Checkr Year in Review: 2023

That’s a wrap on 2023! Checkr continues to help our customers hire great people with an experience that’s fast, smooth, and safe. This past year we invested in product enhancements, added new screenings, improved the candidate experience, all while working towards our mission of building a fairer future.

This year, we are proud to be again named to the Forbes Cloud 100, the definitive ranking of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world. We were also recognized on the list of Y Combinator Top Companies and D.A. Davidson’s The Herd 2023 of Top 100 Private Software Companies.

2023 Forbes Cloud 100 Honoree

These awards wouldn’t be possible without all of our customers and partners. Thank you for your continued support and collaboration as we build the future of work together. Let’s celebrate a few accomplishments from the past year!

Checkr customers of all sizes enhanced the efficiency of their hiring processes, reduced candidate drop off, and scaled their teams quickly. Below are a few customer highlights from 2023:

Lyft is an on-demand rideshare service that provides transportation for riders all around the United States and Canada. They run hundreds of thousands of background checks each year. With such a large number of screenings and a small team, they rely on Checkr Assess to look at each record and score it against the standards they give to Checkr to reduce time spent on adjudication while improving fairness.

The Davis Companies is a recognized leader in the staffing industry, partnering with top employers both locally and nationally for contract, contract-to-hire, and direct talent placement. Through Checkr’s integration with Bullhorn OTE, candidates were able to start and finish their onboarding process all in one place. This integration turned what used to be a several hour process for the candidate into something that takes less than 30 minutes from start to finish. The integration also helps give internal teams an easier way to review reports in one place.

Office Libations is a corporate refreshment service that provides beverages and snacks to companies of all sizes in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of their most common roles is delivery drivers, which requires motor vehicle records checks. Since switching to Checkr, they’ve seen a 90% reduction in average turnaround time–from 2 weeks to 1 day–for MVR and criminal background checks. As a result, they are now able to keep insurance costs down, which in turn helps lower operating costs.

Speaking of happy customers, we’re proud to report after the most recent customer survey that Checkr’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) is 55, which is well above the industry average. NPS is considered the gold standard for customer experience metrics and is a valuable tool for us in gathering feedback to benchmark and improve your company’s performance.

We also monitor customer satisfaction through other channels, like third-party review site G2. Checkr was awarded G2’s “Leader” status for the fourth year in a row and garnered new recognition in several key areas this year. 

Customers were able to leverage Checkr’s many offerings to grow their teams while saving time. Meanwhile, our teams worked tirelessly to introduce new features and product improvements for a best-in-class experience for customers and candidates alike.

The employers and organizations who use Checkr every day are the most valuable source of feedback. Based on customer advisory boards, product feedback sessions, and survey responses, we made many impactful product enhancements in the last year, including:

Assess Standard is our new adjudication product that helps your team work smarter and faster. If you're struggling to adjudicate reports in a timely fashion, Assess can help. By providing a reduction of manual reviews up to 70%, you'll see quicker turnaround times and meaningful cost savings. With 13 compliance-friendly guidelines included, you can reduce bias up to 90%.

Form I-9 verifies that your W-2 employees are legally authorized to work in the US which is an essential step of the onboarding process for employers. Checkr’s I-9 verification helps you remove redundant workstreams, improve accuracy and compliance, and set the stage for a positive onboarding experience with your employees—right from the Checkr Dashboard.

Checkr Onboard is a solution for HR and Ops teams to onboard workers. With Checkr Onboard, your team has access to super simple set-up, a customizable UX, and easy personalization for particular roles and responsibilities across your organization. 

Onsite drug testing saves valuable time and money by moving your drug screenings in-house. Our new onsite (oral fluid) drug testing gives you greater control over the drug screening process and you no longer have to rely on varying clinic availability and lab processing times.

Quick employment verification is a new, faster way to verify candidates’ employment history in the US. When candidates opt to directly log into their payroll provider within their background check application, Checkr can verify their employment in minutes.

New add-ons make building packages easier than ever. Several products are now available to customize any package: drug testing, credit checks, professional license verification, occupational health assessments, and international searches.

We also made enhancements to the Dashboard to improve workflows, including streamlined ordering with four simple steps, the option to archive reports for easy organization, bulk invitations to help scale your business without extra work, and a new adverse action pause feature for expanded flexibility when reviewing candidate information. 

Candidate experience is also a key metric for us, as we seek to build trust during the background check process while helping employers increase conversion. This year we continued to make investments in candidate education and satisfaction, including:

Refreshed candidate communications include redesigned email and SMS invitations to help improve candidate conversion. These updates include clearer, friendlier communications and the option to get texts about their background checks.

Updated workflows within the background check application to provide candidates with more context on what to expect, such as the type of information and documents they’ll need to provide and average turnaround time. Candidates can also now review and edit the information they entered in their background check application to check for accuracy before submitting.

Checkr Chatbot can now securely provide your candidates with information specific to their background check reports. Candidates can check their report statuses, download copies of their reports, check for exceptions, and more.

We established Checkr.org in 2021 to actualize our mission by connecting people and businesses through fair chance hiring initiatives. This philanthropic group is funded through our involvement with the Pledge 1% movement, devoting 1% of the company’s total equity, time, profit, and product to our mission of enabling fair chances. We are proud to be named the 2023 Pledge 1% Impact Award Winner for advancing fairer hiring practices that support justice-impacted people in their pursuit of work. 

In 2023, the Checkr.org team continued our dedication to build a fairer future with several exciting new initiatives:

Our first cohort of customers attended the kickoff for our Fair Chance Accelerator program. Each company enrolled in a complimentary 12-week program to guide them on setting up a Fair Chance hiring program with a goal of attaining their first fair chance hire by the end of the year.

We launched our Fair Chance Apprenticeship pilot program in our San Francisco office with nine  apprentices employed at Checkr. This 12-month earn and learn opportunity provides on the job training combined with formal learning programs to create career pathways for those with an arrest or conviction history. 

Checkr employees in the Fair Chance Apprenticeship pilot program

Our Fair Chance Dashboard is a new tool within the Checkr platform to help employers see first-hand how your company’s fair chance hiring measures up to EEOC guidelines. The dashboard’s helpful tips, resources, and social proof gives you the actionable insights needed to bring fair chance hiring to your organization and grow your candidate pool.

Employees are also frequently involved in ways to further our mission. So far this year, Checkr employees have volunteered over 6,150 hours, thanks in part to our new Impact Ambassadors. These Checkr employees help us scale our impact by creating nonprofit partnerships and volunteer opportunities in their region for all employees to join. Some of these volunteer opportunities included Pure 1 in San Francisco, The Fortune Society in New York, and iDignity in Orlando. 

We’re looking forward to another year of product innovation, including identity verification, additional post-hire rechecks, additional international screening options, industry-specific packages like DOT and healthcare, and more. 

Also new for 2024 is Checkr Academy, our free customer learning platform, to help you get the most out of Checkr. Short videos, courses, and simulations from our team of experts walk you through configuring your account, ordering and reviewing reports, navigating compliance, and more.  

Our focus is always to delight our customers by meeting their evolving needs, and this next year we will continue expanding our partner ecosystem and creating tools for seamless HR processes like onboarding and payroll. The future is bright and we look forward to continuing working alongside you!

Nothing in Checkr’s Blog should be construed as legal advice, guidance, or counsel. Companies should consult their own legal counsel about their compliance responsibilities under the FCRA and applicable state and local laws. Checkr expressly disclaims any warranties or responsibility or damages associated with or arising out of information provided.