Employment References
As an employer when recruiting a new employee, employment references from former employers can be an essential part of the recruitment process. The main purpose for obtaining employment references is to gain information about a candidate's employment history and the credibility of the CV and or application supplied. We have found that more and more employers are not issuing employment references due to the time factors involved and or the legal implications.
Employers do not have a common law duty to provide employment references for serving or past employees unless there is an express or implied term in the employment contract but refusal to give a reference can have an adverse effect on the employee. A leading judge Lord Sloan has indicated that although there may be no legal obligation to provide a reference there is a moral obligation to do so. (Spring v Guardian Assurance plc and others. 1994 ICR 596 HL)
To avoid being ignored or denied a reply for an employment reference you may want to consider outsourcing this function. Connect HR& Recruitment Ltd obtain employment references on your behalf, and you are only charged for the employment references that we actually receive. More and more organisations are choosing to outsource employment references to a third party to enable them to concentrate on other daily tasks which are not so time consuming.
A well written employment reference request with questions that are based on factual information and not subjective information has a far higher chance of a reply. A process of e-mail, post and telephone reference requests takes time but does achieve a higher response rate. The key points to receiving employment references are:
- Supply a document for completion, do not rely on the referee having to start from scratch
- Keep the document simple and the questions factual
- Ensure it is not too time consuming to complete
- Make it easy for the referee to reply, e-mail or pre-paid envelopes where applicable
Connect HR & Recruitment Ltd can design, obtain and manage your employment references with our simple electronic system which has increased some organisations success of achieving employment references by 38%. Contact us for more details.
