Thursday, May 23, 2013

ISO Certification: Why Your Background Screening Company Should Be Certified


When background screening companies present services, they tend to put their best foot forward. Most companies state they have quality management systems, detailed processes and formalized training programs; however, without comprehensive audits these comments can be a mile wide and only an inch thick.

Due to this inconsistency in market messaging, top tier background screening companies are implementing International Organization for Standards (ISO) to drive a formalized quality management system so clients can rest assured their screening partners are focused on quality and continuous process improvement.

The ISO standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of an organizations system called a “quality management system.” The ISO standards provide requirements to be met by an organization for continued process improvement which enforce screening companies to have processes, policies and procedures in place to ensure their products and services consistently meet customer requirements and to consistently improve quality.

Screening companies must perform internal audits to check how their quality management system is working. All ISO standards are based on the principle of continual improvement. Screening companies will assess their current situation, fix objectives and develop policies, procedures and implement actions to meet these objectives and then measure the results. With this information, the effectiveness of the policy and the actions taken to achieve it can be continually reviewed and improved.

To obtain certification, a screening company must allow an external certification body to perform an initial audit to earn certification, and periodically afterwards in order to demonstrate continuous improvement in the organization and to achieve recertification.

Companies in the screening industry which are certified under ISO have formalized processes for auditing criminal research accuracy, employment verification quality, education verification completeness, customer service quality, procedure consistency, formalized issue resolution and escalation standards. All these items and more are monitored, tracked and targeted for continuous quality improvement.

With an estimated 700 background screening companies in the market and over 30 accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), there are plenty of vendors to choose from. NAPBS accreditation is a critical milestone for screening providers demonstrating compliance related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other compliance requirements.

By coupling the NAPBS Accreditation focus on compliance with the ISO focus on quality, clients are experiencing the difference Aurico’s program delivers through a comprehensive screening partnership.


Aurico: Experience the Difference. Take the challenge.

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