When it comes to identity validation checks for Right to Work, a ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work. The way you check identity documents will depend on your process, risk profile, the volume of checks you need, your budget and where you make checks, among other things.
Some organisations will choose to manual check documents but increasingly, many organisations are turning to validation services to help them ensure compliance and protect their business. In this blog, we talk to one of those businesses, Arc Hospitality, who first introduced ID validation software in 2017. We explore how our range of validation services helps them to maintain compliance across their business and how they’ve been able to vary the technology they use as their requirements have evolved.
Who are Arc?
Arc are one of the UK’s leading event staff specialists providing top-class people to prestigious sports venues, caterers, hotels and tourist attractions across the UK. With seven offices nationwide, Arc on-board hundreds of new recruits and place staff at various venues each month. They are recruiting and working with candidates from all over the world and applicants are assessed and trained to the highest standard.
Why did they introduce technology?
The recruitment team at Arc were often shown time-limited Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) which they visually inspected and logged details in a spreadsheet. It was this inefficient and unreliable process that led Arc to look for a more straightforward way to keep on top of candidate compliance
Maddie Milton, Staff Welfare and Compliance Officer at ARC, told us “finding and compiling information on candidate BRPs, capturing their expiry dates, and ensuring that we didn’t miss follow-up checks was a very time-consuming process. So, our search started originally for a system that could help us reduce our admin.”
What do they use?
In 2017, ARC introduced mobile validation and the following year, ARC introduced office-based ID Scanners for each of their 7 main offices. The technology means that they no longer needed to make manual checks and scan IDs with a printer or photocopier. It’s also easy for them to track any expiry dates on visas and BRPs and log the date of the follow-up check, if necessary.
How does it help?
ARC soon realised that ID scanners greatly reduce administration. “Once we saw the ID scanners in action, we realised how good they could be in supporting our whole enrolment process and saving us time in lots of ways” explains Maddie. “The scan results are automatically saved in our systems, meaning we don’t have to photocopy documents. And the scanners are linked to a centralised system which helps us find information about candidate checks really quickly, wherever and whenever the check was done.”
The scanning technology also means Arc can guarantee a watertight compliance process. Once a new applicant has passed an initial telephone interview, they are invited to an assessment session, usually held in one of Arc’s offices. No candidate can start the assessment session without first producing the correct Right to Work documentation and passing the TrustID validation check. “This clear process really helps us with compliance,” says Maddie, “It just helps us to ensure no-one is missed!”
What about remote recruitment?
Most recently, earlier this year, ARC introduced the TrustID online identity validation service to help with remote recruitment and add greater flexibility to their recruitment process. This pay-per-scan service allows the team to capture a document image from anywhere. They upload it to a secure validation portal and, within minutes, receive an assessment on the document’s authenticity.
“Sometimes, we run ‘pop-up’ assessment days, or two onboarding teams need to make checks at the same time, so the online checking service has been really useful” explains Maddie “It’s really easy to use and it gives us just a bit more flexibility.”
If you’re thinking about introducing technology to help with your ID checks, the government have produced a guide to Identification Document Validation Technology which you might find useful – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/identity-document-validation-technology/identification-document-validation-technology
