With three in four businesses reporting skills shortages and a record 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK, it’s clear that the ongoing war for talent is a major challenge for many organizations. With so many firms across a variety of sectors impacted, recruitment teams need to look further afield to fill their positions. Encouragingly, international hiring is on the radar of the majority, with our recent webinar, Navigating International Talent, finding that most attendees (79%) were planning to expand their hiring into more countries in the near future.
As many talent acquisition leaders will know, keeping up with the ever-evolving pace of international, national and local employment regulation and compliance changes can be complicated and sometimes even intimidating. However, it’s critical that employers take the time to understand country-specific legal requirements and what they mean for their business. Here are some key regulations to be aware of.
International Differences: Europe
Across the globe, there are specific legal obligations that must all be adhered to. However, lesser known is that in-region screening solutions are also varied across countries. A good example of this is the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) within Europe, which leave it up to individual countries to determine who can process criminal conviction data. Some countries are significantly more stringent than others — Spain being one of these.
Under Spanish law, employers need a legal requirement — not legitimate interest — to process a criminal conviction. This nuance in criminal screening requirements across Europe recently came to the foreground when the first legal case and fine for undertaking illegal criminal checks was issued this year. As a result of this breach, a €2M fine was handed out to a major global retailer for processing the criminal convictions of its delivery drivers in Spain.
Comparatively, certain countries place all responsibility on the employer to determine whether this check should be conducted. For example, in Germany, employers must determine if personal integrity is indispensable to the specific role before they can then conduct a criminal record check.
Meanwhile, in the UK, there are many legal bases for employers to process employees’ criminal convictions. For example, employers may seek to help prevent or detect unlawful acts, help protect the public against dishonesty and help prevent fraud. The UK government has made it relatively simple to determine which criminal check you can give your staff, and a simple survey is even available to help firms know which check is appropriate.
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Mitigating International Hiring Risks
Here’s what hiring teams can do to help minimize risks and prevent your firm from incurring any unexpected fines:
Consult work councils and trade unions. When setting up a global screening program, consulting with local work councils and trade unions can also be valuable. Going back to the Spanish GDPR fine mentioned earlier, it was in fact a work council that brought the issue to the attention of authorities.
Map your recruiting data. It’s always a good idea to conduct regular companywide data audits. This process will show what kind of data your organization collects for what reason and where it’s being taken from and stored.
Stay up to date with developments. International hiring protocols are already complex, and it’s likely that this trend will continue, with authorities always outlining new regulations. It’s important to stay on top of changes in data protection rules across any country you’re operating in or expanding to.
Safe and Secure Data Transfers
It should be noted that data transfers will be an inevitable element of global hiring, and ensuring that these are safe and effective will be paramount. You must have robust information security and privacy policies in place to ensure that any risks arising from cross-border transfers are minimized.
While data transfers have become increasingly more complex in nature, particularly within the EU and the UK, utilizing a trusted global screening partner that has met all the required protocols and meets all best-practice standards required by your business will prove to be invaluable for hiring teams.
While there are a variety of cross-border challenges to consider here, the UK’s chronic skills shortages alongside dried-up talent pools mean that international hiring is simply a must for those businesses looking to get ahead.