Mumbai: With hybrid work and multi-city hiring on the rise, one-time background checks are proving insufficient, with 74 per cent of respondents citing fake degrees and forged documents as their top concern, a report said on Friday, January 30.
As organisations scale hiring across geographies and hybrid work models become the norm, traditional one-time background checks are increasingly being viewed as insufficient, said a report by end-to-end workforce staffing and HR solutions provider Genius HRTech.
Over 74 per cent of respondents identified fake degrees or forged documents as their top concern, far outweighing other risks such as behavioural analytics, gig workforce screening or moonlighting, it stated.
The Genius HRTech report is based on inputs from 1,316 professionals in December 2025.
The report also revealed that concerns around identity fraud are intensifying with advancements in generative AI, with 77 per cent of respondents saying they are extremely concerned about deepfake-driven identity fraud or AI-generated resumes and documents.
This reinforced the urgency for stronger authentication mechanisms and tech-enabled safeguards, added the report.
Half of the respondents rated continuous or ongoing verification as very effective compared to traditional one-time checks, while another 22 per cent found it moderately effective, signalling a gradual move towards lifecycle-based employee risk monitoring, said the report.
Meanwhile, cross-border hiring continued to pose significant challenges as nearly half of respondents (49 per cent) cited legal and regulatory compliance as the biggest hurdle in international background verification, followed by data localisation requirements at 32 per cent.
Longer turnaround timelines and higher operational costs, while relevant, were seen as secondary concerns, said the report.
“Background verification is no longer a back-end HR process, it has become a strategic risk management function. As hiring becomes faster, more digital and more global, organisations must invest in secure, compliant and technology-driven verification frameworks that protect both the employer and the workforce,” Genius HRTech Chairman and Managing Director R P Yadav added.
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