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TrustID help support compliance for ADVANCE

Illustration showing a man next to a passport scanner

Lots of businesses talk about compliance but at ADVANCE, a leading provider of employment, contractor and freelancer solutions, compliance is the core of everything they do, including during the on-boarding of over 40,000 contractors and freelancers. 

The organisation regularly run internal quality audits to ensure their ongoing compliance and in 2017, as part of one such audit, the ADVANCE team identified their pre-employment check process as an area in which they could potentially save time and introduce a more efficient reliable and compliant process.

Anna Sills, Director at ADVANCE explains: “Lots of businesses talk about compliance but for ADVANCE, it’s not just a ‘buzz-word’. We take compliance 100% seriously and pride ourselves on exemplary standards – whether we’re working with an agency or directly with an employee or contractor. Those compliance standards extend to every area of our business, from the very moment we engage with a new agency or worker”

Before introducing the TrustID online validation checks, like many businesses, ADVANCE had a manual Right to Work process, meaning that the compliance team at ADVANCE were manually inspecting identity documents, comparing them to example images online and following published Home Office guidance. The compliance team were experienced and had built up a lot of knowledge around identity documents, so they were good at spotting when things ‘didn’t look right’. However, as Anna explains “it wasn’t efficient and didn’t provide the belt and braces approach we were looking for.”

Illustration showing a man having a biometric scan

Today, ADVANCE rely on TrustID online validation checks for everyone, regardless of whether they’re being employed directly or through an agency. And even though they are only legally responsible for employees, offering this validation service to recruitment agencies that they work with means that they can benefit from additional protection too.

“We run every single person through the validation service regardless of whether they are an employee or self-employed” says Anna. “This is to ensure we have a belt and braces approach and provide both ADVANCE and our partner agencies with this level of compliance right across the supply chain. We really like being able to offer this additional service to our partners, so they can benefit from the protection that we’re getting.”

Before any employee or contractor is taken onto their payroll, the compliance team upload a copy of the relevant documents for Right to Work to the secure online validation service and within minutes, they receive a report assessing its authenticity. If ever an applicant’s documents are suspicious or fail the validation check, ADVANCE can rely on advice from the TrustID helpdesk team. Without a successful TrustID online validation check, no-one can be paid by the ADVANCE team which helps to ensure that no-one can ‘slip through the net’.

The TrustID online validation service has helped ADVANCE to identify several suspicious and fraudulent documents. And as a result, they have been able to confidently stop the candidate registration or get in touch with their recruitment agency partners to prevent the candidate from working.

“We put these identity checks in place to protect ourselves. It’s a great value-add for our agency partners too and it gives them huge comfort that they’re working in partnership with a supplier who takes compliance so seriously.”

Read the case study 

Read the full story about how ADVANCE use TrustID identity checks here.