Unblocking Background Checks in On-Demand & Delivery during COVID-19

Author Sean Behr Date May 13 2020

As consumers responded to stay-at-home orders, the need for on-demand delivery services continues to rise.   Downloads of mobile apps for grocery delivery have skyrocketed. In fact, according to Mobile App Daily, “Downloads rose by 216%, 160% and 124% for Instacart, Walmart Grocery and Shipt” between February 15, 2020, and March 15, 2020. Second Measure reported that at the “end of March, meal delivery services saw year-over-year growth of 24 percent, collectively.” On April 23, 2020, Instacart shared that they had already hired 300,000 additional shoppers and were planning to hire another 250,000 to meet the increased demand from their services. 

    With the increased need for more delivery employees, sourcing, recruiting, screening, and onboarding candidates as quickly as possible has become a priority for many on-demand and delivery companies. Each stage of the candidate funnel presents its own challenges but, historically, the screening stage has slowed down many hiring teams. 

     Traditional backgrounds check providers make companies choose between minimizing risk or hiring quickly. Because of consumer demand caused by COVID-19, on-demand and delivery companies do not have the luxury of making this trade-off.  HR and Operations teams need frictionless screening solutions that both meet high safety standards and allow for them to hire quickly, at scale.  In these uncertain times, it is crucial to provide candidates a seamless experience, allowing them to get to work as quickly as possible.

     To address this need, Fountain partnered with Checkr to provide hiring and screening tools to on-demand and delivery service companies. Checkr saw the flaws in the traditional background check process, thus rebuilding it from the ground up —eliminating 98% of the manual processes that traditional background check vendors require. Checkr’s artificial intelligence offers greater speed, accuracy, and compliance on every background report,  which helps delivery and on-demand service companies mitigate risk and maintain compliance. Checkr’s mobile-friendly candidate portal helps keep candidates engaged and informed during the screening process—minimizing candidate drop-off in the hiring funnel. 

    One of the recent challenges of Covid-19 has been the closure of many courtrooms across the country, which can significantly delay background check reports. Checkr responded to this situation quickly and rolled out a background check package tailored specifically to the COVID-19 changes. The COVID-19 Continuity Package allows Checkr customers to unblock 100% of their qualified candidates so they can continue to hire during this crisis. With this package, Checkr is staying up to date in real-time and monitoring a list of courts that are currently open. They will continue to run reports in the counties that are still open, so you have access to the most comprehensive available data. If you’re looking to hire talent during this time, please contact Checkr for more information, and they can get you up and running. 

    Scaling hiring to meet demand in the delivery space right now is challenging, but the background screening stage of the process does not need to be a blocker.  

Roundtable Webinar: Now What? How to Recruit, Re-Engage and Retain Candidates

If you are in the process of hiring at scale or you are forecasting for a major rehiring surge, join Fountain and Checkr on Wednesday, May 27th for a roundtable discussion to learn:  

  • How to attract candidates in a time of uncertainty 
  • How to set realistic job expectations with candidates 
  • How to increase candidate acceptance rate through improving the interview and onboarding process

RSVP today to learn best practices for engaging and retaining your candidates throughout the hiring lifecycle.  If you cannot join the live session, register anyway and we will send you the recording. 

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About the Author

Chief Executive Offier

Sean Behr

Sean Behr is the CEO at Fountain and has served in leadership roles at STRATIM (acquired by KAR), Adap.tv (acquired by AOL), and Shopping.com (acquired by Ebay). Behr also advises, mentors, and invests in entrepreneurs and early-stage companies.