Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) at HireRight Q&A
Find out more about HireRight's ESG policies in this Q&A with members of HireRight's ESG Leadership team.
Environmental, social, and governance—or ESG for short—is a broad umbrella incorporating many important areas that impact how a company is run and operates. It can include—but is not limited to—governance processes and documentation, information security and compliance, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), learning and development, volunteering and philanthropy, and environmentally responsible practices and procurement strategies.
HireRight recently released its latest ESG Report, which includes information about HireRight’s approach to all these areas and more. To give you a few highlights from HireRight’s ESG activities and strategies, we spoke with the following members of HireRight’s ESG Leadership to find out more:
Suzanne Bryant, Director of ESG & Facilities
Steve Girdler, Chief Revenue Officer
Julie Romero, Chief Human Resources Officer
Brian Copple, General Counsel
Gareth Roberts, VP, IT Infrastructure
Environmental
What is HireRight doing to better understand and reduce its environmental impact?
Suzanne: HireRight is committed to a sustainable future and has undertaken a great deal of work this year to create our ESG programme, including recording our baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data. We are now developing our carbon neutral goals to align with the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
We understand that a sustainable supply chain is important to ours and our partners’ businesses and are focusing on our procurement processes to diversify our purchasing and decarbonising our real estate portfolio.
What are some of the responsible practices HireRight has in place to support this?
Suzanne: We are setting targets around renewable energy sources for our offices and ensuring future real estate is contracted in LEEDS or WELL certified buildings, removing single use plastic in our offices, and moving to a 100% recycling plan to cover our computer hardware, furniture, and consumables in the offices.
Our team is constantly reviewing opportunities for greener activities and ensuring we are working with diverse businesses wherever possible.
Social
What steps is HireRight actively taking to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within the company?
Steve: At HireRight, we strive to be a leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and an employer of choice within our industry and beyond.
We are committed to a multi-year DEI strategic plan that increases our diversity in senior-level roles, provides more development opportunities for team members in underrepresented groups, creates space for crucial conversations and grows communities through our employee affinity groups—which grew from three to six last year.
One DEI initiative we are currently working on is making changes to our Applicant Center—the platform used by job candidates to provide the information required to conduct their background check for a more inclusive candidate experience, where possible.
How is HireRight supporting the professional and personal growth of its employees through learning and development opportunities?
Julie: HireRight is committed to providing its team members with opportunities to grow personally and professionally throughout their careers at our company. We provide resources that align with our business strategy, empowering career and professional development, and building people leader capabilities.
Earlier this year, HireRight announced a partnership with a learning content provider platform to help support its employees’ professional development. The platform offers more than 17,000 courses—covering topics such as business, sales, technology, customer service, and leadership development. In 2022, our team members spent more than 31,000 hours on professional development—an increase of 10,000 hours from 2021 and 16,000 hours from 2020—and I am confident that our new partnership with this learning platform will help us to surpass the 2022 total this year.
We also recently launched a five-month leadership excellence program for high-potential directors and senior directors—and we have a program for high-potential managers and senior managers coming soon too.
Governance
How do HireRight’s governance structure, policies, and training underpin the company’s business strategy?
Brian: At HireRight, our governance is based on our Corporate Governance Guidelines and is informed by our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. Our board, which comprises four committees—the Audit Committee, Compensation Committee, Nominating and Governance Committee, and Privacy and Cybersecurity Committee—is responsible for oversight of our corporate governance structure and management’s execution of our obligations.
Transparency and accountability are essential in our industry. We publish our key ESG policies internally as well as on our website to help to show our employees, our customers, and their candidates/employees that HireRight is committed to the highest standard of corporate governance.
Additionally, all HireRight employees complete compliance, fraud, and ethics training upon hire and subsequently on an annual basis. This helps emphasize the importance of our governance policies and makes sure that this training is not something completed during induction and forgotten shortly after.
What controls does HireRight have in place to protect the data of its customers and their candidates/employees?
Gareth: The security and integrity of HireRight’s information systems and technology infrastructure is vital to enabling the company to operate its business and protect company and consumer information assets.
HireRight has an established Information Security Management System (ISMS) comprising policies designed to achieve and maintain the company’s information security objectives, and to establish the company-wide requirements for secure design, management, and operations of the company’s information systems as defined under ISO 27001.
These policies also govern and demonstrate management’s commitment to safeguarding proprietary and confidential and personal information. They provide direction and support for information security compliance with business requirements and relevant laws and regulations—as well as directing company decision-making and incident response management.
To find out more about HireRight’s ESG strategy and activities, you can download our latest ESG Report.
Release Date: September 27, 2023
HireRight
HireRight is a leading provider of on-demand employment background checks, drug and health screening, and electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions that help employers automate, manage and control background screening and related programs.