Across nearly every industry, the holiday season presents hurdles to overcome and openings for innovation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently detailed a notable surge in retail employment, but the total number of jobs is still an estimated 202,000 lower than the February 2020 figure. Despite this, business executives echo a renewed sense of trust, as the number of leaders reporting a lack of confidence in HR dropped from 26% in 2019 to 12% in 2020 per Deloitte.
As we continue to work through current and emerging challenges — such as the historically tight labor market — it’s crucial to be prepared when approaching this exceptional time of the year. Manual, inefficient recruitment and talent management put a damper on business operations, trapping employers in an avalanche of tedious tasks and disorganization while prohibiting them from focusing on their customers. Fortunately, the right HR tech helps pull organizations out from under the chaos of antiquated processes.
But what tools are best suited to help you navigate the peak season?
Tracking talent
Even in the realm of temporary work, the importance of the candidate experience is higher than ever. Yet CareerArc found that 60% of potential employees encountered a negative recruiting process. An easy-to-use, versatile applicant tracking system helps ensure common pitfalls, like lost applications and overlooked correspondence, don’t keep you from securing the assistance your business needs. In tandem with this, the right software allows you to prioritize your most valuable prospects and quickly generate and send job offer letters without sacrificing important details or efficiency.
Verifying the right fit
Simply filling an open position isn’t enough to ensure smooth operations. In fact, 37% of employers suggest they’ve endured lower productivity among the side effects of a bad hire. But how do you reconcile an urgent need with the time it takes to thoroughly vet a new team member?
With an effective screening tool at your disposal, you don’t have to sacrifice diligence for speed or expose your business to preventable compliance risks. The right HR software helps facilitate searches across federal and local criminal databases, including the sex offender registry, while verifying a candidate’s education, work history and drug testing results efficiently and comprehensively.
The best option should help deliver speed, convenience and compliance seamlessly through a single software so you’re not wasting time bounding between different platforms with unique logins. For example, when one company implemented Paycom, they were able to reduce the time it took to hire a new employee from a full workweek to “less than one day” while boosting their overall peace of mind. In the world of retail, this kind of velocity may not just be an advantage, but vital to your seasonal success.
Ensuring a great start
When your onboarding process is supported by the same HR software your entire business uses, you’re able to better weave a candidate into your workforce.
“Organizations only get one opportunity to make a first impression,” said Justin Cameron, Paycom manager of background checks, in a recent interview. “If the process is not easy and efficient and they don’t have confidence in the process, good candidates will be lost and the culture of the organization is going to suffer. Recruiting and HR are your first-line defense.”
Digital onboarding empowers new hires to complete routine tasks anywhere, anytime without requiring HR to walk them through each step. Likewise, it enables your newest employees to enroll in benefits and execute essential documentation early, which in turn helps you address the urgent requirements of this fast-paced season.
“We’re definitely seeing a shift to a more cohesive or single-platform approach, ensuring that HR technology works seamlessly from recruiting, evaluation and screening through onboarding and then the life cycle of the employee. The efficiencies gained with that are tremendous,” Cameron said.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided herein does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional legal, tax, accounting or other professional advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation and for your particular state(s) of operation.