In 2022, hourly workers are finding themselves in very high demand. Staff shortages in a variety of sectors and turnover rates of 150% — an increase of 68% since 2017– mean businesses that once took their ability to attract and retain staff for granted are now encountering strong resistance to their favorite strategies. There were 800,000 fewer fast food workers in the U.S. in October 2021, for instance, than there were in February of 2020.
So how does an HR department attract the hourly workers a business needs for its best chance at success? It’s important to understand that, contrary to popular belief, hourly workers come from a variety of demographics: in fact, most hourly workers are over 25 years old, and a third of them are over 45.
One thing they have in common is that they all rely on technology to find jobs. That may be why, in addition to increasing wages, improving benefit packages, and taking a more compassionate approach to employee needs, HR professionals are finding that state-of-the-art tech is a boon to recruitment, allowing them to draw job applicants and quickly respond to their concerns.
Make the most of social media
In their search for hourly workers, HR professionals are not getting a lot of traction advertising on the professional network LinkedIn. It might be time to switch over to the world these potential hires prefer. Using social media to find hourly employees has won over 84% of employers because that’s where some 86%of job seekers now look for work — they’re most likely to comb Facebook or Twitter, with Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest being other major contenders. It’s not just a one-way street, either — according to Glassdoor, some 13% of social media users say information they’ve posted on social media helped them get a job.
Similarly, one essential aspect of successful recruitment is corresponding with potential hires in ways they prefer. This usually means SMS and messaging apps, rather than “old school” email — some people rarely check messages left there, perhaps because their inboxes are often swamped with spam. These other messaging methods allow speedy real-time communication, including booking interviews and answering candidates’ questions, and can even allow video conversations that give the hiring party a good idea of the candidate’s suitability to the job.
Create a brisk application process
Once they’ve spotted a job they’re interested in, hourly workers appreciate a mobile application process. That’s because it’s most likely to enable an accelerated response and a more convenient hiring exercise overall. That’s a plus at both ends of the transaction — 37% of hourly workers say being hired quickly is the crucial factor in determining which job they choose, and companies in need of hourly workers typically need them as soon as possible.
Prioritize employee referrals
Around 80% of hourly workers work within five miles of their home. This means that each of a business’s hourly employees likely has friends or family members in the neighborhood who might be looking for a job that doesn’t require a long commute. Employee referrals are valuable sources of reliable and efficient new employees, and they’re easiest when the company has established an automated referral system.
Businesses can get creative when providing employees with incentives for using the referral system, such as turning the process into a game where successful referrals earn them points that they can use in some manner later. An automated system will also enable employers to track how successfully this method attracts new employees, including how many referrals result in new hires.
Automate the interview process
Arranging interviews can be a lengthy undertaking — fortunately, the task lends itself well to automation. There are apps available that allow for near-instant responses, because they not only integrate with the potential interviewee’s choice of email, text or messaging apps, they also connect with calendar apps. This creates a definite record at both ends of the interview arrangement, registering the date and time of the interview, details like whether it’s a phone call, a Zoom or a Teams meeting, who’s calling whom, who will be at the meeting, and any other pertinent details. Chatbots can also be used to deal with common questions applicants might pose, like, “How many positions are being filled?”
Customer-relations management systems (CRMs) are another valuable tool, allowing resumes that have been received and approved to be stored on a database that’s available to everyone in the company who hires hourly workers. The same goes for talent acquisition software (TAS), which organizes and screens such information and can be used to interview, hire and train the winning candidates.
Capitalize on AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can not only screen potential candidates for required skills and answer questions they might have, recording the interaction for employer review, but also administer personality and skills tests, do background checks, and even conduct and record initial interviews to determine a candidate’s suitability.
HR teams can pre-record specific questions for the video, giving every candidate the same set of queries to create a level playing field. AI can also determine the applicant’s fitness for the role in terms of their language skills or customer service mindset. Once the new hire is secured, AI integrates with learning management systems (LMS) to facilitate onboarding and organize any required training.
These kinds of efficiencies are clearly a boon for hardworking managers and HR professionals. In a rapidly changing world, it’s clearly time to mark old-fashioned, time-consuming hiring procedures as spam and instead embrace the expediting force of technology.
About the Author: Steve Anevski
Steve Anevski is the CEO and Co-Founder of Upshift, an industry-leading staffing platform that connects businesses with pre-vetted W2 employees. Backed by Recruit Holdings Inc., Upshift has a success rate over double the industry standard.