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Employment references - what value are they?

Jacqueline Burnett

HI,

We issue approx 300 new contracts a month and generally request 2 references per new hire.  However, the response rate is only 19%, many references are factual only stating only the dates of employment.  6% of the 19% that responded were poor references. We have a 6 month probationary period where poor performers / attitude issues can be weeded out.

When considering how we could automate the reference process, we began to question the value of obtainng references versus the administrative chore it entails.  As I understand it, there is no legal reason in our business why we would have to obtain employment references. 

Interested to hear your views please.  Sounds couter intuitive but ..

Do you think references are necessary / provide valuable information?

Would you conisder not requesting references at all?

Is the administrative element justified when considering the value of the information gleaned?

Parents
  • Working in a school environment it's a necessity, but having gone through the safer recruitment training it's quite eye-opening about how many people are prepared to lie about their experience and qualifications if they are trying to cover up something they don't want you to know. If you don't check, you rely on everything you are told being true.

    In many roles, I can see that's relatively low risk - in that you can weed out anyone who can't do the job in practice in their first weeks/months. The flip side is that anyone who is lying to get employed is demonstrating at dishonesty at the outset, and that's something that most companies would take seriously.

    So you may have, for example, an excellent worker who is proactive, positive and willing to work additional hours, and their manager is delighted - but was dismissed for suspected theft from their last place of work.

    In terms of getting results from references, I'd strongly suggest emailing the referee and then calling them to take a telephone reference. Most people will take a few minutes to answer a few questions, but will put off filling in a form for ages. [And call the main number for the organisation, and ask to be put through to the 'Head of Widgets' rather than calling a mobile number or direct dial.]
  • in reply to Nina Waters
    I don't like telephone references mainly because I've seen it abused at first hand, on one occasion where someone (in HR) gave an off the cuff reference via telephone which was quite bad, the reality was they didn't know the person and didn't even look at their personnel file, nothing more than a power trip to massage their ego!
  • in reply to Paul
    Another good reason for managers being left to manage and HR not taking on what is not their responsibility to deal with.
  • in reply to Paul
    Agree that's very worrying - but frankly bad practice in HR can't be a good reason not to have systems in place. So many of the processes that we're responsible for could be damaging in the hands of someone like that, but it doesn't mean that the system itself is bad. Just that he or she should be investigated!
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  • in reply to Paul
    Agree that's very worrying - but frankly bad practice in HR can't be a good reason not to have systems in place. So many of the processes that we're responsible for could be damaging in the hands of someone like that, but it doesn't mean that the system itself is bad. Just that he or she should be investigated!
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