First Contact HR realizes that every organization has to rely on vendors to operate more efficiently, outsourcing non-essential functions to providers that are experts in their given fields. When forming a new business relationship, significant time and effort is often exerted on reviewing prices, products and services offered by the vendor with little to no time spent on other crucial factors, such as verifying the vendor’s past and current performance record, industry reputation, criminal records and financial standing. In today’s fast-paced, high-risk business climate, small mistakes can have huge consequences, resulting in a tarnished reputation due to fraud, poor work quality or time delays, costly business conflicts or dysfunctional operations.

First Contact HR can help you screen current or potential vendors by conducting a detailed screening that might encompass the vendor’s employees, its principals or owners, and the business entities. What better way to safely and economically protect your organization’s revenues, reputation, or workplace safety profile.

Prior to engaging in a business relationship, it’s crucial that you fully understand the integrity of the people with whom you will be involved. You don’t want to risk association with key vendor representatives who may have red flags in their histories. To assist you with making informed decisions on vendor selection, First Contact HR has customized screening packages to help you fully understand the backgrounds of principals or business owners. These services can identify potential risks, like overstatement of qualifications, adverse publicity, past sanctions or affiliations with disreputable organizations that could negatively affect your own organization’s brand or public image.

If your organization already has an effective background screening program in place for your prospective hires or current employees, why not also screen individuals who may be working on your property or along with your staff, or with your clients? First Contact HR can work with you to implement a screening program for these vendor employees or contracted workers who have access to your facilities and internal data. We can duplicate the screening standards that exist for your current or prospective employees, or create a specialized program to add an extra layer of protection to further safeguard your organization and reputation.

In addition to examining the backgrounds and qualifications of vendor employees and principals, First Contact HR can also provide VendorCheck screening services that encompass the entire entity. This robust vendor vetting program is designed to hold vendors to ethical standards set by your company in helping you better understand whether a vendor can meet its promises and obligations.

First Contact HR takes the time to fully understand your business approach and ethical standards before we begin screening vendors, using this knowledge to build the platform of your customized program. We then define the parameters of the screening process, including which vendors you want to participate, the information you want sought, and the types of checks you want conducted.

In order to become qualified to do business with you, vendors pay a nominal screening fee and must agree in writing to abide by your company's business practices, standards of conduct, and ethical principles. Once they sign the statement, vendors then complete a detailed questionnaire based on your organization's requirements. First Contact HR screens the information provided and collects additional intelligence. When our investigation is complete, you receive a final report that both verifies the questionnaire's accuracy and supplies new information on the vendor about which you may not have known.