Whether it be the religious NFP sector, the banking and finance sector or the elderly care sector, you will note the significant elements is deficiency in screening processes.
Not to say that an overt Integrity check is the silver bullet: a be all & end all to the malevolent employee/volunteer acts done in the workplace – but rather an organisational indicator on how serious it takes it’s responsibilities and duty of care. If personnel safety, safeguarding & security is not front and centre as new staff enter the doors, then it will be difficult to raise the standards sometime in the future.
Employee screening raises the standard of your industry. By its very nature this means that it will exclude certain people from working at the organisation. Maybe the hardest thing to do, is to assess that the Candidate who great competence, but lacks character and not hire him or her based on that overall assessment. Screening a talent pool that is already small may cause short-term pain. But since when has doing the right thing been easy?
Integrity empowers prosperity. Research has confirmed the direct link between prosperity and integrity of organisations and the people in their midst are found to be Honest, Trustworthy, Tolerant, Mature, Loyalty and Resilience (HTTMLR) and prosperity. We know that intuitively, but we have all been witnesses to the flip side of this: unsuitable employees do not prosper the organisation they work for. Counter productive workplace behaviours, trusted insiders, conflicts of interests, corruption, have damaged not only the reputations of the employers but have contributed to a long line of victims – be in in religion, in banking, in aged care.
Recommendation 16.4
The Anglican Church of Australia should develop a national approach to the selection and screening of candidates for ordination in the Anglican Church.
Recommendation 16.21
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia should establish a national protocol for screening candidates before seminary or religious formation
Aged Care Royal Commission.
Mr Morrison: “As a community we expect high standards for the quality and safety of aged care services”
Bill Shorten: “It’s got to be everything. Staff, training, funding – making sure people get the care that they deserve.”
CONCLUSION:
The Royal Commissions are reflecting societies standards and as you can now see, putting the spotlight on integrity. Australia’s societal values have been rocked over the past three years. What is not acceptable to society has been exposed through Royal Commissions. Not one group have said “Royal Commissioner’s: we should not screen people for character, for integrity.”
If you have an ear, hear what the Commissioners are saying.
More articles that maybe of interest:
- At-a-glance, what we do: Click here
- The Interview Experience: Click here
- NPC done different. Read more here.
- Study: 1 in 4 fail pre-employment integrity tests. Click here
- 1 in 4 potential employees admit to behaviours that most employers consider high-risk. Click here
