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ACC Pre- Employment Checks - the process
Employers have had the ability to have ACC pre-employment checks done on potential candidates for a number of years. The process was very paper based, took weeks to complete and relied very much on the employee delivering the information.
For most employers, the process was too long, and they had already hired the employee by the time they got the report back.
Fast forward to now, and the process is still very much reliant on the employee, however the entire process can be completed in less than 24 hours – and that’s still a generous amount of time.
What changed? ACC went online with it.
What happens now? The employee calls 0800 101 996 and gives over 5 pieces of information – name, address, phone, date of birth and IRD number (most of these are for identification only). The ACC staff will then set up a MyACC for the employee and talk them through how to use it.
The employee then goes to the claims tab, scrolls to the bottom and clicks on the pre-employment link. The link opens a new page where the employee puts in the email address of the prospective employer and clicks submit. Job done – the employer gets a report generally within a few hours.
It’s even easier if the employee already has their own My ACC – there’s no limit to the number of reports that can be sent to employers this way.
What if the employee can’t get to their MyACC for some reason? No data, computer illiterate etc?
You’ve basically got three options – 1. Set up a computer for them to use and help them through the process, 2. contact an ACC relationship Manager and see if they can get you the information (although you need a signed authority form and to have exhausted every other option for this) or 3. Take the risk and hire the employee – we definitely don’t endorse this option as we see too many employers inheriting issues that they have no control over.
Whatever you choose to do – we recommend all employees are subject to a pre-employment check. Although you can’t use the result to not hire them, you can use the results to assess the risk of hiring them.
