‘Background check is essential in corporate governance’

Mr Kola Olugbodi, Managing Director, Background Check International, spoke on the importance of background check and why it should be embraced by corporate organisations.

What is the relevance of background check to Corporate Organisations?
The relevance has to be determined in line with what organisations stand to gain when they adopt background check or what they lose when they don’t adopt it.

It is believed that 70 per cent of organisational loss is always due to employees sharp practices. Organisations also recruit based on brilliance without running checks on their prospective employees. Some are employed as wolfs in sheep clothing. They defraud and misbehave to customers. Some even get to the extreme case of violence with co-employees. This is negligent hiring. If employees assaulted sue the affected organisations, pay damages. All these tarnish the image of such organisations.

Background Check has remained ever relevant and still relevant to organisations. Many of the organisations now have embraced background check but others still believe no employee can do any harm.

The need to conduct background check is becoming non-negotiable for both regular and other staff. The recent story that went viral about how a driver kidnapped three staff of a bank exposed the absence of due diligence on the staff.

The driver background check suffers such fate. He organised the kidnap based on the information he had about them.
Organisations that refused to embrace background check suffer such fate.

How can background check assist in corporate governance? 
One of the biggest problems we have as a country is leadership. Leadership problem is an offshoot of the fact that most of our political leaders are not who they really claim to be. Many make false claims about their personality.

When they get on the governance seat, they do things in the wrong way.

One of the things that will bring sanity to our political terrain in Nigeria is when people call for diligence on those seeking elective offices. It is a growth thing and it will get to a stage the populace will demand due diligence on political leaders.

The process of demanding verification on political leaders is not yet in Nigeria unlike what obtains overseas but gradually, we are getting there.

What is the future of background check in Nigeria?
The future of background check is based on the fact that there is no aspect of endeavour that human beings are not involved. In all spheres, people are involved even with the use of IT.

The future of background check is that you don’t relate with human beings on face value again. The future of background check is to know the true identity of people. Background check gives peace of mind, as it is relevant to every facet of the society.

It is discovered that in every gamut of corporate world, background check is inevitable. Background check reveals the true identity of people. It is now left to the populace to decide on the way forward. It is whether someone with nefarious past is given authority to occupy the seat of governance or not.