CHAPTER 5
A Look at the Hourly Workforce By Industry
Although companies across industries share many similarities when recruiting hourly workers, they also differ in the way they approach challenges, communication tools, and technology investments.
Chapter 5 combines Aptitude Research's study results with industry-specific insight and Madeline's HCM expertise to profile the talent acquisition strategies for organizations in retail, hospitality, and restaurant/food services. These industries are heavily reliant on hourly workers, yet face intense competition for talent and operate in a space where candidates are also often customers.
According to NRF (National Retail Federation), retail is the largest industry in the United States - 3.8 million retail establishments employ more than 29 million employees, contributing $2.6 trillion annually to GDP. Retail organizations specifically face the challenge of competing across industries for hourly talent, making the task of improving the candidate experience to engage job seekers a top concern. When it comes to talent acquisition, retail organizations need to balance efficiency with experience.
For retailers, selling jobs is just as important as selling merchandise. Employees are customer-facing and are often the first interaction a customer has with a brand. In an era of transparency where employees are also customers, less than half of retail companies have successfully aligned their corporate and employer brands. Retailers that invest heavily in their corporate brand must give equal attention to their employer brand - but, this doesn't often happen. According to an Aptitude Research study, retailers that invest in employer branding are three times as likely to improve the candidate experience and twice as possible to improve quality of hire.
Aptitude Research's study into over 600 talent acquisition professionals focused on hourly hiring found there's room for improvement:
- Only 34% of retailers communicate their employer branding message consistently both internally and externally.
- Only 36% of retailers have a dedicated team to support employer branding.
While speed remains critical, retailers need to think beyond filling positions as quickly as possible and invest in strategies to strengthen employer branding efforts and the candidate experience to help them stand apart when competing for the attention of job seekers.
Retailers are still relying on email as the primary form of communication with candidates and making investments in technology that is more focused on helping them stay compliant, rather than the technology that can improve the candidate experience and power their success in the long term. While compliance may seem like the more urgent issue in the short-term, the fallout of candidate neglect is beginning to have a measurable impact on organizations. By focusing on employer brand and creating a more consistent candidate experience, retailers can start to improve their approach to talent acquisition – ultimately, helping them hire with both greater speed and quality.
TOP CHALLENGES FOR RETAIL HOURLY HIRING
For retailers, the candidate experience is the greatest barrier when it comes to competing for talent, and meeting both candidate and hiring manager expectations.
TOP AREAS OF TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT IN RETAIL
Retail organizations are often lagging when it comes to technology adoption in talent acquisition. Retailers are relying on the basics to support workflow and compliance, but are not always investing in technology that can improve the candidate experience or hiring manager efficiency. Top areas of investment include:
- Applicant Tracking Systems that support everything from requisition management to offer management.
- Job boards include investments in both niche and general job boards for roles.
- Background screening includes criminal checks, drug testing, verification, and DMV testing done to finalize the hiring process.
For organizations in hospitality, the competition for talent has increased. Many of these organizations are competing against other customer-facing industries. When hiring talent in this industry, quality of hire is critical to both operational efficiency and customer experience. In the fiercely competitive and transparent hospitality industry, If a customer has a poor experience with an employee it will more immediately and directly impact business results.
Many organizations in hospitality have chains or franchised models that result in decentralized recruitment efforts around sourcing, branding, and communication.
Taking Steps Forward in Hospitality
For hospitality companies, people and talent are an essential part of their organization but the support for recruiting is not always centrally supported. We know that delivering a better hiring experience translates to improved customer experience, but it can also impact other challenges facing the business:
- Improve Perception: Roles in hospitality are stereotypically seen as low-skill jobs, often with low pay and little room for career advancement. Advancing the employer brand within the hiring experience can be a critical differentiator in the competition for talent across other industries.
- Combat High Turnover: Hospitality organizations face an astoundingly high turnover rate hovering above 70% (Bureau of Labor and Statistics). Creating an employee experience that makes people feel valued - from that very first interaction as candidate - can build loyalty early.
- Fill the Leadership Pipeline: Finding the right people, and identifying ideal traits and skills, for particular roles early in the hiring process can feed career mobility pipelines to drive greater organizational agility, stability and strength.
TOP AREAS OF TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT IN HOSPITALITY
Unlike retailers, hospitality organizations prioritize onboarding as a top area of technology investment. These companies are considering both compliance of having new hires complete forms and also the engagement and performance of new hires in the first few weeks and months.
- Onboarding solutions to support forms management, tasks management, and socialization that speeds time to performance.
- Job boards that include both niche and general job boards.
- Background screening that includes criminal checks, drug testing, verification, and DMV testing.
The number of employees in the restaurant industry has been decreasing each year, according to Statista (See Figure 8). With turnover at 73% and a declining younger workforce joining restaurants, companies face increased pressure to find talent in the year ahead.
“We are adding 1.6 million restaurant jobs and the population dependent on filling these jobs is declining by 1.3 million.” Robert Gifford, the EVP of The National Restaurant Association of Education Forum
To attract and compete for talent, including younger generations, restaurants need to embrace digital technology and create a more personalized candidate experience. Companies need to be consistent throughout the process, embrace a mobile-first strategy, and provide candidates with a clear view of the company. Some restaurants are even embracing realistic job previews to show candidates what the experience is like in the job.
TOP CHALLENGES FOR RESTAURANT AND FOOD SERVICE HOURLY HIRING
Similar to retailers and hospitality organizations, restaurant and foodservice organizations must consider the experience of candidates and the impact on the customer experience.
Yet, when asked about top challenges, restaurant and foodservice organizations did not identify the candidate experience as a cause for concern.
TOP AREAS OF TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT
One difference between restaurant and foodservice organizations and retailers and hospitality organizations is the use of assessments. These companies more frequently use assessments in the application process to measure for fit or skills. One challenge these companies face is that assessments can be an overly lengthy part of the application process, creating a negative candidate experience or contributing to applicant fallout. Top areas of investment include:
- Applicant Tracking System to support requisition management through offer management.
- Job boards that include both niche and general job boards.
- Assessments can be skill-based and/or behavioral to measure a candidate’s fit for both role and organization.
Let's continue the conversation. In our final edition, chapter 6, we'll take a closer look at how to improve candidate communication across the hiring journey as a key means of delivering a candidate experience that is differentiated. We will also share Madeline's recommendations for tactics to improve the hourly experience overall to help attract candidates and speed time-to-hire while working efficiently.
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