Hiring hourly employees — for retail, travel and hospitality, hospitals, restaurants, and warehouses — is more critical now than ever before.
So why don’t we make the hiring process easier? And why don’t we treat those on the front lines better?
We’ve been counting on our frontline staff members, many of them hourly employees, for nine months now. And we’re about to start rebuilding workforces. So soon, there’s likely going to be a tidal wave of organizations hiring hourly employees.
So as your company tries to beat the competition and attract the best talent, and as you work to improve your employer brand, there are two words you need to think about seriously: candidate experience. This means this week’s podcast is just for you!
Because this week on #WorkTrends, we’re taking a deep dive into the best way to provide a super candidate experience for hourly employees.
Our Guest: Quincy Valencia of Alexander Mann Solutions
With the inevitable hiring surge soon to begin, I’m thrilled to be joined by Quincy Valencia, Vice President – Product Innovation, at Alexander Mann Solutions. Having worn many hats throughout her 20-year career, Quincy has firsthand knowledge of the challenges faced by candidates, recruiters, hiring managers, leaders, and vendors. In her current role, she leverages her passion for challenging the status quo as she designs new products that bolster AMS’s leadership position in the global recruitment industry. So who better to talk about something we don’t talk about enough: The challenges ahead of HR, recruiters, and hiring managers responsible for hiring hourly employees?
My first question for Quincy was simple: “Why do so many organizations leave hourly employees out of the candidate experience equation?” Her answer was both nostalgic and a reminder of far we need still need to go when hiring the best hourly candidates:
“It’s a vestige of old. Going back to the 90s, you had a personnel department. Everybody had the same process: People would come in, fill out the application, and you would hire. Later in that decade, technology came in, and we designed new procedures around old processes. Through the decades that followed, we’ve continued to promote the same old processes developed and designed for your salaried professionals — and not hourly employees.”
“Hourly workers have been looked at as more of a commodity — they kind of come and they kind of go. Turnover is higher. This work is not meant to be your forever job, and so that’s been okay.”
Improving Candidate Experience When Hiring Hourly Employees
After saying I firmly believe we should treat every employee as a valued member of a team — as humans — I asked Quincy why candidate experience is so vital now. Her answer was heartwarming: “Look, it is 2020. We’ve learned a lot about who really supports our businesses. And we know those people want us to treat them with the integrity, dignity, and respect they deserve. These are the people on the front lines of our economy. They are often the face of the businesses we all frequent. That should translate into your candidate experience, now so more than ever.”
Quincy added: “As our organizations are trying to grow and rebuild and survive this global pandemic, there’s a renewed focus on how we are competing for this talent. We’re having to really focus on the needs of the candidate. Fortunately, I’m seeing employers give this issue the due consideration it’s been deserving for a long time.”
So how do we improve the candidate experience? As anticipated, Quincy was ready with some real solutions to our very real challenges. “Number one is speed. Go through your application process. See how long it takes, how many broken links there are, and how many steps and clicks it takes. In a lot of cases, you’re going to be frustrated.”
Quincy continued: “Number two (or maybe 1A) is mobile. Applicants must be able to apply from anywhere. A lot of people don’t even have laptops or desktops anymore. So close to 70% of all job searches, certainly within the hourly category, begin on a mobile device. And then, number 3 is communication. Make sure you are not letting candidates go into that black hole of ‘I applied, and I’m never going to hear from you again.’”
Candidate Experience 101
Sure, some of this sounds simple enough. But how many of us are actually walking through our own application process? How many of us know how well we treat our candidates, including hourly employees? Quincy and AMS have certainly invested the time and energy necessary to understand their candidate experience — as we all should!
Listen in, and learn exactly what AMS is doing to attract, train, and retain top talent in the hourly category — and what a seamless hiring journey looks like as we approach 2021 and, finally, the end of the pandemic.
I’m grateful Quincy Valencia had the chance to stop by #WorkTrends this week and bring our front line employees front and center. I, and the TalentCulture team, thank Hourly by AMS for sponsoring this episode.
Find Quincy on LinkedIn and Hourly by AMS on Twitter.
A Special Offer: The Hourly Hiring Guidebook
It’s time to treat hourly employees with the dignity and respect they deserve. So, we’ve partnered with Hourly by AMS to redefine how great the hiring journey can (and should) be for your hourly job seekers.
Download your copy of The Hourly Hiring Guidebook: Defining a New Standard for Candidate Experience today.
And start providing a better candidate experience tomorrow!
Editor’s note: We’ve updated our FAQ page and #WorkTrends Podcast pages. Take a look!
