Hiring decisions involve a wide range of factors, and conducting a pre-employment background check in Canada can significantly inform your decision. While there are different types of background checks, they all aim to verify provided information or learn more about the given candidate.

You need information as quickly as possible, it must be accurate, and it shouldn’t carry too high a price tag. However, background screening may slow down the hiring process or make it too expensive if handled by the wrong partner. 

Sometimes, it’s necessary to move your background check services to a new provider. While changing such an integral part of the hiring process may be daunting, cutting operating costs and making faster hiring decisions can increase operational efficiency.

How can you go about moving to a new background check provider? Let’s break down why it’s worth considering, then dive into how to transition from your current provider to your new partner.

Why is Switching Canadian Background Check Companies Worth It?

Background checks must be completed efficiently, accurately, and at a reasonable price. If these attributes are out of line, you can significantly slow down the hiring process and overall operations.

If your background check partner isn’t up to par, it might be time to change to a new company. Switching companies is worthwhile when they’re costing too much, taking too long, or providing inaccurate results — or all at once.

Ideally, you’ll be able to find a new partner that improves in the areas your current partner lacks. Cutting costs, ensuring accuracy, and simply returning results faster contribute to greater operational efficiency. Leading you to make informed hiring decisions to fill empty roles, keeping the company moving forward.

How to Make the Change to A New Background Check Provider

Changing the provider that conducts every background check your company requires can be challenging. While finding and transitioning to a new provider may be difficult, it can be well worth it if your current provider falls short of expectations.

So, we'll explore the overall process of going from your current provider to your new one, including finding them. 

Identify Your Needs and Goals

Everyone considering switching providers will have different motivations for doing so. The process begins by understanding where you are and defining where you want to go. A few ways to hone in on these elements are:

• Costs: Are you simply paying too much for background checks? A higher-than-average price tag can substantially increase the cost of finding new employees. Costs also come in the form of hiring the wrong candidate and the opportunity cost that may be involved.
• Compliance: Is your current provider protecting your compliance? Complying with laws regarding background checks, data protection, and other regulatory requirements within your industry is not optional. However, sometimes, the wrong partner is not fully complying with the same requirements that you face. For example, if your provider conducts a criminal record check that does not receive the appropriate consent from the applicant, your company may face severe legal issues.
• Turnaround time: How quickly are results from background checks completed? Waiting on background checks can significantly slow down the entire operation, as roles remain empty longer, increasing the risk of the candidate accepting another offer. The risk of a candidate accepting another offer is especially true for those looking to fill competitive roles. 

Once you’ve defined what you need in your background check provider, you’ll be ready to explore potential background check companies. 

Find and Evaluate Multiple Potential New Vendors

With your goals defined, you’ll be ready to start evaluating different providers. Create specific criteria, such as costs or types of background checks, and start searching.

You can likely find new vendors to consider with a simple search but don’t underestimate the importance of seeking referrals from your business partners. It’s hard to understand what type of experience you may have with a new company, even with online reviews, but another business owner or HR department can go far in helping you find the right vendor.

Additionally, double-check that the provider operates within your jurisdiction. Some businesses in North America won’t be equipped to conduct a criminal record check in Canada. Beyond jurisdiction, ensure they offer every type of background check you’ll need, from social media to fingerprint-based criminal record checks.

Overall, you’ll want to evaluate:

• Reputation
• Costs
• Available services
• Regions
• Security and compliance
• Available platform or portal

Transitioning to Your New Provider

Once you've chosen a new provider, how do you shift from your current provider to your new provider? Let’s break down a high-level overview of how you can transition to the new provider:

1. Develop a roadmap: Document your starting point, your ideal endpoint, and the steps between them. Your roadmap may need changes on the fly, but it goes far in helping you get started with a new provider. This includes everyone involved in the hiring process in developing the plan, or at least HR and recruiting team leads. Having the right personnel involved in the roadmap ensures you consider all the moving pieces of your processes. 
2. Make sure data is securely transferred: You’ll likely need data from your current provider to be transferred to your new provider, possibly with your own storage acting as an intermediary. Ask both providers how they can export and import data and any integrations they may share, and plot the best course that ensures security at every step.
3. Prioritize data security: Once you’re set up with the new provider, how will they keep applicant and company data secure? Understand their protocols and your responsibilities to avoid any risks of non-compliance or a data breach. Depending on your industry, you may also need to provide proof of security during a compliance audit.
4. Conduct training sessions: Once you get closer to rolling out the new platform, provide comprehensive training in new processes and platforms before fully rolling them out. Prepare your teams with the knowledge necessary to fully utilize your new partner and avoid possible issues in the process. If possible, offer hands-on training with the new platform or portal so teams know what they’ll be using.
5. Implement the new provider in phases: It’s worth having overlap between providers if possible so that you can roll out the new processes slowly. For example, you might start with having one team or even one HR representative use the new provider for their background checks. You’ll be able to identify and resolve any possible issues with how your processes work with the new provider. Then, roll out to additional teams until the old provider is completely replaced.
6. Review results regularly: Even if the new provider looks great on paper before you sign up, periodically check key metrics to evaluate how they’ve been affected by the new provider. Are costs down? Are turnaround times faster? Are the results accurate? You might need to implement new tracking processes, but it’s well worth the effort so you know if your defined goals have been met.

You may need to make some changes or add steps based on your organization’s needs, so take the time to thoroughly plan before you get started. Implement slowly and regularly review results so you have confidence that the new provider has solved the issues you had with the old one.

Communicate the Benefits of Changing

While this could be included in the above section, it’s worth diving deeper as it's a step to complete early on in the transition. Ensure everyone involved in the hiring process is aware of the upcoming change and why it’s being made.

Gaining support from HR teams and recruiters is critical to having the results you expect from the new provider. Communicating the likely benefits for both the company and the individual role can go far in fighting change resistance, instead creating enthusiasm for the new provider.

Consider Hire Performance for Fast, Accurate, and Affordable Background Checks

Background checks are a cornerstone of many hiring processes, but the wrong service provider can make them take too long, cost too much, and have too many errors. Your business requires background checks to move forward with onboarding, but lengthy background checks might lose the candidate to the competition.

Switching to a new provider for background checks in Canada can profoundly affect your overall operational efficiency. Empty roles are filled faster, the checks themselves cost less, and you can have confidence in the accuracy of results.

Hire Performance is an industry-leading background check provider in Canada, and we operate globally. We’ve put our years of experience to work by developing a cloud-based portal that allows you to manage the entire process efficiently, from requesting new screenings to reviewing results. 

Additionally, if you’re in a contract with your current provider, don't fear the contract break — we'll pay for the cost. Reach out to us to learn more about this process.

Are you ready to find your next provider? Hire Performance makes switching easy! Try our eScreener for free today!