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The Rarely Discussed Employee Benefit
The Rarely Discussed Employee Benefit
Employment verification for current or former employees is typically managed by Human Resources (HR) departments to assist employees with significant life events.
Employee life events typically include verifying employment to help employees buy or refinance a home. Life events also involve assisting former employees in completing a background check for a new job or fulfilling government assistance requests for benefit entitlement decisions.
Employment verification is a lot like insurance – you don’t think about it until you need it – but when you need it, you need it NOW! Making sure that employees can complete a significant life event promptly is an important yet often overlooked benefit that Human Resources departments provide.
Employees might not even realize there is something called employment verification until applying for a mortgage or buy a new car. However, if the process stalls because an employer did not provide employment or income verification quickly, the employee suddenly becomes starkly aware of the importance of employment verification.
Positive experiences with employment verification enhance an employer’s relationship with their employees while negative ones weaken them. Employee retention remains a concern for many organizations. Increasing retention by strengthening relationships with employees through the use of benefits like employment verification is strategic and straightforward.
Providing certain benefits can even cause a performance increase for companies when used correctly. A 2018 research report by, The Society For Human Resource Management (SHRM) found a performance increase for organizations that used benefits strategically for recruiting and retaining purposes over those that did not.
Organizations using benefits strategically reported an increase in overall company performance, recruitment, and retention. Companies that utilized benefits strategically more than doubled their percentage-based effectiveness in recruitment and retention over those that did not.
Which benefits matter?
Many articles have been written to determine which benefits employees value most. One report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lists the most popular employee benefits.
These benefits include:
- Health insurance
- Retirement savings plans
- Employee insurance
- Assistance programs that may include paid time off and paid holidays.
Outside of monetary and health-related benefits, benefits that are typically appreciated include:
- Employee focus
- Scheduling flexibility
- Pleasant work environments
- Healthy home/life balance
Having these additional benefits show employees that they work for an employer that cares which, when coupled with health and retirement benefits leads to increased employee retention.
Employment verification falls within the employee focus benefit. HR departments that ensure a quick turnaround for employees managing critical life events such as purchasing a house or car let employees know that they are valued. The faster that HR departments provide an employee’s information to lenders or background check vendor verifiers, the quicker employees determine the status of a mortgage or new job.
If providing timely employment verification is a costly and challenging process for your department, there are options. A popular choice for many companies is to outsource employment verification.
When outsourcing employment verification, be sure to select the best employment verification vendor for your department. The best employment verification vendor will carefully take your department and organizational needs into consideration when structuring the best program for you.
Doing so enables your team to focus on critical initiatives that make an immediate difference to their company without concern for the management of your employee’s life events.
About i2Verify®
i2Verify automates the processing of employment and income verification requests for current or former employees of our clients. i2Verify provides employment information that verifiers like banks or government agencies rely on to grant loans or provide benefits.
Contact i2Verify for information on our employment verification solution, which is always free for employers and employees.