Ensuring your team is compliant and verified is a critical part of the recruitment and onboarding process. UK employers must verify every new hire's right to work, as required by the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.
Beyond statutory right to work (RTW) checks, comprehensive background screening ensures you hire with confidence. Employment Hero and Zinc have partnered to offer a fully integrated, comprehensive background screening solution, ranging from identity verification to social media checks.
In your Employment Hero platform, you can now initiate individual checks and bundled packages and manage results directly within your Employment Hero platform.
In this article:
Getting started
As of April 2026, you can start accessing and viewing background checks right away, without needing to navigate to an external site or manage third-party API (application programming interface) keys in your Add-Ons settings.
Click the Integration's key features and Pricing and Zinc services buttons below for an introduction to:
- What the Employment Hero - Zinc integration allows you to do on your Employment Hero platform
- How the new reseller partnership simplifies your account management and billing
As of April 2026, the main actions you can take following the Employment Hero - Zinc integration:
- Initiate check or check packages: You can initiate background checks directly from a candidate or employee’s profile, selecting from nine available background checks.
- Download PDF Reports: Once a check is complete, you can download the full report PDF directly from the candidate or employee file in your Employment Hero platform.
- Mark as Reviewed: For check results that require a review, you can download and inspect the results, then use the Mark as Reviewed feature to update the status directly within your Employment Hero platform.
- Status Updates: An Employment Hero - Zinc integration uses webhooks to update the relevant status information automatically. At any time, you can also click Sync status, which pulls the latest real-time data from Zinc.
Employment Hero now acts as a reseller for Zinc services. You no longer need a separate Zinc contract or account to get started.
All checks are initiated in the Employment Hero platform, and billing is generated in a monthly invoice. This invoice is separate to your existing Employment Hero invoice.
Perform background checks
As of April 2026, the recruitment experience has been updated with the introduction of the Background Checks tab.
To access and use the Background Checks tab to initiate a background check from a candidate's profile:
- On your Employment Hero platform's main menu, click Recruitment.
- Select the Candidates tab (or select a candidate from within a specific Job).
- Select the candidate you want to screen.
- Click on the new Background Checks tab.
- Click Initiate check.
- Select what checks you require. You can run an individual check or a check package (multiple checks).
- Click Continue to read and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Click Initiate. Zinc will then contact the candidate to gather their information.
As of April 2026, the recruitment experience has been updated with the introduction of the Background Checks tab.
To access and use the Background Checks tab to initiate a background check from a vacant job:
- On your Employment Hero platform's main menu, click Recruitment.
- Select the Jobs tab.
- Click on the Candidates tab.
- Select the job you want to perform a background check on.
- Using the left-hand side list, select the candidate who you want to perform a right-to-work check on.
- Select the Background Checks tab.
- Click Initiate check.
- Select either Individual check or (for multiple checks) Check package.
- Click Continue to read and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Click Initiate. Zinc will then contact the candidate to gather their information.
As of April 2026, a Background & Eligibility widget has been introduced for existing employees. This widget provides a single view for background screening and work eligibility.
To access and use the Background & Eligibility widget to initiate a background check for an onboarded employee:
- On your Employment Hero platform's main menu, click People.
- Click Employees List and select the relevant employee.
- In the Background & Eligibility section of their file, click Initiate check.
- Select either Individual check or (for multiple checks) Check package.
- Click Continue to read and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Click Initiate. Zinc will then contact the employee to gather their information..
Manage and track background checks
- You initiate a background check/check package from a candidate or employee’s profile.
- The candidate/employee is contacted by email to complete the check(s). (You can view the status of the check(s) in the Background Check tab in the candidate/employee’s profile.)
- The candidate/employee completes the check(s).
- You receive an email notifying you that the check is complete and you will see the result of the check within the Background Check tab:
- If the result is Clear, you can download the report by clicking on View Report. In this case, no further action is required.
- If the result is Consider, you will see an Action-Required status. You can then click on View Report to download the report and review the outcome. If you are satisfied with the outcome, you can click on Mark as Reviewed on the check within the Background Check tab. This will then update the status from 'Action-Required' to 'Completed'.
Once you have initiated a check or check package, a status will be displayed on the check to keep you updated with the progress:
| Status | Definition |
| IN PROGRESS | Request sent |
| PARTIALLY COMPLETED | At least 1 check complete |
| COMPLETED |
|
| ACTION-REQUIRED | Complete and some adverse results to review |
Once a check has returned any of the statuses in the 'Completed' stage, you will receive a result for the check/check package:
| Result | Definition |
| Clear | No issues found |
| Consider | Potential issues/discrepancies found, requires an employer review |
Further information
You will be billed directly by Employment Hero. Costs for initiated checks will appear in a monthly invoice, in addition to your EH subscription invoice. Before you initiate any check/check package, you will see the cost of the check(s).
If you are looking for further support, visit our Hero Connect Community.
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