Veris Benchmarks™ Brings Pre-Employment Assessment Tools to Market; Avoiding Fraud, Theft When Hiring Executives Possible with Validated Test
October 21, 2016 (Greenwich, Conn.) – The Bernie Madoff scandal made headlines in 2008. The $65 billion crime went beyond monetary misfortune; it impacted families on a personal level. That’s when Wall Street veteran David Shulman decided there has to be a better way to deepen the trust and confidence that major financial institutions have with their customers and to avoid these financial scandals that rock the foundation of the industry.
“Veris Benchmarks was really inspired by the Madoff scandal,” said CEO and Founder David Shulman, who has spent more than 30 years in the institutional financial services industry. “After family members and friends were directly impacted by the corrupt scheme, I became consumed with trying to determine precisely what firms were doing to really ‘know’ their employees, to better understand those individuals they were hiring to act in a fiduciary capacity.”
Veris Benchmarks and its pre-employment assessments tools are a culmination of five years of intensive study and analysis aimed to create a unique product designed to assess “moral fiber” during the hiring process. The service assists in the determination of whether a prospective hire might compromise a company’s reputation by engaging in fraud, deceit or some other type of errant behavior.
“The financial crisis was a wake-up call to management and corporate boards. Executives now have the responsibility to take advantage of new methods to help protect their companies, their shareholders and, even more importantly, their customers,” Shulman said. “What are companies doing to better understand how their employee would respond when faced with situations of moral gray?”
During the course of its development, Veris sent its Chief Scientist, Dr. George Paajanen Ph.D., an internationally-recognized expert in the area of psychometrics, into the American prison system to build a test that identifies the character traits manifest in currently incarcerated white collar felons. By applying this test, a company can improve its hiring process in 15 minutes and help to protect its image and reputation.
“The proprietary data and research that we have on felons truly makes us a distinct value,” said Dr. Paajanen, who collaborated with Dr. J. Tom Janz, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist, on the development of the Veris Professional Assessment. “We want to highlight the tremendously high cost of poor job performance as compared to the trivial cost of hiring.”
Veris Benchmark’s flagship product, the Veris Professional™ is a comprehensive screening product that will help companies avoid hiring miscues. By using its proprietary database, Veris works closely with clients to develop their own benchmarks to help them carefully review prospective hires.
Fraud and theft are not isolated to the financial industry. It happens everywhere; from embezzlement at the dentist’s office to the PTA to the retail space and beyond, employee theft amounts to billions of dollars of losses annually.
“These issues have burdened industry and business for centuries,” Shulman said. “Impropriety, fraud, Ponzi schemes, Wells Fargo’s mismanagement, FIFA, VW, Toshiba – what if these could have been avoided? What if companies could detect potential malice and the likelihood of theft before the key players were ever hired?”
“While standard background checks can be helpful when hiring executives, they do not tell the complete story. We can help fill that void.”
Please visit Veris Benchmarks (www.verisbenchmarks.com) to learn more.
Veris Benchmarks is a privately-held company founded in 2012 on the principle that trust sustains all lasting business relationships. We believe that companies have a responsibility to their customers and shareholders to better understand their employees’ ethical and moral composition. The reputational risks associated with not addressing these issues today are severe. The most cost-effective way to prevent the problem is to prevent hiring those who are at risk for committing white collar crime.
