It's a familiar story. A third party organisation's administrator calls up to request a reference letter, to confirm that a former employee worked for my client's company: the dates of her employment, job title and reason for leaving.
I then get work checking the former employee's file, extracting the information and putting it on a letter, to send to the requester. A routine process for all pre-employment screening, for new starters within an organisation: and the third party administrator needs an employment reference for theirs. I go through the process and issue them the reference.
But then I notice something odd. Our own new starter team, who are carrying out the screening on behalf of our client's organisation, have been chasing the reference letters, from some of the companies these candidate worked for, for weeks now. And without these letters, the candidates cannot be started. Until they are started, their details cannot be keyed into our systems, and payroll cannot make the arrangements for their pay check. In other words, because employment reference letters have not been sent, the whole process grinds to a halt.
Why has this happened? I suspect, it is because the administrators working on behalf of the candidate's former employers, have been told that reference letters are 'not a priority'. The priority in most organisations' human resources teams that I have seen, is of course, to process the new starters their organisation; to administer the payroll correctly (which will be carefully audited and must therefore be done thoroughly), and to facilitate the work of current employees. As one colleague once told me, he considered that the reference letters were 'only one thing' out of the whole, detailed process.
And therein lies the problem. This 'one thing' hold up most organisations' recruitment, because it's a one way street. We in HR, will always be chasing the references for incoming candidates to our own organisations - these will have priority. But not the ones for outgoing candidates, who going to work for others. And so, we're all stuck in the same endless cycle of needing employment references from other organisations, but not given enough incentive to fast track ours to them. How can we break out of this? Here's a suggestion I have.
I think we should approach this challenge, like an unspoken contract, between certain organisations. The relationship between our organisation and the third party requester could be like a contract: we need something from them and they need something from us. So if there are two organisations, who enjoy a high exchange of the same employees, then their new starters and employment reference teams could have a mutual arrangement in place, to fast track each others' candidates' applications.
For example, when a former employee from Organisation A, applies to join Organisation B, the new starter team from Organisation B could immediately contact the HR Administrator at Organisation A, who is in charge of employment references. Organisation A's administrator knows to fast track this reference, by his/her employer's arrangement with Organisation B, and does so. In return, the new starter team at Organisation B, then inform their own administrator, who issues external employment references, about some of Organisation A's new starters, who will need references fast tracking. And so, by careful arrangement between both organisations, their new starters are able to benefit from a more streamlined process. (I already have an unspoken agreement like this in place, with our new starter team, to fast track employment references, for former employees, of our client's organisation, who are coming back to work for us.)
Of course, there are many challenges to such an arrangement. All candidates have an equal right to seek employment, and this may appear to give an unfair advantage to some above others. The way to address this problem, is to make any such agreements official, so that candidates from other organisations will understand why the ones participating, are given priority: it is a business deal, in effect, for more streamlined recruitment processes, and is a voluntary agreement, by all participating organisations.
I think we should at least consider this kind of arrangement, as an important incentive, to streamline our pre-employment screening processes. Employment references are only one part of the process, but they are an important one. A candidate needs his/her reference letter in a timely fashion, to start in a new role: and what better incentive for the former employer, if their own new starters' candidates' references will be fast tracked in return.
Let's Build Bridges
There are many bridges we can build
