Rethinking the Approach to Hourly Workers

There’s a dramatic shift happening in our industry. The talent acquisition community has traditionally been viewed as slow to adopt technology but now is being forced to evolve due to rapidly changing demands. Only a few years ago, the idea of mobile apply and text recruiting seemed like a thing in the far off future. Today we do all of that and more.

Most of these advancements in technology have been focused on knowledge workers, with little being done to change the experience of hourly workers. In essence, they have been left behind. 

In a recent digital series, Traitify partner, Alexander Mann Solutions discussed this topic directly. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pre-coronavirus, hourly workers represent about 58.5% of all wage and salaried workers. And yet, across every stage of the apply cycle less than 30% of those workers were very satisfied with their experience, with only 20% being satisfied when they received an offer for the job. This is translating to critically underperforming KPIs in the hourly sector for candidate experience, quality of hire, and first year retention rates.

Something has to change. 

We need to rethink the way that we approach this forgotten workforce. For far too long we have been asking people to conform to technology, but the candidates deserve and expect better. Technology needs to be designed with the end user in mind. The consumer world has done this for years, but now is the time where we need experiences and products that are built specifically for the people who are intended to use them, and more specifically for our hourly workers. We need to better understand their needs, from apply through employment. 

There’s been a joke circulating around LinkedIn. It’s intended to be a joke, but the truth is that these are the moments that define us in our respective industries. The current situation has shown a light on not only how essential hourly workers are to the functioning of our economy and our lives, but is also creating a talent pool that in the coming weeks will need to get back to work. Most current TA processes are not built to handle the volume of applicants that companies will be receiving and they will be forced to innovate or lose out on potential talent. 

Now is the time to change. 

The tidal wave of applicants is coming, and we’re being pushed into a world we were slowing transitioning into. If we cannot automate our TA processes to programmatically screen and assess candidates, then we delay getting our world back to work. Now more than ever is the time to innovate. 

Leading the charge is a new product introduced last week called Hourly. It is the only purpose-built technology for hourly workers delivering a completely conversational hiring experience. Traitify is honored to be the assessment partner in this new platform driving a candidate experience that is personalized to the hourly worker, with content that enriches the recruitment process. This product is a major first step in delivering on candidate’s expectations and beginning the journey of changing what has been a broken system for them. 

Our vision at Traitify is to create happiness in the workplace. That vision defines every product decision we make and every partnership we form. Happiness goes beyond performance metrics, it’s about delivering an experience that feels effortless and magical to the candidate, the better we understand our candidates and employees the closer we will be to fulfilling that vision.

So join me, and let’s start changing today.