Retail Christmas Recruitment: HR Leaders – how did you fare? Miracle on 34th Street or Nightmare on Elm Street?

With the calm after the busiest time of the year for most Retail Organisations starting to descend for HR Leaders it’s probably a good time to assess how your approach to the lifeblood of seasonal recruitment, securing those additional resources, fared.

So, did you fly through it, like a sleigh cutting through soft snow, pulled by none other than the red-nosed fellow himself? Or was it more akin to mountain biking on a High Nelly?

The fact is, in excess of 20% of annual retail industry revenues are generated during the Christmas retail season, accounting for as much as 30% of an individual retailer’s total sales, (National Retail Federation, 2018; RJ Metrics, 2014; Statistica, 2014).

And, even with the increased trend of consumers turning to online shopping over the busy Christmas period, traditional high-street retail is still holding its own. According to Thomas Burke, Director of Retail Ireland - IBEC (2018), in October 2018, the total value of consumer spending in the economy was on course to grow by 5% in 2018, with volumes likely to increase by 3.8%.

But in meeting this (very welcome!) increased customer demand high-street retailers, more than ever, need to be ahead of the game when it comes to securing the best seasonal hires! Helen Alkin (2016) Head of Future Talent Recruitment, Marks & Spencer describes the retail market as highly competitive and adding to that is the huge volume of recruitment that happens within the industry, particularly at peak retail season.

There’s no denying it, recruitment difficulties remain substantial for organisations, with three-quarters citing recruitment issues (CIPD UK, 2017). And while it absolutely is ‘the season to be jolly', to ‘hear sleigh bells’ and, more importantly for retailers, ‘cash registers ringing’, without the right or, sufficient seasonal hires in place, your planned Christmas ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ can fast end up looking more like ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’!

It’s a balancing act; while traditionally being a highly lucrative time of year for the retail industry, it is also arguably the most stressful. Over-staff and you end up eating into profits. Under-staff and you run the risk of losing out on customer transactions. And, as the holiday retail business grows consistently year on year, the war for the best seasonal hires intensifies.

So, what are the main challenges HR Talent Acquisition Managers face during the busy retail season?

• Limited skills for high volume recruiting: Retailers are forced to hire in high volume within very tight time-frames. For most, a challenge at the best of times!
• Limited or absent automated and scalable systems for attracting applicants, screening profiles, tracking applications and securing candidates: Many retailers lack the right tools to promote the vacancies and streamline the full hiring process. More than two-fifths of organisations (41%) believe the length of their recruitment process has led to the loss of potential recruits in the last 12 months (CIPD UK, 2017).
• A loose plan of action: While many HR talent acquisition managers within the retail industry will commence their seasonal recruitment drive in August, many more lack a plan of attack when it comes to seasonal recruitment, often posting recruitment ads too late and allowing competitors to take the pick of the crop! Organisations that fail to prioritise talent management risk losing out as demand for key skills escalates (CIPD UK, 2015). Or, if they’re lucky enough to secure them, many lack a proper seasonal hire on-boarding process, again, playing into competitors’ hands! In a limited talent pool, the challenge is to find skilled people who also have the right attitude (CIPD UK, 2015).

While there’s no magic answer, Retail HR Talent Managers can overcome many of the challenges with a carefully crafted seasonal hiring plan.

Think basic first;

• To start, assess your seasonal hiring needs well before the peak retail season begins - even if you’re talking ‘Christmas’ when most people are still talking about their summer holidays! Who cares!?
• Look at your existing retail employee base. Find out how many would be able to take up extra shifts. Once you know how much additional help your existing employees can provide, you can start looking at the gap that needs to be made up by taking on seasonal employees.
• High-light the days when there is and has been, the greatest footfall.
• Write clear and concise job descriptions to attract the right candidates.
• Ask your employees for referrals. You might even create a referral bonus scheme for employees who refer successful hires.

Then think technology;

• Consider Recruitment and On-Boarding Technology. Depending on the size of your company, you might need anywhere between just a few part-time seasonal workers or a full-blown full-time seasonal workforce. In both cases, chances are that you’ll attract hundreds of applications (given that a job typically attracts 50+ applications). Think about it… manually processing all the applications and doing the selection process to invite shortlisted candidates for the interview can take up months! This amount of time is something you don’t have at your disposal as seasonal hiring has to be super-quick.
• If you found that the issue of volume recruitment was one of the main issues that consumed most of your time and resources for the 2018 seasonal recruitment drive, perhaps leading to under- or over-resourcing, or maybe even losing out on candidates to your competitors, maybe it’s time to look at a Recruitment and On-Boarding solution to support and manage your seasonal recruitment needs.

Helen Alkin talks about “The sheer number of people” they need to find as being a challenge for M&S, added to that the difficulties posed as “recruitment peaks and flows at different times, so you are turning it on and off all the time”.

“But Christmas 2019 is ages away!”, I hear you say.

It may seem that way. But let’s break this down;

By the time you build your business case for a Recruitment and/ or On-Boarding solution as a requirement, secure your budget, assess various solution providers, sit through solution demonstrations and then finally move to selection and implementation of your preferred solution to be in place for, let's say, the beginning of Autumn of this year, 2019...

Well, when you think about it… time lines are tight if you’re going to do all of that AND be ready for your company’s 2019 seasonal recruitment drive with these resources in place.

Look at solution options which support you in the following areas;

• Improved Job Posting: A good Recruitment solution will help you post and manage positions. Cut down on admin and save you time and money.
• Improved Recruitment Processes: Sourcing talent for seasonal hiring is no different to sourcing talent for regular hiring. Which means, different sources like talent databases, current employees, job ad platforms, professional networking platforms, offline events all act as excellent talent sources. But because high volume recruiting happens on such a massive scale, you need a talent sourcing solution that works with all your talent sources, so you don’t lose any qualified candidates. Bridgette Wilder (2018) of Wilder HR Management & EEO Consulting, recommends ensuring your hiring process is not a barrier to making timely hiring decisions. If it is, there’s a distinct possibility that applicants will lose interest and you’ll lose them to your competitors!
• Better Screening: High volume recruiting like seasonal hiring often requires screening of thousands of CV’s and applications within days. Because the screening needs to happen on such a big scale (and because time is so limited), manual screening methods fall short. What’s helpful in this case is an automated screening solution that can run screening tests with the thousands of applications and filter out the best potential fits. To make this happen, you can use a pre-employment testing software. It will help you to test your candidates for various skills needed for the job and evaluate their performance automatically. You can easily compare the applicants and create a shortlist of the best matches for roles.
• Automated Applicant Tracking: A robust recruitment solution should offer numerous ways of streamlining and enhancing the processes associated with the sourcing and recruitment of candidates, for example applicant tracking. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is very similar to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System, designed for recruitment tracking and management proposes. As seasonal hiring involves the application, screening, and evaluation of hundreds or thousands of applicants, a good ATS lies at the heart of it. A comprehensive candidate tracking solution is the linchpin of your seasonal hiring campaigns. It will make sure that no applications get lost in your hiring process. The inclusion of an ATS can not only help you recruit top talent by integrating streams, such as job postings and role descriptions, but it can also help you track your applicants, making it a million times easier to store and review CV’s and applications, as well as manage job offers and rejections.
• Streamlined Selection: Applications are routed to one centralised database, easily accessible and searchable by your HR professionals. And, because the information is collected and organised digitally and automatically, you don’t have to pay for the additional time it takes personnel to sort and file paper applications. Applicants can be sent automated messages letting them know their applications have been received, online tests offered, interviews scheduled and regret and offer letters mailed at click of a button. There’s no question; an ATS can help save you both time and money. Such digitised HR process streamlining means you have more time to focus on the things that really matter, like securing your ideal candidates, instead of all of the time-consuming administration, such as entry and tracking of data, and the issuing of job related correspondence. In fact, a good ATS should also allow you to track where candidates found the job posting—on a job board, directly from your company’s website, through a referral, or from another source. This can prove to be hugely important and valuable information, as it allows you to focus your recruitment through areas where the data shows you have the most success or find the most desirable candidates, while reducing or eliminating effort and spend in areas indicating little success.
• Effective On-Boarding: As all the retailers in your area are trying to attract the same local seasonal workforce, the seasonal workers get a lot of options to choose from. Which means, if you hire them but fail to give them the great on-boarding experience they deserve, they’ll likely sway to some other retailer that is more prepared to get them on-board. Of course, the on-boarding of a seasonal employee will be different from a regular employee, which means you need to create a specific strategy which focuses on the relevant paperwork, policy education, and job training for the seasonal hires in a short time period. Consider a solution which supports you in these requirements, so your seasonal employees hit the ground running and ensure that once they’re in place, they're not only capable of offering the customer experience you need them to deliver, but exceed it.

Conclusion

As a HR leader of a retail organisation, with responsibility for Talent Acquisition, if your experience of the outgoing 2018 busy Christmas retail season was more stressful than joyful, contributed to by volume recruitment within short timelines, then now is a great time to assess how you can make improvements to the 2019 strategy.

Look at the basics first, like the of timing your recruitment drive, your existing retail employee base and what they can contribute on the key high footfall days when you need most cover, as well as what referrals they can bring to the table for recommended seasonal hires. However, if sheer volume was something which consumed a huge amount of time, resources and perhaps even left you on the back foot in terms of your overall retail performance, then now is most definitely a good time to look at how a recruitment and on-boarding solution may assist you and your retail organisation for 2019.

References:

Alkin, H., Marks and Spencer, (2016). Cited by Annie Hayes. ‘HR in the Retail Sector’, PM Jobs - CIPD UK.

Burke, T. (2018): ‘Christmas cheer for Irish retail’, Christmas Retail Monitor, Retail Ireland – IBEC.

CIPD UK, 2015: ‘Resourcing and Talent Planning 2015’, Survey Report.

CIPD UK, 2017: ‘Resourcing and Talent Planning 2017’, Survey Report.

National Retail Federation (2018): NRF forecasts holiday sales will increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent.

RJ Metrics (2014): ‘Ecommerce Holiday Trends’, 2015 Benchmark Report Series.

Statista (2014): Holiday sales as a percentage of industry sales in the United States from 2000 to 2014.

Wilder, B. (2018): ‘Need To Attract Top Talent? Try These 12 Smart Hiring Strategies’, Forbes.

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