Anderselite

Technical recruitment business, Anderselite was established in 1984 and specialises in supplying staff to the construction, civil engineering, rail and IT sectors. Operating from six regional offices across the UK, they support 500 clients and deal with over a thousand contractors every week. A key priority for Anderselite is ensuring that their clients and candidates benefit from market-leading levels of service which includes rigorous checks.

The business need

The recruitment team at Anderselite process over a thousand workers each week across their regional offices. The business needed to find a way to make effective identity checks on these workers to support Right to Work compliance; they wanted to ensure that identity document checks were made thoroughly and consistently to protect them and their clients and give them peace of mind.

Simon Trippick, CEO at Anderselite explains: “We were keen to establish a robust method for screening and complying with Right to Work checks; for us, it was not just a question of demonstrating compliance, to avoid fines and to give our customers confidence. But our work with the construction, civil engineering and rail sectors also makes it essential that we’re confident about the identity of the workers we place… there could be serious health and safety and security issues if not.”

The solution

In early 2017, Anderselite started the hunt for ID checking technology that could support applicant on-boarding by their consultants. They chose TrustID Cloud, an online identity checking service which needed no additional technology investment and allowed them to check identity documents from anywhere

Today, the TrustID Cloud service is used across the entire business, both for employee checks and by every recruitment consultant checking applicant IDs. And it gives Anderselite confidence that they can spot a suspicious identity document before a candidate has chance to be placed with a client.

A quick but thorough process

Before introducing TrustID Cloud, recruitment consultants made manual checks for each worker, checking ID documents visually and then copying them for filing. The process took a lot of time and was prone to error. What’s more, with thousands of workers coming to Anderselite every month and an increasing variety of documents from a growing number of countries, it was no easy task to train consultants on what to look for and how to spot a potentially suspicious document.

Today, consultants capture an image of an ID document and upload it to a secure website where comprehensive checks are carried out within a few minutes. The result is then captured, together with an image of the document, time stamped with details of who did the check, and stored electronically against the candidate.

Emma Rapson, Business Excellence Manager at Anderselite, explains “As a business, we wanted to make the whole Right to Work check process easier. We needed to make sure we were consistent, no matter which consultant was making the ID check. And that no-one got through the net because we hadn’t seen the right document, missed something suspicious or because the pressure was on to place a candidate at short-notice so perhaps we hadn’t been as diligent as we needed to be…”

Today, no worker can be taken on without proof of the TrustID check which must be sent to the Anderselite central compliance team before the worker is placed and the consultant can bill for the worker’s placement.

Emma adds “Our compliance team is 100% thorough about the TrustID check – if the report isn’t right or is missing, they just won’t move a candidate forward. And this has made our compliance process absolutely watertight while saving our team a lot of time.”

Up and running quickly

When a new consultant joins the growing team at Anderselite, they are given access to the TrustID Cloud service and a ‘Quick Start’ guide explaining the checking process and compliance expectations of the business.

Emma explains “We don’t need to spend hours explaining how to make checks to new members of our team – we just ask TrustID to give them access to the Cloud service and they can be up and running straight away. It’s so easy to use that we don’t even need to train new users.”

A competitive advantage

Anderselite have found more than 50 fraudulent ID documents in 12 months thanks to TrustID Cloud.

“I believe many of the fake IDs that we’ve seen would have been missed by the naked eye.” Simon explains “And if we take the maximum fine of £20,000 per illegal worker, those50 fraudulent candidates could have cost us and our clients £1 million.”

The business advertises enhanced ID checks on their website and when speaking to new and existing clients which helps them to differentiate their services. Their thorough approach to compliance has been commended by many of their customers who appreciate the additional peace of mind that it brings.

Conclusion

The TrustID Cloud service has helped the Anderselite team to introduce an easy to use ID checking process which ensures that they are only placing workers who present valid ID and have the Right to Work in the UK. The online checking process helps recruitment consultants to on-board workers more efficiently and quickly and has created a single, robust compliance process within the business.

The Anderselite team can also confidently demonstrate compliance with employment checks and have protected their business from the risk of significant financial penalties and reputational damage for themselves and for their clients.