Background Verification Essential – For Healthy Culture & Safe Work Environment

He was my, you know, patron and Xavier, and see it, and he's still very active. We call him; he keeps on writing still. He's one of the few sane voices left, sometimes you feel, that who are not influenced by the powers that be. So, all set for Colonel Chenetra. So let's see. I'm going to be mute now, sir. Good evening, sir. Look, this music is unforgettable. It looks like, right. Hello. All right, all right, now it's time for Mr Sipal to take over, please.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Sipal Singh, president, NISSMAT, on this side. Today's session is on background verification essential for healthy culture and safe work environments. Before the session starts, let me welcome all of you. A very good evening, and thank you all for joining this session. I also extend my warm greetings to our eminent speakers of today. Today's interactive session is on background verification, essential for healthy and culture and safe work environment. The session shall be addressed by two learning speakers, who will be introduced to you by the moderator in due course.

Let me now introduce this one: National Institute of Security, Safety, Management, Applied Technology International. It was established in the year 1993. We started then for training courses in the field of private security, safety, security management and technology. With the passage of time, it has become a think tank, where an association of more than 90 scholars as on date with us who have been providing and are providing inputs in these fields. This was established four wings: the first is this beforehand, that is the Smith Academy, then is NISSMAT Enterprises, and then is NISSMAT Foundation. We are very active at the moment on this book forum.

With these words, I now like to introduce the chairman, Mr Upon Arwalia. He took voluntary retirement from the Parachute Regiment of the Indian Army at a very young age and started his own business. A very thoughtful, a very inspiring leader who is adept in creating alliances. He is unafraid of telling the truth in various business meetings, foreign and former chairman of the Council of International Investigators, USA, and was awarded Malcolm Thompson and Kautilya award by this Council.

After this, let me introduce, open up the subject of today. In the last session in this series of background checking verification, Dr Colonel John Cena identified the details of the subject, laborious processes and components which are involved, and sometimes to compile the information about the person being hired. All this was discussed by him in the last session. It was also discussed that rapid globalization and expanding international movements make background verifications and checks immensely important. Stringent background checks can help the employer to identify the problems before they could happen by hiring wrong type of advice. Any negligence in the recruiting process or any lecture in the background verification can tarnish the image of the organization, the reputation of the company, and its healthy culture and safe work environment.

Negligent hiring can also harm company's reputation if an employee with a shady background is recruited in the company. For maintaining a healthy culture, safe work environment, good quality at the workplace, some standard procedures for background verifications are required to be followed. Good hiring not only improves safety and security at workplace, it also helps to reduce future risks, misbehavior or violence at the workplace, which may occur by recruitment of a shady implant. The need for subsequent weeding out of wrongly recruited enterprise can pose a threat to the workplace environment. This can be considerably reduced if there's a proper background verification.

A critical insight — I am again trying to emphasize the critical insight, not that can compose everything — the critical insight into the behavior pattern of your employee would ensure that there will be improved regulatory compliances, besides good and safe workers. Improper background verification can lead to consequences that may have a ripple effect with the passage of time. Just as one rotten apple could spoil the whole basket, so therefore one has to be very careful. The two speakers of today shall further analyze all these respects and much more. I leave it to them how to go about and how to analyze them. With these words, I pass on the session to the moderator of the session today. Capital value. Thank you, Mr President.

Before I start, I'd like to acknowledge that today we have had registrations from the following countries, that is India, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Australia, Belgium and Bangladesh. As I speak, we are streaming live on YouTube and on Zoom. NISSMAT is looking for sponsors, and we would welcome any sponsors who would like to get their product or idea promulgated. We have a mailing list of about 200,000 organizations and individuals, so it will be very helpful if anyone would like to sort of sponsor. It will help NISSMAT as well as health. Today's program has been sponsored by Premiership India Skills Tax Course and JMD Cargo.

A word about our president. Mr Sipal Singh is a masters in English literature and served the Government of India in very senior police appointments. He was the first person who raised the Rapid Action Force and also was its first chief. He later raised the Internal Security Academy, which is a central police academy at Mount Abu in Rajasthan, India. During his service he has been decorated with numerous awards, significantly the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service, the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service, the Police Special Duty Medal with bar, Asena Medal, and another, and a number of other commendations and rewards. Post retirement, he's worked with the Tatas as a consultant. He was also the chairman of the technical committee of the Quality Control Council of India, which formulated the standards of the star rating of the private security companies. He was involved in developing the curriculum for private security guards training under the Security Sector Skill Development Council. He was also the head of the committee we designed and worked out national occupation standards for the training of private security guards and qualification pack for the national occupation standards for the firefighters in India.

In 2009, the President of India hosted his retirement, recognized him as the security personality of the year. He is currently an advisor to the Asian Professional Security Association, the Indian chapter, and is also the honorary director general to the centralization of private security industry in India, and also the Association of Private Detectives and Investigators. Mr Sipal's face is well known in India as a dynamic security professional. He is frequently called upon to share his views on national television on homeland security and other related subjects.

Today we have two speakers. His first speaker is a deputy director with NASSCOM. Anirban has over 24 years of experience in management, technology and managing industry ecosystems. Having initiated his career as a corporate trainer in technology, he's an economics graduate with a postgraduate degree in sales and marketing, and in addition a certified project manager. His core areas include adoption and introduction to new technologies to disrupt traditional approaches, conceptualizing data centers, and driving technical evolution into key business drivers. His current role at NASSCOM includes spearheading technology vertical nationally to leading various industry initiatives like bettering and standardizing employment processes. A special contribution is leading to scale National Skills Registry from a HR tool to a risk mitigating tool, and finally evolving a standard for the background check processes in the industry. In his moments of leisure, Anirban is an avid photographer and a roadie, has a fine eye for details and angles, and is able to see life through a very broad lens. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce, I present to you, Anirban. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chairman and President, and my fellow speaker, Colonel Chenetra. So, thank you for that generous introduction. So, directly jumping into the topic, I'll take a different angle. I'm going to have a presentation, so I will just, talking, prompt you about this. This is something that I do at NASSCOM, so I will try to put that thing in front of all of you, that what is happening there.

So, let's see, two things. Like all of us, when we think about background check, when we think about being a background check of an employee, when their person joins, is always a risk mitigation activity. That's something that we all know, right? And that's something that is a practice that all of us follow to mitigate the risk, right? And that's part of the HR processes, so that I think Dr John would be taking it up.

So there is another aspect to this, right? You know, over years, what we have seen is that the background check verification has been evolving, and has been evolving in a very, very different way. Like earlier, it was a very, very conventional kind of checks that used to happen. But right now, somebody in this industry would vouch that the gamut of checks that are happening today has lot many things to cover. It covers their social media, it covers a personal life of an individual, it covers how they are financially sound, and how their, what kind of medicines that they take — so basically drug checks — how they are in their personal lives, basically if there is a case going on. It may be a civil, it may be a traffic signal jumping, so that also gets tracked. So there are many, many things that is happening today which conventionally we never thought of, that that could lead to a background check. It was very, very conventional, like education check, whether my degree was correct or not, and all those things.

Now the fundamental question that comes in, if we do a deep doubt, that why so? That why did these checks come up? Why did that horizon is increasing day by day? And that is exactly what the topic is today, like healthy culture and safe work environment. This is two things that are very, very important, right? And they are linked. It's not that they have two isolated topics; they're very legal. Like, safe work environment comes from two aspects: like as an individual and as an organization.

So let's take an example. If I'm working for an organization, I would like to be in company of people who doesn't come from exactly what Mr President was saying, that he is not a shady character. That's one way to look at it. Like, if I'm working in an organization, there should not be a shady character who's sitting beside my chair and working with me. It can be any kind of shady character. Like, we may not know, we may know; he may be a very aggressive person who can do harm while having a discussion. It can be anything. So the point is that having a safe work environment is very, very important as an individual who is working in an organization. Like, so every employee gets affected by it. So having a background check definitely mitigates that part.

The other aspect is as an organization. As an organization, I have many, many things to handle. I have many, many things to look after, right? My organization's reputation, the clients that I'm serving, their reputation, and so on so forth. Like, if a person who comes into my space and does something which is wrong, it affects my reputation and definitely client's reputation. Recently, we would have heard the cases about that incident with Air India, right? So the company had to let that person go. He was a senior professional, but he had to let the person go. So there are reputation risks that happens with behavior an individual does. It may not be at the time, or may not be at the workplace, it may not be in the working time, but whatever I do, it affects the organization that I'm working for — their reputation, their state. Not many things gets affected if a proper background check has not been done on an individual. Not a conventional background check — a background check which goes into the depth of finding out what that person does when he's also not working with me. It makes sense; it gives a lot of ideas, lot of views about that person who is working with me.

Let me flip the other website. It may be so, right, we'll be talking about, take a development, positive side. Like, as an organization, we have a culture of promoting diversity and inclusion in my organization, right? I hire a person who is not very open to diversity. What happens? It happens my organization's culture, it happens the work culture that I have been trying to build for my organization. Flipping the side again: I hire a person, I find out that person is very much into social media supporting diversity. I can leverage that person in my organization to build that culture. Now all these things would come out in a background check. They would give me positives and negatives about a person. It would give me the views about a person, it would give me the outlook about that person, which I could take, and I as an organization, we can decide that how we want to use that. If it is a negative aspect, obviously we need to take an action or a steps, be careful about it. If it is a positive action, we can utilize this for the betterment of the working culture in my organization. We can make our organizations more safe with that person's attitude, and so on so forth.

Listening: if a person is a financial organization, if a person is working in a financial organization, it makes a lot of sense to do a check on what kind of financial credibility that person has. If it's been a person who is always a defaulter in the things that you do, that can only come out in a background check. Then it makes a risk factor for me, that should I place this person in a financial process or a financial job or a financial role in my organization or not? So having said that, it gives a lot of credibility whenever we do a background check to a depth, meaning not only the conventional checks, to the other additional checks.

Let's check an example. I find a case about a person who has a civil case, or is a traffic jumping guy. So it may not directly affect me. Obviously we are not saying that if a person is — it can happen for a positive or a negative; it may not be that I'm actually at fault — but definitely, knowing that aspect, it gives the organization a visibility that how that person has or behaves when he is not in the organization. I get the visibility, I'll say, get the visibility. We know that how that person will come in, and in today's world, with social media, with other thing coming in, having views for something has some effect on working culture, on the safe work environment that we prefer to be in.

See, earlier there was a demarcation. Once a person was leaving from job, we used to stop thinking about that, what that person was doing. But right now, that whole thought process, that whole approach has changed. Whatever I do off work, that also matters. Whatever I do in my personal tent, that also matters to some extent. It's not that I don't have a personal freedom; it's not like that. But what I do, it should not be to such an exchange that affects the organization that I'm working with. Should not be affecting, like, every day. Let's say an example: I go out and I am addicted to some drugs, and I put it on social media. That affects the reputation of my organization that I'm working in. Or let's check an example: my organization is into medical business. Having a person who is addicted to a drug working in a medical organization, who is working on a medical product, affects the reputation of that organization. So having a deep dive, knowing a person, what he does, affects every bit of the journey that organization has.

Because we have to understand that whenever we are moving ahead with an organization, that leads to the growth of an industry. So it's all linked, meaning if all of us, in each on our organizations, are trying to mitigate a risk by doing a background check, it develops that industry very fast, it develops that segment in that country very fast. Let's take an example. I'm coming from an association which has been promoting Information Technology industry, IT industry. The IT industry has been doing background checks, so some point of time the employment has been increasing. Why? Because the confidence of the clients increased in the companies where we're servicing them. So over a period of time, what was happening is the employment was increasing, the GDP was increasing, and at the same point of time, the whole ecosystem got increased.

So what we're saying is background check is one of those hygiene factors which needs to be done very, very diligently. It is not a check in the box that sometimes all of us feel — that we think that it is a check in the box, which is not that. It's not a tick in the box. If we do it correctly, it affects my organization, affects the industry that I'm in. It can be a medical industry, it can be an information technology industry, it can be a financial industry — it affects the industry. We have n number of incidents wherein something has gone wrong in an industry and in a company, and that has affected the industry also. But all this leads to one basic thing: that we need to do a background check thoroughly, and the more fast we adapt in doing a background check thoroughly about the person, it helps us.

So going, as we move forward, it holds it at every step: at the organization level, at the industry level, and at the country level. Right now, as NASSCOM, we are trying to promote India as a safe destination for IT. So we are an association of organizations who are into IT, but the promotion — just see the promotion, that the message that we're trying to give outside, that India is a safe destination for IT. Why? Because some point of time, doing a check at the organization level builds up that organization, it builds up the country, and then the messaging goes over to the world. So you see the growth that happens, you see the path that an organization is taking, or the country is taking. So those are the very, very important aspects that we need to think of.

Okay, we're just trying to see my notes, what I had thought that I will speak to, because it was an impromptu one. Okay, so see, apart from this, there is another aspect to this. Like, you know, say, information that is found out about a person, that also needs to get collected somewhere, right? So, like in other countries that we have, we have a centralized databases and all these things, right? You have a centralized database of people who are working there, what kind of history that they have. So as a country, as India, we also need to — we are also building up those kind of things. Like, we are also, obviously, definitely we started off late, but obviously we have started doing that thing, like creating central repositories, creating other IT systems wherein, you know, those databases are coming up, those databases are getting linked, and all those things. And obviously, all these databases which are getting linked today will help us in getting this information faster — the information that we are seeking today.

Like, let's take an example: your education certifications are going to DigiLocker. So it is very, very easy to get that information back for a BGC, to verify that information. You don't need to hunt too much to verify that information. But at the end of the day, when the country is progressing with all this kind of systems, it's very important that we also start doing our basics in our own organizations. We start to bring a background check where the background check fraternity can help us in getting those checks done. And once we get that, we can use that information — both, as I said, both positive and negative information — helps us in building our organization culture and the safe work environment. So that helps us as we move forward. I think, my side, I'll hand it back to you.

Thank you, Anirban, for an excellent talk on the subject. And now, a second speaker of the day is Colonel Doctor John Chinatra. Now, John is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy, and he served in the Intelligence Corps of the military. Currently, John is the executive director of Premier Consulting and Investigations Limited, which is an investigations and consulting firm specializing in background verification of employees and vendors, and does due diligence on companies for various purposes. He provides information based on which organizations can take considered decisions. He works with banks and insurance companies, healthcare, IT, BPO and the ITES sectors. He is generally known as a turnaround specialist, having turned around three companies before he joined his present appointment. He served 21 years in the Army in the Intelligence Corps and has served 22 years outside the Army. He has mastered the art of persuasion and negotiation with government, labor and the unions. His doctorate was on the study of an automobile manufacturer achieving turnaround using people, sales and strategic marketing. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Dr Colonel John Cena. John, unmute yourself, please.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I must first thank all of you for the wonderful response and the comments that you have given me for the last webinar which we had conducted in January. I'm really humbled by the response, and I thank you very much, and I hope that you will support us in all our future endeavors. Now, during the last webinar, I had covered the basic processes which we undertake in background verification. Now, as you would remember that now the background verification in India has evolved, and what you are doing in background verification is basically you are trying to profile an individual before you really hire it. In fact, I have a very strong point over here: companies should ensure that they carry out background checks before a person is hired; otherwise it becomes something like a postmortem. Okay? So pre-employment background checks are very important. It should not be used like postmortem, okay?

And in the last webinar, I had covered the risks involved, how a principal employer is liable for the actions of all his employees and his contract staff. There are legal liabilities, and background checks mitigates the risk of losing your reputation. There are any number of examples where one employee has marred the reputation of a company which was built over decades. We just can't afford to do that. And as you know, in the corporate world, the key word for success is trust. If your clients and the industry does not trust you, you can say goodbye to business sooner or later. Okay? So the trust is the key word. And how do you build trust? By building credibility, being truthful, honest, ethical, empathetic. These are ways you do that.

Now, today's subject is even more important than the previous subject, which was the basics about background verification. Here we are trying to discuss how background verification can mitigate risk and ensure that you get the right cultural fit, and you are able to grow a genuine, safe and healthy work environment. The kind of effect which we can now do, for example: psychometric test, social media profiling, civil checks, media checks, criminal records. All these are being developed. Very soon, as Anirban brought out — and he is working very hard to get all this into one thing, like what you have in the US — so it becomes very easy, it becomes cheap, it becomes available to every client who wants to do it. We really appreciate your work on that.

Now, one of the things which I was speaking to some of my friends in the US: with the gun culture in the US — I hope I turn out to be wrong — a shooting in a workplace is only waiting to happen. I pray that what I say doesn't come true, but the liability of negligent hiring by those US corporates is very, very real and very, very severe. The juries will not spare the owners of those businesses, I can assure you that. And my friends, who are basically from the background verification industry and the HR community, they are very, very worried about it, and this is waiting to happen. I hope I'm wrong, but this is what the input I get. Like last time, I covered a story where I was almost holed up for harboring terrorists, because one of our employees was suspected of that. Although it didn't happen there, it is BGV which saved me.

Now, in this webinar, I will briefly cover two real life incidences that has happened in my career. First was a BPO, where we had recommended that you should carry out drug checks, okay? These are very, very legal and very, very right; it is done with the consent of the employee. In one of these BPOs — BPOs are basically manned by young people, okay — and I know of a case, I can't give you the details, but they hired a suspect person, because it was very clear, what I mean, making, looking at his social media profile, it was very, very clear that would be very, very suspect to it. They hired it, and they found almost 25 percent of their workforce addicted in the next one year. 25 percent of their entire workforce. I don't need to explain the seriousness of this.

The second story which I want to narrate is of a senior person. From his social media and his psychometric test, it was very obvious that he was more of a open culture kind of a person, quite permissive in his outlook. We had pointed it out in the social media profile, and later our train turned out to be accused of sexual harassment. This could well have been avoided, and the reputation could have been saved. So these are two examples. These are very common examples; I'm sure all of you have known of such cases. But these could be really mitigated, and that is why I believe that pre-employment, that is background verification checks which are carried out before a person is given the offer letter also, and of course the appointment letter, is a must.

And if you actually study a background verification report, any experienced HR person — it is like an open book. You can clearly make out: will this person fit into this company culture, which was very well highlighted by Anirban, or not? Secondly, does he have a criminal record? Is he likely to get into — civil checks shows that he has got too many liabilities, so he can fall prey to temptations. So it becomes so very important that background checks are carried out early, well before a person is taken in.

Now, we do a check which we call exit interview services with analytics. What we actually do is, for companies, we carry out exit interviews of employees who have left the organization, whose full and final has been settled, maybe three months later, so they have got no axe to grind. We have developed questionnaires which are exhaustive, with the aim of trying to assess what are the conflicts, what is the politics that is going on, what are the sexual harassment propensity over there, what is a groupism in that, what is the internal politics. And these are assessed. We first carry out — we have an assessment platform in one of our group companies, we use that. The candidate or the ex-employee answers these questions, and based on that, I carry out in-depth interview — I've actually an HR person, okay — and I try to analyze what are the lessons that I learned, what are the actions to be taken. And for these companies, every six months we give a diagnostic report which indicates to the client, especially the CHRO or the director HR, what is the health of the work environment in his company. He doesn't have to accept the recommendation which I do, but it will go into his mind, and future actions will be in some way, some small little way, affect his future decisions. In fact, most of these CHROs are far more competent than what I am, but they are very, very wise people. They know what this is, but they all need the inputs, and that is what we do.

All right. Now, as far as background verification checks are concerned, there are a lot of inputs which indicates to the company that this is a person who's had political affiliations, or has had extreme views on religious and communal matters. These don't debar a person from being offered a job, but it is worthwhile for the management to know that this person is vulnerable to such things. It also indicates how well he will fit into a team, how well he will be able to lead a team, how he can orient the individual goals with the organizational goals. All these are great value addition to the culture of the company. And that is why I always highlight, every chance I get to speak to CEOs and directors, I make it a point to emphasize to them that please do not consider this as a cost, and trust me, I'm not trying to oversell. It is basically for the health of that organization and to get inputs. There is nothing that is compulsory, that you need to follow our recommendations, but at least you may like to consider it very, very serious.

Right. Now, the last point which I wanted to emphasize is that most of these advanced checks, they can't be graded as red, orange or green. You can only draw conclusions from them. And if you see the psychometric test which we conduct, the personality profile of that person becomes an open book. The management can clearly see what kind of a person he is, what are restraints, what are his weaknesses psychologically, and which is the role that he best fits into — of course, debated for the experience which he has. But as Anirban said, that okay, if he strongly believes in inclusivity and things like that, you can leverage that strength to build your own culture, healthy culture. So that is the importance of background verification. I will always emphasize this in every forum which I believe, and I am sure this will mitigate the risks of many great companies. That's all I have to say, sir.

Actually, thank you very much, John. I have a question for either you or Anirban, or anyone can sort of — what are the steps that an organization should actually take to ensure background verification processes are up to date and effective in promoting a healthy work culture, for a safe environment, for a safe working area? Anirban, you take the lead.

So, two things. One is, when Dr John was saying that you need to do a pre-employment check — that's why so there are a couple of things that are pre-employment which needs to be done as a basic hygiene factor. Then, to keep the work environment safe, the organization culture as a top thing, there are subjects that needs to be done regularly. It's not that I have done one check and have left it like that; it's not like that. Like, let's take an example: social media check, social media profiling about how the guy behaves after he has joined the organization. So all these things — see, every organization can decide the frequency based on their risk capability or risk mitigation capabilities that they have, but the fact is that they need to do some checks regularly. Maybe a legal check after a certain period of time, maybe a drug check after a certain period of time — those things can give a lot of leads — maybe a social media check after that. But that period, or the threshold of those outcomes, and the period in which I need to do that check regularly, can be decided by each organization. But the fact is that it needs to be done regularly. It has to be.

But right now, I think everybody thinks that once a person is onboarded, everybody thinks it as a cost and drops it, but which is not the fact. The fact is that if a person is behaving radically after a person just joined, maybe after five years or ten years, at least the organization should be having that information and can foresee that what can go wrong somewhere. But we don't think in that line. We never think in this line. Once a pre-employment is done, check in the box is done, we forget about it, which is a very, very wrong thing. It's a continuous process. It has to be done. It evolves, and so on so forth. But yes, it is a regular thing that needs to get done, within a certain period. After a certain amount of time, a behavior of a person can change, my attitude can change. All those needs to be tracked for a healthy workplace, definitely, for sure.

One of the things that, you know, which we are forgetting nowadays, which I used to do very early in my career, that was as to how many people are dependent on a particular individual that he has to sustain. So if I'm the breadwinner, how many people are dependent on me? And in India, it can be a very adverse situation. It can cause pressure on the individual, because if his earnings are not sufficient to support his family, then it is likely that at some point of time he will crack and do something which is not warranted.

Absolutely, absolutely agree. So all those things are very, very important. It's not only that individuals take an individualistic check; it's a check about what is the social status, about what he does, what is his financial status. Everything needs to be, you know, investigated. The whole reason for this is they would affect an organization. So in either way it would affect. Like, if I'm in a process, I might have a propensity to, you know, steal the data and make some money out of it. I can have any kind of propensity. Every individual organization gets exposed to a data whenever they are working for an organization, right? And at the moment there is a shortage that I can't meet, people would think differently. That is a very, very important thing: that finding it out, finding about a person, that what he does, how is he socially, how is he financially — they're very, very important aspects about an individual.

But small little things: like when a person is hired, he is financially — especially financial guys from the finance department — now somewhere down the line this guy starts investing in the stock market. It's a huge — absolutely. Okay, absolutely. So if you carry out a civil check periodically, this won't come as a surprise to you, and you can counsel him. You can even help him to keep away from those temptations. So in fact, some of the checks which we encourage companies to do regularly, six months, maybe one year, according to the affordability: one is a criminal check — anyone can get into a crime sometime. Second is social media — you understand this lifestyle so clearly. Third is his civil check. And these inputs which you get about the organization from the exit interview analytics is also a very, very positive feedback for chief people officers, director HRs and even CEOs.

True. I think it's an excellent sort of a situation that organizations need to follow. Mr Sipal, you had a question that you were wanting to sort of talk of?

Yes, I have only one point: that when somebody refers you for background verification, or holistically, you are — what are the essentials and what are the non-essentials in that check?

May I answer this question? Anyone, please go ahead.

See, in fact, I had covered in the last webinar also: the need of specific checks depends on three factors. First is the level of the employee. Second is the role which he is doing — is he going into the finance department, or is he going to the HR department, or is he going to the credit control, whatever. The third check which I meant, which is very, very important, is which is the location and which is the industry. Like, if you talk about certain places like Banjara Hills, you know, you see a lot of fake education certificates, you will find fake experience letters given. So you know what to look for, okay? And actually, when you collate all the information, they start becoming very, very clear what you should do. Does that answer your question, sir?

It's partially an answer. Okay. Question is, you want to know the hierarchical status of a person for whom you want to do verification. You want also to know the particular sector or particular department in which he's working. You will also like to know what environment he is working, location, as you said. No, that's all right. I am saying that organization as such will ask you — checking is your responsibility. I mean, the person who will be given this job, organization should give you, okay, it gives you location and gives you a hierarchical position of that man. It also asks you that this is a financial manner. After that, these are only three or four other parts that you can ask the organization. And after that you go ahead. Now my question is that in all the cases, in most other cases, the psychological — you also said that he can be having some propensities, he may be having some psychometric problems. No, question is, as a background checking, will you go all into detail in every case? You do the psychometric test, or in some cases, or in some cases you leave it? Question is that you are being given a job, that you get me this test done. Out of that, my point is that you consider, all right, these are my essentials, A B C D, and these are less essentials. So why, why it was that, holistically speaking, what would be the essentials?

Completely, yeah. Now we claim to be background verification experts, and it is our duty to advise that company, the director HR or their CEO, that sir, for this particular profile, these are the checks you should do; for a lower profile, these are the checks which you should do; a person located over here. It is my karma, it is my duty, because I pretend to be the expert in this background verification. And of course, the command decision will always remain with the CEO or the director HR, but I must recommend. And remember, I should not try to make money by recommending things which are not essential. So keeping the cost and the requirement in mind, I must honestly recommend the checks which are likely to give him the best returns for his money. That is my moral responsibility, and that is how you build trust. You can fool a person once, twice, but third time, you know, I mean, what kind of a guy I am. And if my clients stopped trusting me, I'm finished.

Very good. So one of the questions that, you know, have been bothering me is: we are moving from a physical verification to a technology based verification. How is the transformation taking place? How successful it is, how reliable it is, and what is the future of this industry? Is anyone — you are the right man to take up this, with your technology province, really. Sure.

So, you're very rightly, you're absolutely correct, I think. And that whole shift started in a major way during this COVID phase. Like, COVID has, at some point of time, has been a blessing, wherein we moved to a digital phase from a physical phase. So I think that shift has happened during the COVID phase. So, yes, you're right, a lot of checks have moved into a digital environment, and definitely that is the wave form. There have been a lot of APIs that has come in. Even that open stack is getting developed, so a lot of those data which was earlier not available for integrations would now be available. Now, once that is done, in future, you know, the basic financial checks, all those things would be totally, totally digital. I don't think there would be any — digital in a sense, right now, when it is digital, data is digital, but the thing is, it would be all APIs, so it would be instant in the near future, like in other countries. So the way, what we are saying is that whether I should hire this person or not, that decision making, that what is my risk when I hire this person, that would come instantly in near future. And I think, as the biggest industry, I think all of us would be moving into that space only, where everybody would be integrating their systems with the APIs.

And all this is, I think, one small move we did, not at the country level — at an industry level we did. I think one of my team members would have approached Dr John also. What we did is: employment check is something that all of us struggle with, because that's something that record is digital in the organization, but that's still a manual process, in the sense that — you're very right — like, organization says that can you verify this record of this ex-employee of that X organization. So an email chain goes, or maybe you have a system to send that email check back to that employer, the employer responds, and all those things. What we are trying to do as industries, we're trying to push that, because we realized that while government is developing a lot of these interfaces for digital verifications, for technology verifications, we also realized that employment check is still manual. So what we are trying to do is, we're trying to say that can't we, as an industry, can't we do that? So we are approaching our IT companies, are saying that you give the data back to the NASSCOM database — so there's something called exit employment database — and we're taking all the background check partners: if you get a verification request for this X company, please access the database, and you get it instead. Integrate your own background checking platform with an API with the system, and you get an instant check. You don't have to — there is no email, there is nothing. It's an instant check that gets done. And that is what we're trying to push back to the members, saying that let's make it digital. Why are we always seeing time to do it? Your background check partners would give the data, but it would be on an individual organization basis. And if you give the data back to the central database, and you ask your background check members — and all our members have been informed that whatever data we are getting from whichever members, we are informing, we are saying this is the five greatest we have got, this is the ten letters we have got, these are the two letters we have got, please access the system and take the data and do a verification. And I said that next couple of years, the employment would be technology based, would be moving totally digital, in the sense that maximum number of checks would come totally instant. So right now, that gestation period that we have for every checks would get minimized. It would get reduced, and if not zero, it would get reduced totally.

Anirban, I have a follow-up to this. You see, if you are collating data from all the organizations, how does it ensure, or conflict with, the confidentiality and privacy of employee background information, which is supposed to be confidential in any case?

Absolutely. So the moment you take it on, you need to have the assent of the employee. That's what — his data should be available to NASSCOM. Got it. So what happens is, what we're trying to balance this is, like a little example: you have a data of organization A in the database. Now let's take an example: if somebody, maybe it's a BGC company, who wants to access the database, the first step is you should be uploading the consent that is taken from the employee to verify the data. So that's the first step. Once they submit the consent, then only the data gets transferred, but that data is shown, otherwise not. And what we do is, since employment is something that does not always involve an employee, so we are assuming that every employer, whenever they are sending a background check request to my background check partners, they'll be giving a consent letter. And what we're telling our background check partners: that you upload that letter in the system to access the data. So that's how we're trying to handle the privacy law, because otherwise it's a major responsibility.

Consistent also with the European — with GDPR and all. So you're always going to be in violation. Absolutely. I'm a holder of information. Absolutely, absolutely. And so it will have limited — you know, the initiative will be limited in scope because of violation of various laws of various other countries. Correct. You're absolutely right, absolutely right.

But what do you think is that, and that limited scope which you have, because you are not going to violate the confidentiality of another company — the limited scope which you have for verification, that's exactly what I said, that you have to get into certain essentials, because you are — I am, say, the person who is being given the job. I'm not talking about who he has — an organization must get a thorough investigation authority. But the person who is doing the better industry, and his task is rather difficult, because it is not always possible to judge the inclination of person. John has touched indirectly — so what are his communal affiliations, in his talk he said what are his political affiliations. All these things, you see, taken out of the context may be very, very difficult for you to do. But in the organization — I have an experience of — there must be some metrics, or these are the essentials, these are the second level, this is the third level, some sort of data may have been prepared for people who have got background verification done.

You're actually right, sir. That is the reason why we give different packages to the same company. So if he's carrying out the background verification of a director, these are the checks and this is the cost. If it is middle level, and in this location, this is the price, this is the cost. That is the only way a contract can work smoothly and efficiently. So we do that, sir.

I have one more question, sorry. This question is to you, and since you're at NASSCOM, and in the position that you hold, what is your advice to organizations as to which background company they should hire for the checks?

Okay, see, it's something like this. Like, there are a lot of players in the market. Dr John represents some; maybe there could be somebody in the call who will be representing some other organization. See, my take would be, on this subject, is that in my last couple of, ten-eleven years that I have been, and almost like fourteen years that I've been auditing all these background check organizations — see, everybody has some strength. Like, everybody has some strength, and everybody has some value that they give back to the industry, right? So it's something like this: like, everybody makes soaps, right? But every soap is different. Somebody may like the perfume of the soap, somebody may like the lather that it creates, somebody may like the size that it has, somebody likes the way it holds. So what I'm saying is that all the background check companies have something to offer.

Now, for the people who are trying to take the services of the background check companies, they should look for a partner who gives them the right advice, firstly. Like Dr John was saying, that first thing is very important — that giving a right advice is very, very important. That's one. Second thing is, you need to understand what kind of risk that you're mitigating. So if that background check partner has a strength in that, leverage that. So there may be somebody who is very good in doing a particular check; they have built up their capabilities in an excellent way for a particular element. They will tell you that I have my maximum capability in this — I have all the checks, but this is the maximum capability in this — leverage that. See, right now, I don't think there is a scope of having — see, in risk, there is nothing called favoritism. To mitigate a risk, you should go with whatever mitigates your risk, and that you have to identify. Every person who wants to do, or every organization wants to do a background check, needs to identify the risks that you're setting, identify the strength of the background check companies who are coming and meeting them, and then choose a partner who is supporting them. And moreover to it, keep in mind the person who is giving them the right advice — nothing like it.

Because our organization, who is trying to avail a background check service, is not an expert in this. Let's understand this. I'm not a background check expert. Like, the partners who are supporting the background check, they're the experts. That is their business. My business is policy making, my business is to sell a product. I'm not in the background check. So I should take the input of a person who is best in this and go by his advice — not making an advice and telling him that you should follow this. Go by the advice that risk mitigation organization is telling me. If I try to tell him that you do it in this way, it doesn't make sense — which is currently happening. I know that it is happening, that you do a particular check in this way. That's going wrong. Go by the way the background check organization is supporting, telling you that okay, this check needs to be done in a particular way, and this is the best way to do it. Follow that process. That's the ideal way to do it.

Thank you. Are there any questions that anyone has, please? Since there are no questions, let me hand the proceedings back to the president to conclude the session.

Sure. Thank you very much, being a very good moderator. I only want to say that everyone has beautifully covered how the background verification have evolved. He has tried the evolution process of background. He has also emphasized certain points — not necessarily that you should be open to diversity, but this is one of the example he has given: that a person, like, is probably introvert and is not open to diversity, but our organization may like to have a person who is diverse. So there are certain points which he has emphasized. Then the trust point has been emphasized by Dr John — what is the trust level of that person. And also, by and large, it depends: the organization which wants verification gives certain inputs, and on the basis of that, the right advice has to come. So that all is very not so easy a process as people think. The background verification is really a very technical and very thorough job to be done.

And it is important to do background verification for your own organization, because good background verification will also provide you insight not only to the criminal history of the person, not only to the bankruptcy history of the person, not only to some civil litigation issue of that person, but many more things. For that, the person who is getting the record done, or is appointed by us, together, he has to go into all the riches. Therefore, in the Indian context, probably it should be also including the social background also, the political ends of some occurs, the criminal background also. So in this context, a lot of variation from place to place. And then Dr John has pointed out location. Yes, location is very important, because if that person has certain inclination of mind towards an extreme organization, extreme leftist organization, and your organization is also located in a place which is already dominated by certain leftists, it's very difficult for us to get that type of blood.

In any case, any good background verification should not be considered as an additional cost to the company. The company which is getting verification should not consider the background verification an additional cost. It is really very important for the safe environment, for safe cultural environment and safety of the organization. In the verification, he has to ensure that a person really gels into the new organization. But still, there may be problems. That's not that they can give you anything foolproof, because when it comes into particular environment, you may not — so you cannot be very sure. Yet it's very important, and I again and again have been emphasizing that the psychological mindset of the person is very important to be gone into, and I think most of things you'll come to know from the psychological background, and also to some extent if you do conduct psychometric. It is considered very fashionable to say a psychometric test, but it is a very difficult process to undertake psychometric tests — not so easy a process. It is quite a complicated process, and it involves money, because you have to get specialists who are in psychometry. So on these points taken into consideration, I think the most important thing is that we should not be stingy as a payment for background verification.

With these words, I thank both the speakers and the moderator and other delegates, and the persons who are always with us, like Deepak Mehta and Harjit, for having again come to us in this particular session. I was expecting that Harjit will be able to give something about it.

Actually, after you close, I cannot be speaking afterwards, because I saw your comments in writing. You said that — I saw that, that is right — because I have investigated quite a lot of people whose verifications were not done properly, or they could not do, because — in fact, a lot of them, on the degrees: people get every job they apply, they have a new fake degree. So a lot of those cases. Just if I would add just one sentence: you know, before this verification, one is pre-recruitment verification; afterwards — they covered both very well — but pre-recruitment, many times people send a written questionnaire, and nobody wants to commit in writing. You know, when you commit in writing, you think that it can come back. So I always say that, you know, if you really want, give a call to the person, and then the person can speak more. I'm talking of physical verification, not that psychometric and other. Then their feedback is different. But when you send a written questionnaire, the feedback is different, right? Very sensitive jobs we have to do, like every annual disclosure, financial disclosure, any property — then we get external company to verify. So I think John covered that very well, so I did not — I wanted to speak on that, but since John covered, so I did not go to. Thank you, sir. That's all. I think they've covered all what I wanted to say. You have added it. Thank you very much.

It is more important than the subject as such, but what I was thinking that probably we were expecting you to question something, but you have only added to that. That is also very, very valuable for us. Thank you very much for adding, because everywhere there are certain difficulties. We set up Interpol long back, but now Interpol — it has become just a post box. I was there for four years, sir. Everything loses the elevation with the passage of time. When we started, all the countries were coordinating, and they wanted this sort of organization. Today this is also a post box. It cannot direct anyone, it cannot issue one; it just passes on this information.

I'm thankful to all of you for being with us this evening. Our next session is on turmoil in Pakistan and its implication on India, impact on India. The panelists are two generals, and of course I am there, and the coordinator will be there. So this is turmoil in Pakistan and its impact on India. It is going to be a panel discussion, and I'm sure this discussion will be liked by many people. In fact, this is going to be a very important panel discussion, and I look forward to the delegates to join us. The dates will be communicated when we send them the emails, etc., and mailer, etc. Thank you very much for the session, and with these words, I conclude the session with my very, very hearty thanks to everyone who has come here. Thank you very much indeed.

So once — I just like to add one thing. General Per Nait was the Northern Army Commander, and General Katoj was the chairman of CLAWS, that is Centre for Land and Air Warfare Studies. So their knowledge on Pakistan is intense and almost overwhelmingly good, and their predictions and their advice is sought by not only the Indian government but governments overseas also. You can imagine the level of discussion. We are proud that always we have got very good speakers, and we are proud of this, and we'll try to carry on this tradition to the extent possible, because again I say it's an evolutionary process, but you don't know how far we are able to meet the need of the times, times to come. Thank you very much again. Thank you so much. Thank you.