Overcoming the Top 5 Roadblocks to Efficiency in Retail Hiring

Retailers employ one in four people in the US. But that doesn’t mean hiring is easy for their talent acquisition teams. If anything, industry challenges like high turnover and high-volume seasonality mean retailers must continuously recruit to fill open roles throughout the year, all while navigating competition for that same talent from other retailers, other industries, and even gig work options.

A streamlined hiring process is essential to staying staffed amid these rapidly changing conditions. Weeding out inefficiency in your hiring processes not only helps hiring managers attract sought-after retail talent, but also helps prevent customer attrition—an important consideration when 45% of today’s shoppers will switch brands due to poor customer service.

Whether you hire thousands of workers every year or hundreds, the following five roadblocks to efficiency in retail hiring could be slowing you down. Read on to learn more and explore suggested solutions.

Many large retailers use a decentralized hiring model because it allows them to delegate staffing and recruitment responsibilities to local hiring managers. It works fairly well for the industry since individual locations know their talent needs best and can hire at the speed of their market.

But, talent acquisition is a specialized skill, and many hiring managers must juggle recruiting and interviewing candidates in addition to other job responsibilities. If company hiring best practices aren’t clearly communicated or hiring managers aren’t properly trained, retailers run the risk of a poor candidate experience that damages their employer brand and leads to hiring mistakes.

Source: Retail Hiring Redefined Report, Checkr

An effective, well-integrated applicant tracking system (ATS) can decrease the average hiring cycle by as much as 60%. Yet, despite the potential of evolving HR technology, a recent Checkr survey found that retail HR leaders continue to face significant barriers to adoption. Their top three pain points: [1] budget limitations, [2] solution customization for retail’s specific hiring needs, and [3] resistance to new technology.

Anything less than a modern solution will only slow retail hiring down, especially if layers of manual work have been allowed to accrue on top of an original setup. Another factor with aging software is that it makes it much harder to adopt solutions like AI-powered hiring tools that can improve quality of hire.

Source: Retail Hiring Redefined Report, Checkr

When certain levels of automation don’t support retail recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers, they can easily spend hours every week on important (but lower-value) recruiting tasks, such as scheduling, job distribution, candidate communications, and interviewing.

That approach might work for smaller-sized retailers early on, but it isn’t scalable for companies hiring at higher volumes. They need smooth, automated workflows that free up hiring managers to engage with talent when it matters most—in the interview—versus managing a candidate’s availability or fielding questions about when they’ll hear back about a job.

Source: SHRM

Around two-thirds of candidates say they haven’t received consistent communication throughout the recruitment process, with an astonishing 35% reporting that an employer failed to acknowledge their application altogether. That is a recipe for disaster when recruiting retail workers, who are only too happy to chase salary differences and employee discounts at other companies.

Considering 62% of applications are made from mobile devices today, it’s critical for retailers to have a mobile-optimized experience across their careers site, application process, and communication with candidates. Today’s retail talent moves fast, and time is of the essence.

Source: SHRM

Background checks are important safeguards in the retail industry. They help employers maintain compliance, verify candidate eligibility, and mitigate risk, such as theft and shrinkage. However, when background checks take too long, candidates often don’t stick around to find out the results.

No wonder Checkr’s Every Check Counts survey found that large retail employers rank end-to-end turnaround time as a top area in need of improvement. Background screening services that rely too heavily on human labor may leave retailers open to errors, process bottlenecks, and provide a poor experience for candidates due to a lack of transparency into status or results.

Source: Checkr

With customers more selective about where they spend their money, every touchpoint with your brand matters to the company’s bottom line. In-store, online, or omnichannel, making the most of these interactions with shoppers requires having engaged and well-trained staff. To attract and hire such quality retail talent, you need a streamlined approach to your process end-to-end.

Whether updating your recruitment software or modernizing your background screenings, every improvement counts. To learn more about how Checkr helps retailers of all sizes remove inefficiencies from their background check process and improve quality of hire, talk to sales today.

About the author

Sarah Wallace is a senior content marketer with over 12 years in B2B and tech. A proud ADHD creative, she is passionate about working with companies whose products and solutions are helping to make the world a more inclusive, equitable place.