The DBS check and how it turned into the most popular way of gathering information on employees

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is a non-departmental public body of the Home Office of the United Kingdom. It enables organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to make safer recruitment decisions by identifying candidates who may be unsuitable for specific work, especially involving children or vulnerable adults. Furthermore, it provides wider access to criminal record information through its disclosure service for England and Wales.

The best part about this information is that it is available online and allows employers to go through it for prospective candidates and the people they have already hired within their company. They can review their DBS certificate whenever they want from their computer and people, on the other hand, can update this information and make changes accordingly, which would be updated post verification.

Although the DBS system was started around 2001 and rarely used since background checks     were not a mandatory requirement but were only handled whenever it seemed like a   requirement, they have become common now, with a large number of people losing their jobs because of the pandemic. With the large number of people losing their jobs and a lot of hires taking place without meeting in person but through video conferencing software, employers needed a little more information to make sure they could trust the people they were getting on their team. The most popular approach to gathering past information about a person was through a DBS check.

The pandemic caused a lot of people across the UK to lose their jobs. People who were working   in positions that could be easily be replaced by software and automation found themselves   facing the brunt of the pandemic. Furthermore, the younger section of society was losing their jobs since they did not have the experience to pivot into something else or to provide any other expertise within the company. Similarly, the oldest section of society could not adapt to the

changes that were taking place and were not sure what to expect from virtual meetings and Zoom calls, so they were pushed out as well.

The UK Government was trying their best to save the situation, and they were doing this through schemes where they were protecting employees by paying their salaries so that companies did not have to bear the load. The furlough scheme was paying 80% of the salaries of the people    with their respective companies paying the difference of 20%. While the schemes were quite beneficial in the initial stages of the pandemic, with companies managing to make their  payments, as time progressed, and the economy and the markets were not getting any better, many people mentioned that companies were not paying the difference. Companies were still letting go of their staff since they could not make payments.

Opening up the economy in the initial stages was not the smartest idea, even though to assist with the economy was not the best idea since a lot of people were affected by the pandemic again.

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