As part of its annual Employment Screening Benchmarking Report, HireRight looks at the transportation industry. Its Transportation Spotlight addresses common screening practices and policies, plus explores issues and trends affecting screening programs.
HireRight is a leading provider of on-demand employment background screening, drug and health screening and I-9 employment eligibility solutions that help employers automate, manage and control screening and related programs (www.hireright.com).
The 2013 Transportation Spotlight found that the top three business challenges for transportation companies are:
- Finding and retaining quality talent (61 percent).
- Regulatory change and compliance (39 percent).
- Managing risk (26 percent).
Compared to the previous benchmarking survey’s results, finding and retaining quality talent went up by seven percentage points, indicating that the hiring environment is becoming increasingly more difficult as hiring managers are competing for qualified candidates.
TOP CHALLENGE
Given the top business challenge of finding and retaining quality workers, it is no surprise that the top talent management challenge is attracting and retaining experienced employees, the report finds. A majority of the respondents (87 percent) are concerned with attracting and retaining both experienced and entry-level workers, as well as being able to appeal to multiple generations.
In order to attract quality talent, almost three-quarters (73 percent) of the respondents surveyed have taken steps to improve the job candidate’s experience, with an additional 8 percent planning to make this a priority.
Clearly, there is an increased emphasis on improving talent-related initiatives and programs.
NEED FOR MORE EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS
With a shortage of trained professionals in most areas of the country, along with the need to hire faster, companies are competing for available talent and are attempting to leverage their screening tools to compete more effectively.
The two most challenging aspects of employment screening for the transportation workforce, the HireRight Transportation Spotlight found, are completing prior employment verifications (58 percent) and reducing the time to hire (49 percent). While these were important considerations in the previous survey--39 percent and 27 percent respectively, the gap is beginning to widen.
Most transportation companies reported they recognize the need to ramp up their talent-related initiatives and they plan on evaluating and improving their current recruitment process, employment screening programs and policies, education and employment verifications and drug and alcohol screening solutions.
