If you already rely on hourly workers to get work done, then you know it’s not the easiest task to source reliable, productive staff. In the US, hourly staff make up almost 58% of the workforce. Hourly employment is commonly used in retail, warehouses, hospitality, and industries that rely on manual labor. However, the labor marketing is constantly in a state of change. You need to make sure that you have an excellent strategy to find and hire hourly employees, or you might find yourself left in the dust by your competitors. Keep reading for our ten top tips to find and hire hourly employees.
1. Create a Talent Pool
The first issue that most recruiters face is finding enough of the right type of applicants. That’s why you must figure out your sourcing strategy first. That way, you can create a talent pool of suitable applicants for your upcoming positions.
One great way to create a talent pool is by using social media. Post on Facebook groups, write engaging social media posts, and message people directly. This can help people to engage with your brand and is a great way to find out who could be interested in working for you.
2. Contact Your Customers
Who knows your brand better than your customers? If you want to hire hourly employees for the retail or hospitality market, why not see if any of your customers would like to work for you? After all, they use and enjoy your products or services. This enables them to better connect with your brand, making for a great employee.
Put up flyers in your store or add a job notice to your marketing emails to let customers know about the vacant position.
3. Open Up Your Talent Pool
If you have locations in many different areas, why not allow people to apply through one easy application. You can add an option to tick their preferred work locations and get applicants for all positions at the same time.
Many companies simply post one role at a time for one store as they come up. However, if you allow people to apply all the time and select locations, you have a talent pool to refer to when a job comes up at each store.
4. Create a Clear Job Description
The worst thing about applying for jobs is often trying to read through vague and non-specific job descriptions. How will your candidates know if they are qualified for a role unless you make it clear in the job description?
If someone doesn’t meet all of the criteria in the job description or doesn’t understand what you’re looking for, they are far less likely to apply. So, create a list of must-have requirements and detail these in the job description. Also include the nice to have skills or experience, but make sure that you explain which are crucial and which are optional.
5. Optimize the Application Process
If the application process is difficult or time-consuming, many people won’t apply – it’s as simple as that. If you want more applications when you hire hourly employees, then you need to make the process for applying as easy as possible.
These days, it is an absolute must for candidates to be able to apply online with their mobile phones. If you don’t have a mobile-friendly application form, creating one is the first step. After that, you can analyze where people usually drop out of completing the form. This data will help you to discover where the issues are and which sections you need to simplify.
6. Hire Online
If you’re still printing and reading applications the old-school way, you’re wasting precious time and money. It’s much faster and cheaper to use resume screening software to take care of that for you. You can upload the applications, and it will let you know who the most qualified applicants are, based on keywords.
It’s important for many hourly workers to be hired quickly. So, reduce your time to hire by digitizing your recruitment and screening processes.
7. Use Pre-Employment Assessments
One of the most effective ways of finding the best candidate for a role is through pre-employment testing. By assessing your shortlist of candidates on a chosen ability or skill, you can discover which candidates may perform best in the position.
Test candidates on skills that are crucial for the open role. For example, if the role is for a data analyst, you may want to test applicants on their numerical reasoning skills.
Cognitive assessments can be completed online, so they are easy to administer. The cost is offset by the ability of the test to help you make better hiring decisions.
8. Online Interviews
By interviewing candidates online, you can save yourself plenty of time. The scheduling of interviews can mean that you only have an hour here and there between other meetings when the panel can interview. Online interviews can often be easier to arrange, as you don’t need to allow for travel time for either the panel members or the candidate. This means you can knock out those interviews across a few days, not a few weeks.
9. Background Check
Background checks are often skipped over in favor of a shorter hiring process. However, it’s not a good idea to overlook them. When you are hiring a checkout cashier, for example, you don’t want someone with a record of theft. That’s why background checks are so important – they provide more objective information on the candidate.
10. HR Analytics
HR data can provide a lot of insight into the flaws in your recruitment process. Analyze this data to discover where your company’s weaknesses are. A high amount of turnover is normal in the retail industry. However, if you find the turnover levels are worryingly high, then you may have an issue. This could be in training, onboarding, or something else. Finding these weaker areas can allow you to fix the issues that have caused them.
By using these ten tips to find and hire hourly employees, you can save your company a lot of money and yourself a lot of time. Make your next hiring process much easier by using the above advice to streamline it and find better candidates.
