Why Get A DBS Check For An Employee

It is your duty as business owner to ensure the safety of your customers. However, it can be hard to vouch for your employees, particularly when you don’t have too much information about their past. Should they have a criminal record, it would be best for you to know about it before you assign them tasks that may not suit their profile. Fortunately, you can get a DBS check for your employees or for new applicants to your job openings.

There are a few types of DBS check you can request. Basic checks show only unspent convictions and conditional cautions, if any. Standard checks provide additional information on spent convictions, and final warnings. Enhanced checks also show information from local police, provided that it is considered relevant for the type of job the individual applies to. If needed, you can request enhanced checks, in order to find out whether the individual is on a list of people barred from fulfilling a certain role. If, for instance, a known pedophile applies for a childcare position, you’ll know that they aren’t eligible for this role.

These checks don’t have any expiry date. Nevertheless, you may decide to request a new one, in order to ensure that your employee hasn’t done anything bad since the previous DBS report.

As you can see, this type of background research can save you from a lot of trouble, as it allows you to weed out all applicants that are unfit for a specific role in your organisation. Keep in mind that a basic check may take up to two weeks. Enhanced checks may take even longer. This means you need to factor in the waiting time when you schedule your job interviews with all these applicants. It’s always better to conduct your preliminary research before meeting these people face-to-face.