How Retailers Can Combat Staffing Shortages

In recent years successful brands have been able to meet and exceed customer expectations at a period when demand skyrocketed and in-store shopping was limited. The reason? Investments in technology. By applying the same digital ingenuity that brands used to enhance the customer experience, retailers can combat staffing issues.

Retailers are facing staffing shortages and high employee turnover and it's forcing a reevaluation of hiring systems. With staffing targets for 2023 top-of-mind, personnel issues are coming into sharper focus. With digital-first innovation, retailers can optimize their candidate evaluation and hiring processes.

Through hiring tools like situational judgment tests and simulations as well as automated interview and reference check systems, retailers can get the right people into the right roles while decreasing time-to-hire and mitigating bias. These hiring process optimization tools improve the candidate experience from application through hiring, all while providing teams with business intelligence insights to improve the process over time and freeing up hiring teams to focus on higher-level tasks.

The Importance of Looking Beyond a Resume

In traditional hiring systems, oftentimes retail store managers — many of whom don’t have a traditional HR background — are left to weed through stacks of applications. They're typically untrained on how to evaluate applications, so they use their personal judgment and biases on what candidates they think are best based on previous experiences. Also, different store managers use different criteria to evaluate candidates, so there's little consistency in hiring.

In this high-touch, manual process, too often qualified candidates may never even reach the evaluation stage. This process also slows the speed at which an applicant hears back (if they ever do), as they have to wait for the store manager to get to their application, review it and then respond.

By optimizing a hiring system using a suite of digital tools, every application can be given equal consideration in a timely manner without the need for a hiring manager to individually evaluate each candidate. These systems work to take the initial evaluation process off managers’ plates and save them significant time, while also removing any implicit bias from the equation.

An optimized hiring system can leverage automation to immediately place candidates into the hiring funnel. In the retail industry, it also allows candidates to apply one time but be considered for job openings at multiple store locations within their vicinity, broadening their chances of getting the job. This routine can also ensure stores with the biggest need get the first pass on applicants. The system vets candidates and opens a line of communication by keeping the candidate in the loop throughout the process. If a candidate is deemed not right for the position, they automatically receive notice that they haven’t moved on to the next round. This helps maintain the employer brand by presenting the company as a responsive employer that prioritizes the candidate's experience and workplace culture.

For those candidates that do make the next round, they can be instructed to take situational judgment tests and behavioral assessments to test if they're a fit for the position. These tests can be done on their own time, without the need for scheduling logistics on the part of hiring managers, which puts the candidate in the driver’s seat of their own evaluation process.

In these assessments, candidates are presented with real-world scenarios that they may face within the position. The results of these tests are two-fold: not only do candidates demonstrate their aptitude for key job qualifications (e.g., communication, teamwork, problem-solving skills), but it offers a realistic preview of what the candidate can expect from the job while showing the employer which candidates can excel in critical situations.

Hiring is a two-way street; by understanding the responsibilities of the position, employees will be less likely to churn or feel like the job was a bait-and-switch. If an employee is hired on the assumption that they’re going to be working at a register only to find they’re spending most of their days in a stockroom, it can greatly impact their future with the company.

Finding the Right Candidate Fast

The use of focused assessments, automated reference checks and interview tools give retailers all the essential pieces of information they need to find candidates ideal for open positions, or to place qualified candidates in the position for which they’re best suited. Furthermore, these initial phases of the candidate journey can be used to sell potential employees on the culture of the company, which means a lot in a highly competitive job market.

Retailers don’t need to fully automate their hiring process to see real-world results either. Even minor optimizations in the application process or deploying more focused assessments can have a major impact on time-to-hire without jeopardizing candidate quality. A critical step to showcase improvement, success or failure is gathering data. This could be assessment or any other criteria retailers utilize to judge a person's competency. Data is enormously beneficial to track over time and learn trends of a retailer’s hiring process. By leveraging these optimization tools, retailers are able to turn a high-touch, manual process into one that reveals a candidate’s true potential without rounds of interviews. Managers are freed up to focus on higher-level tasks and every candidate is given equal consideration.

Hiring process optimization is the next frontier of innovation that retailers can begin deploying now for significant long-term impact.

Ben Porr, Ph.D., is global vice president, people science at Harver, a hiring solution helping organizations optimize their talent decisions.