 Reasons for Monitoring and Re-Screening

Change in Employment Status

A change in employment status could include or indicate a number of things – perhaps a change in responsibilities or a transfer to a new department. This could even include a career break, leave of absence, or extended sick leave.

All of these circumstances are times when further checks must take place to ensure the safety of your business and staff.

Potential Promotions

When an employee is up for a promotion, that generally means you are considering giving them more responsibilities and likely more money. Checking in with background checks at this stage is paramount to ensuring the smooth running of your business, as well as making sure they are appropriate for the role.

Ongoing Investigations

If an employee is under investigation, conducting background checks will give you a more precise and detailed picture of their personal life. This will – in turn – allow you to evaluate the situation better. No matter what they are being investigated for, checking their motivations via screening will help.

Following a Merger or Acquisition

When two businesses merge (or an acquisition has taken place), you will likely adopt a whole new set of employees – crucially, ones you did not hire yourself. While you shouldn’t distrust the recruiters before you, doing your own checks will allow you to gain further peace of mind, confirmation, and accountability.

Final Thoughts

Keeping on top of HR at your business is more than just advertising and looking after new recruits. Actively checking your current employees’ standing will put you in a much more prosperous position.

Different businesses require different models. How could your workplace benefit from more in-depth screening checks?

For more information about background checks, employee rescreening, and continuous monitoring, get in touch with us at ScoutLogic.

David Garcia

David Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Scout Logic, is an industry leader in the bulk background check world. With his strategic acumen and expertise in the HR sphere, specifically in hiring, recruiting, legal compliance, background checks, and resume screening, he’s an invaluable asset and consultant.

David's counsel extends across the boards of ScoutLogic, YipitData, and Supplier.io, drawing from his impactful stints on the boards of Infutor and Avetta. With an extensive 25-year journey, he champions unparalleled B2B commercial leadership within data & analytics, significantly shaping the HR landscape.