This year we continued our approach of sending out a pre-conference post card to encourage HR Managers attending the SHRM Annual Conference to complete the survey online and over 33% (more than 140) of our response were received this way. The attendees at the conference were very engaging and most rewarding for us it appeared that attendees were more knowledgeable about background screening and interested in the survey. From a results perspective it was business as usual for the ‘Top Challenges’ with timeliness, cost and accuracy of data once again reigning as the top three issues of concern.
Most noteworthy about the question on desired innovations was the increase in the number of respondents that volunteered an innovation. Also while ‘integration with HRIS systems’ was the most frequently mentioned item the clear interest in timely responses was very evident and the dominant message.
Good news for the industry was that of the 378 responses to the question on level of satisfaction 61% were extremely or very satisfied with their current provider. However, despite this positive rating from a retention perspective only 32% of clients responded that they were not planning on changing providers. In other words 2 out 3 clients were either definitely planning or changing or were undecided whether to change. This survey is far too simplistic to decipher the underlying issues associated with the divergent responses on these two questions, however, even so, it does point to something that is happening that may be of concern to the industry.
