Retail recruitment is a tricky phenomenon. Its fast-paced nature and need for customer service expertise means that only special professionals who can handle this kind of work environment will thrive in retail positions. Businesses in this industry should recognize these 5 retail recruitment challenges and implement solutions to keep these issues controlled. Let’s dive in!
1. High Turnover Rates
High turnover rates are one of the inevitable retail staffing issues because of the many variables that contribute to low employee satisfaction. Low wages and lack of career development initiatives within a company can place an emotional and financial strain on retail employees, causing workers to seek better employment opportunities.
Solution
Strong employee retention programs can increase employee satisfaction and overall loyalty to the business to have a longer tenure. Regular performance reviews that can increase employee wages and offer career development opportunities with internal promotions can engage employees to stay with the company for longer.
Fun Fact: Companies with high employee engagement can experience 43% less turnover. Implementing such solutions not only keeps turnover low but continues to maintain a higher employee engagement. Improving retail employee retention is essential for reduced recruitment costs and increased operational efficiency.
2. Difficulty In Reaching Candidates
Not as many candidates want to engage with recruiters via email or phone calls. Younger job seekers now prefer texting to correspond with jobs over these other two communication channels. Prioritizing texting solutions can help recruiters connect with candidates faster and more efficiently since more individuals check their text messages than their emails.
Solution
Choosing a retail recruitment solution is important for reaching candidates through better communication channels. This same solution should also enhance candidate sourcing channels that can diversify the company’s applicant pool. Businesses can reach more candidates through various channels like social media platforms, online job boards, and specialized job boards depending on their industry.
3. Finding Qualified Candidates
Supply and demand for qualified candidates in the recruitment industry can be imbalanced. The demand usually exceeds the supply, which can lead to challenges in finding the most talented professionals. Retail positions require specific skills such as customer service expertise, inventory management, and proficiency with point-of-sale (POS) systems. The solution lies in AI-driven keyword searches within recruitment technology.
Solution
Retail recruitment challenges like finding qualified candidates can be quelled with recruitment technology. Resume parsing and keyword-driven searches on applications can help to pinpoint the most qualified candidates no matter what retail position you are hiring for.
Partnering with training programs that offer in-house skill development opportunities is another solution to this problem. Finding one that can teach transferable skills is an added plus for building a pipeline of qualified candidates. Job descriptions should clearly outline essential qualifications and expectations to attract the right candidates from the get-go.
4. Scheduling and Interview Coordination
The fast-paced nature of the retail industry combined with the discrepancies in finding a time that works for both candidates and recruiters can make scheduling and interview coordination one of the biggest retail recruitment challenges. Whether your company does in-person interviews, remote ones, or a combination of both, there’s a way to make this part of hiring procedures go quicker.
Solution
Automated scheduling tools streamline hiring while reducing administrative burden on the recruitment team. Candidates can select from pre-determined time slots that work for the recruitment team to reduce the back-and-forth communications involved with traditional interview scheduling methods. Plus, the scheduling tool link can be easily sent via text message from the recruiter’s ATS to the candidate’s smartphone.
5. Seasonal Hiring Peaks
Retailers experience the highest seasonal hiring peaks primarily around the holidays at the end of the year. Grocers sell more food to accommodate holiday dinners. Department stores and online merchants sell more inventory as clients are purchasing gifts to exchange with family and friends. Hence, there is an increased need for temporary staff whereas hiring needs to be quick and efficient.
Solution
Planning by building an applicant pool with evergreen job postings throughout the year is one way to combat these retail recruitment challenges. If needed, you can enlist the help of a staffing agency should your applicant pooling methods need improvement.
