The confidence of government professionals and investigators in their software, especially public records search software, allows them to prevent and investigate fraud at its best while protecting consumers and citizens. It is hard to overstate the importance of confidence in your tools to do your best work. This confidence is growing, which is good news for fraud investigators in the government and their teams.

Thomson Reuters Report on Government Fraud Abuse, Waste & Abuse shows that confidence has grown among government employees since the last survey in 2020, despite the many challenges they still face in the post-pandemic environment. In 2020, only 50% of respondents said they felt confident or very confident about their ability to fight fraud. Nearly two-thirds (63%) feel sure they have the right tools. The increased investment by government agencies in technology solutions could positively impact the case closure rate of their agencies, efficiency, and confidence.

In the survey, 72% of respondents said they now have confidence in tools and resources used for investigative problems. In 2020, only 55% of respondents said this.

Confidence is a valuable asset.

The report shows that workers in government feel more confident about their solutions for searching public records. But how can this confidence be translated into positive impacts on the investigative and prevention efforts of these teams? The survey was able to extrapolate that there were three main benefits – greater efficiency, higher employee satisfaction, and increased ability to excel at their job. We’ll look at each of these separately:

Greater efficiency When teams feel more confident about their resources for an initial investigation or check, they can work more efficiently and resolve more cases. This is one of government agencies and fraud investigators’ key success measures.

The use of more advanced technology is a significant factor in this improvement, particularly when it comes to public records search software. The most advanced tools are essential for fraud investigators to find the correct information from public records quickly. According to a report, almost as many fraud specialists (46%) use third-party search engines than Google (48%).

This is a critical step for government agencies. The increased efficiency of these third-party platforms will go a long way in improving government investigators’ confidence in their tools and work.

Improved employee satisfaction – As we have seen, increased efficiency fosters greater confidence in government workers’ tools and their work. This, in turn, leads to positive ripple effects. Greater confidence, for example, improves employee satisfaction and reduces turnover – especially among critical employees with many years of experience. In the report, over one-third of respondents (37%) cited the loss of institutional know-how from retiring staff as a top challenge that agencies still face.

It would be wise for agencies to use this confidence to improve employee satisfaction by asking their most productive and experienced employees how they feel about their job. Then, the leaders of the agencies should use this information to determine how they can replicate these experiences by offering other employees the same productive and engaging work.

Ability to excel at their job — Teams confident they have the right software to deal with typical fraud cases will be better equipped to take on new and emerging fraud types, which were also cited as a growing concern in the survey.

When it comes to investigators in government and other agencies, their success depends on their confidence, especially their ability to discern what information vital their searches of public records reveal. When combined with advanced investigative tools, this confidence in the results of their professional insight gives investigators the ability to excel in other areas, such as fraud detection and investigation.

Leaders of agencies should remember that many employees choose to work in public service because they can contribute to something bigger than themselves with confidence and competence in their skills.

Confidence is critical to investing

Ultimately, increasing your team’s confidence in its tools will improve their work and increase public Trust. In the future, nearly half of the respondents to our survey said that their agencies would allocate a portion of their budgets toward public records software or resources that help prevent fraud. This is a good development and one that other agencies can emulate.