Mphasis instituted internal audits after clients identified incidents of undeclared work. “A client saw an employee in two different offices. The client did not approve of this and asked us to conduct an audit and we found other similar candidates. These internal audits are a 2022 phenomenon. Our management thought this was a reputational risk and decided to conduct these audits,” Nitin Rakesh, CEO of Mphasis, told TOI.
However, regular audits, he said, are difficult due to reliance on third parties such as the PF department. Meanwhile, some customers have also started running checks on employees, such as their Aadhar number, first name, last name and date of birth.
Capgemini said some of their clients have conducted third-party audits but have not found any cases of undeclared work. Aarti Srivastava, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Capgemini India, told TOI that while there are internal audits, managers also have the power to take action if they uncover suspicious activity.
Unearthinsight, an IT market intelligence firm, says that in fiscal year 2022, approximately 2% to 3% of applicants failed their first background check report (address check, college check, identity verification), while the total failure rate was between 5% and 7%, which includes the second baseline report looking at employer reference checks, offer letter checks, etc. . In FY21, the total failure rate was between 3% and 4%. Unearthinsight She said.
Ashok Hariharan, founder and CEO of IDfy, a background checking company, says that although it costs IT companies 8% to 10% more in verification fees to check undeclared work, they prefer to do it with risks such as loss of intellectual property or confidential knowledge and loss of productivity of employees engaged in undeclared work.
Background checking firms told TOI that companies, particularly in the tech sector, are now conducting ongoing employment history and litigation risk checks for existing employees as well.
“Parallel Employment Check has gone from zero to exponential growth (for us) in the last six months,” said Ajay Trehan, founder and CEO of AuthBridge. “Right now, 100% of our customer base is doing this based on existing employees,” he adds.
In one case, AuthBridge found that out of a total employee base of 100,000, a company had approximately 3.5-4% in parallel jobs.
AuthBridge uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to examine provident fund records and draw conclusions about multiple uses and contributions. Form 26AS can also be used, but it is a more intrusive process requiring employee access, etc.
Gopinath Sethuraman, founder and director of recruitment and background check platform Talentchek, says the business has grown nearly 300% in the recent quarter as the use of digital tools has made cross-border verification easier than moonlighting .
Sethuraman says companies haven’t paid enough attention to the issue of undeclared work due to the talent war and resource shortage of the past two years.
