Be a better vetter

Do you think that screening and vetting is a pain in the bum? Almost everyone I meet thinks the same, but we all agree that it is something we must do to preserve the integrity of our industry.

There is a huge temptation here to lapse into bad habits and skimp on the screening of staff. It's a chore with a capital C, but you have to keep it up. Always bear in mind that you are sending service and installation people into the property of your customers and you have a moral obligation to protect their property as much as your own.

If your staff fall foul of temptation and help themselves to the goods and chattels of your customer then you’re really in trouble. You have lost a customer for a start, you may end up with an insurance claim and you may end up at the wrong end of a lawsuit.

If it gets into the newspapers you have lost your credibility and your reputation ... so you can’t afford to cut corners here.

Of course you can play the game and search for confirmation of your new employee's past working life. You can telephone round, you can send out letters asking for confirmation, you can write to every man and his dog ... but the real problem is getting people to write back. It's just too much bother, after all why should they care? It’s not their problem.

Quick turnover creates problems

I have heard many conflicting ideas about what we should do, how far we should go and just how much digging are we expected to do to confirm a person’s past working life before we can accept a signed statement from the screened person to "sign them off" so to speak. But at the end of the day it’s all down to covering your back and being able to stand up in a court of law and say "I did as much as I could".

The problem is amplified when an engineer changes jobs on a regular basis. There have been instances where an employee has been screened ten times in as many years and his previous employers are getting downright fed up with it.

I have thought on many occasions that there must be a better way. There should be some way that an employee should be able to transfer his vetting file from one company to the next without falling for all the problems that transferring confidential information brings.

The idea is not a new one. It has been brought out and discussed many times before, but the first snag is that a rogue employee may take the opportunity to "falsify the books" so to speak, which nullifies the whole idea. Then we could fall foul of the data protection people.

They are a bit fussy about who should give what information to whom ... and not without good reason. After a long round of discussion, the idea is once again on the back burner for another few years.

Nevertheless I have thought for a long time that if an engineer turned up for an interview with his vetting file ready and waiting along with proofs of his qualifications and competences that person would make himself readily employable and a good prospect.

In theory it’s simple. Every time you start or leave employment you get a letter from the boss of the employing company to confirm this. At the time of leaving we could add a statement that you have no criminal records and have no CCJs or any other offences against your character.

During that employment you see your boss every year and get yourself an assessment stating your competences and your failings, your time keeping, days off sick and any other relative information like driving offences. You may not like everything that goes on the sheet but it should give a true and accurate report on what kind of employee you are.

Then again, who am I kidding? We all have our own ideas of what is honest and what isn't. There are many employee who wouldn't dream of touching cash or valuables, but would happily borrow a few envelopes, use the company's telephone to ring the bookie or borrow a few screws and bolts for fixing their own shelves.

I know for a fact that a vast number of printers, engineers and car mechanics keep a ready supply of their company’s special hand cleaning soap at home!

Some engineers have been screened ten times in as many years ... and the employers are fed up

These are considered the "perks" of the job. In reality it is theft. At this point "theft" becomes a point of view and if we were all carrying our own vetting files how many of us would resist the urge to "vet" our own files and filter out a few of the less savoury bits before we hand it over to the new boss?

Pie-in-the-sky, Utopia ... call it what you will, but the idea of carrying your own screening file will never happen because we have to take the word of the employee himself. What proof have we got that the employee has not forged every document? We would have to write to the previous employer to check it out and we are back to square one with full screening and letters flying about like confetti.

How about an engineer register?

There is another alternative – the third party. We already have professional screening companies who will do the screening for us – at a price. If you are a busy man and just cannot find the time to waste chasing up references and confirmations of past work then dig in your pocket and pay for the service. It's all tax deductible anyway. There is always the theory that we could take it a stage further and get these people to open a register of engineers. If the screening files were kept up to date (for a small fee) then all we would have to do is apply for a certificate of screening.

A good idea? ... or perhaps a darn good idea that just doesn't work. The data protection people would have a lot to say about those who give out working histories to a third party. Anyway, who pays to keep it up to date, the employer or employee?

At this stage we have got the SIA coming over the horizon holding a wad of trade licences. Perhaps we should have done this years ago. No one gets a licence unless they are squeaky clean. But how far will they go and how much will it cost? We have yet to find out.

There is a third option, but this only relates to people who work for inspected or audited companies.

The idea is very simple. An engineer works for company A and that company does all the required screening on that engineer, and the company has its screening files audited by their recognised inspection or auditing body. In this situation – according to theory – all the next employer has to do is to apply to the previous employer for a "certificate of screening". It almost sounds too easy to be true, and it is.

Screening not foolproof

This idea works only if the same auditing body audits the new employer and the old employer, then there is evidence of continuity in the screening methods. However, even this is not foolproof, an employee could start work with company A and be fully screened. He could then move to company B and company B applies for a certificate of screening.

However, the employee then gets a better offer from a non-recognised company and moves on before the auditor comes around to check on the screening.

There are two points here; the auditor is unable to audit the screening of this individual because he has left before it was completed, and on top of that he has gone to a non recognised company so he is now out of the loop and we have lost track of him. This could go on for years with the individual moving back and forth from recognised to non-recognised companies leaving a trail of gaps in his screening file.

At this point the whole lot is back to square one and the process has to be started again! Was it worth the effort?

Then again, different auditing bodies have differing ideas of what screening is or should be. Schools for example are rightly concerned about paedophiles and their screening of teachers and caretakers leans heavily towards that.

In our industry, as long as they have no records of theft, violence or embezzlement then everything’s hunky dory. To a greater or lesser degree this fact is echoed right down the line. Each trade or body has its own very distinct ideas on what constitutes an acceptable form of screening and these ideas do not always carry over from one to the next. So for now we are back to doing the full screening.

Why not set up an engineers’ register, including details of any courses they had attended?

For my own view I would like to see some form of body that could keep track of the engineers working within our industry.

I would even take it a stage further and set up an engineers’ register and include records of any courses they have attended and any other qualifications and competences they hold.

I would take it even further by setting up some sort of trade organisation they could join to get information of new standards, new legislation and a whole raft of information that is just not available to them at this time – unless they know where to look.

I get at least one phone call a week asking the going rate of pay for an alarm engineer. We don't seem to have an "industry norm".

The engineers are not sure what to ask for and the employers are not sure what to offer. We could certainly use that "font of all knowledge" that a trade body could offer.

Do your screening from scratch

At this time the licencing (screening) competence ball is well and truly in the air. Watching it we have one licencing body (the SIA), two industry inspectorates (and any number of general ones), forty odd police forces, several hundred insurance companies and many a thousand engineers.

No one can say for sure where this ball will land or which way it will bounce. One thing is for certain, there will be far reaching consequences for our industry.

Until then we have no choice – bite the bullet and do the screening from scratch every time.

Mobile phone, mobile audience

"I'm on a train..." how many times have you heard it bellowed down a mobile phone on a crowded train? Mobile phones are a scourge of modern life. They ring at the most inopportune moments. It happened to my wife and I just as we were coming back into the station after a week's holiday. Neither of us had heard a peep out of our mobiles all week.

Now we were stood with a bunch of other people in the vestibule at the end of the carriage just waiting for the train to stop and one rang. We ignored it thinking it was someone else's until a kindly old lady said to my wife "I think its yours my dear, the sound is coming from your handbag".

Panic set in – we had suitcases and bags all picked up ready to disembark. Down went the lot and and my wife dived into her king sized handbag searching for the phone. Needless to say it was at the bottom ... After an interminable amount of digging the phone was found but it came out silent.

"I must have missed the call," she said and all went quiet as she looked for the caller's number. At this point my daughter's voice bellowed out of the phone "Mother, what the bloody hell are you doing".

My wife had inadvertently pressed the loudspeaker button while digging through her handbag and now she had no idea of how to turn it off. Meanwhile my daughter was getting more and more vociferous and losing patience by the second. The "audience" in the carriage thought it hilarious as she pressed button after button trying to silence it.

Mobile phones on trains are usually a bloody nuisance, but every now and again they can provide quite a laugh.