15 million United States citizens experience identity theft every year. This is quite a worrying statistic that should automatically show the importance of employee identification.
While you probably wouldn’t apply for a job saying you are someone you aren’t, there are many people that would. As an employer, you can’t assume anything, especially about your potential employees.
It’s essential to conduct employee identity verification, and there are multiple ways it can be done. It doesn’t matter which method you choose, it just matters that you do it correctly.
Read our guide below to learn more.
What Is the Purpose of Employee Identification?
When going through the interview process, identity theft may not be at the forefront of your mind. Yet, with the advancement of technology, it is quite easy to steal someone’s identity, and you don’t want to hire someone that is using an inactive or false social security number.
Even if you think you found the most ideal candidate that has flawlessly passed every interview, it is your duty as the employer to verify that they are who they say they are.
Hiring someone who has a stolen identity can get you into legal trouble too, and you’ll waste time putting work into someone that will not be able to stay at your company.
This has become more of an issue as remote work has risen in popularity. There are so many positives to remote work, but one of the negatives is allowing more room to use a false identity.
Luckily, many companies have helped solve this issue by creating more ways to verify employee identities. Learn more here about these new processes.
Duty to Verify
As the employer, it is your responsibility to ensure that you correctly verify your employee’s identity upon the start of their employment. This means you are in charge of making sure your employee provides original documents that are authentic and valid.
So, they cannot provide a copy of their Social Security card or a copy of their passport. They must provide the original, or you cannot accept it.
Then, it is up to you to look over the documents in detail, ensuring they belong to the person that you hired. First, look at the expiration date, making sure it hasn’t yet passed.
If they provide a passport, compare the pictures to see if it is the same person. Look at other describing features, too, such as age, height, and nationality.
You will need to complete Form I-9 and have them sign the document in front of you. This will allow you to confirm that their signature matches up.
Retention Obligation
You must keep completed I-9 forms for each of your employees while they are still employed by you. If you do not, and you get audited, there will be consequences, and you will have to prove that you did conduct employee identity verification when they were first hired.
Once employees are no longer on your payroll, you can decide how long you want to hold on to the forms.
Running an Identity Check
One of the more sure-fire ways to know your employees are who they say there are is by running an identity check. You can hire a background screening company to do this for you.
You have a few different options with this. You can run a Social Security Number trace, which checks to see who the number belongs to and if there are other people also using it.
There is also the option to conduct a criminal background check and a credit history check, which can double-ensure the employee’s identification, but this is not entirely necessary and can create unnecessary costs.
Alternative Ways to Verify Identity
If you’d rather not go the route of conducting identify trace tests, there are other methods you can use. If you run a business with remote workers, you may find that traditional methods such as checking an employee’s signature in person just aren’t feasible.
Instead, you may need to get a little creative and try something new.
Ask Follow-up Questions
Whenever you have encounters with new or potential employees, keep records of how they respond. Then, ask follow-up questions later on that refer back to very specific conversations.
If you want to make it even more obvious for yourself, insert odd or nonsensical phrases into the emails that you send or interview questions or assessments that you make. Change this for every employee you talk to.
Later on, if you mention one of these odd phrases, and they don’t remember it, there’s a good chance they aren’t the same person that you were talking to at the beginning of the process.
For example, if you are writing an email to an employee and randomly say “the sun shines brighter than any moon,” they are sure to recall that later on, if they are who they say they are.
Look at Assessments
When designing your employee assessments, don’t be afraid to get creative. It’s wise to have a method behind your design so you can include elements that can catch identity theft.
For example, many companies are now incorporating some type of video element into their assessments. They ask a few questions and see how employees answer. If this looks super staged or odd, you may not choose to move further in the process with these employees.
After this stage, you may decide to create a true assessment that they have to take. This will depend on the skills you’re looking for, but make sure to include some open-ended questions.
If they get past this part, you’ll want to conduct a one-on-one interview with them. Ask them detailed questions about their assessment, something that only the person taking it would be able to answer.
If they fumble around or clearly have no idea what you’re talking about, they probably didn’t take the test themselves.
Use Video Interviews to Check IDs
Remotely checking someone’s photo ID is easier than you may think. You don’t have to be in person together to see if someone’s picture matches up.
The best way to do this is during a video interview with no notice ahead of time. This will allow you to see how the person reacts, which is a good gauge by itself as to whether someone is who they are they are.
If they start getting flustered, that could be a red flag. If they can quickly provide their ID or have a good reason not to, you’ll get a better idea of who this person is, and if you can trust them.
Ask Verification Questions
Instead of doing SSN trace checks, you can ask verification questions. This will require using a verification question service.
Here, the employees would log on and answer three to five questions about themselves that only they would know. This is similar to what financial institutions use.
This offers an added layer of protection, especially for remote workers, and you can refer back to this if you have any questions about an employee’s identity in the future.
Use E-signatures
Using e-signatures is another helpful hack for employers with remote employees. While you can’t watch them sign in person, you can require that they send their e-signature with their resume, or after an initial interview.
There are many different free services that offer this, so you don’t have to worry about covering the cost.
Then, during a video interview, you can ask them to send you their e-signature again on the spot.
Stay Consistent
However you design your employee identification process, it’s essential that you keep it consistent with each employee you hire. If you are going to screen one employee, then you must screen them all.
This prevents anything from falling through the cracks, and it ensures that you are treating each employee fairly and equally.
Don’t Downplay the Importance of Employee Identification
As a business owner, you have tons of different things to do that are all your top priorities. Employee identification has to be one of them, and you can never let the process falter.
It’s about keeping your business safe and out of legal trouble, so do what you have to do to make it work for you. Not all businesses work the same way, so the processes will vary.
Use this guide, and as long as you are detail-oriented and stay on top of it, you should be good to go.
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