Global background screening services and workforce solutions provider, HireRight, has released its 2023 Global Benchmark Report, which is based on the survey responses of more than 2,000 human resource, risk, and talent acquisition professionals worldwide.
The report analyses responses from these professionals to identify global background screening, talent acquisition and workforce management trends. It provides a regional side-by-side comparison of the global survey responses, benchmarks findings against HireRight’s past years’ survey data, and includes global and regional overviews from HireRight’s business leaders in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), North America, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and India, and Latin America.
Among key UK highlights, the survey found that:
- 68 per cent of UK businesses reported organisational growth in 2022, more than half (51 per cent) are expecting to grow in 2023, and just 9 per cent anticipate a decline in workforce numbers.
- According to 54 per cent of UK respondents, increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the workforce will be among their most significant talent acquisition challenges in 2023. This issue is expected to grow, with two-thirds (66 per cent) anticipating it will be one of their major talent challenges between 2024 and 2026.
- 49 per cent of UK survey respondents cited the creation of an employer brand that attracts talent as a key talent acquisition challenge for 2023.
- For UK businesses that utilise pre-employment background screening as part of their hiring due diligence, the most common checks are employment verifications (94 per cent), criminal record checks (87 per cent) and education credential checks (68 per cent).
- Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of UK respondents said that employment verifications are among the areas they most often found discrepancies in their candidates’ background checks.
- To support talent management, introducing new wellbeing initiatives (45 per cent) and offering additional training and professional development opportunities (39 per cent) were the most widely used retention tactics by UK employers in 2022, and are expected to remain so throughout 2023.
- The vast majority (71 per cent) of survey respondents expected that ‘referrals’ followed by their own corporate website (54 per cent) would remain their most popular and effective recruitment channel in 2023.
“It’s great to see widespread business optimism in the UK, with around half of organisations believing the size of their workforces will grow this year – contrary to what many recent news stories have reported.” said Steve Girdler, global managing director and head of corporate responsibility at HireRight.
“However, it seems that there is still a way to go for many organisations – within the UK, EMEA, and globally – to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. I think we will soon see more employers taking active steps to address representation in their employer brands and mitigating bias in their recruitment processes, as businesses need to do more to attract the best talent from all backgrounds.”