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Five Recruiting and Onboarding Ideas to Win Retail Talent

HR expert reviewing candidates

Five Recruiting and Onboarding Ideas to Win Retail Talent

Oracle logo

Five Recruiting and Onboarding Ideas to Win Retail Talent

Leading retail talent can be tough—the industry is in flux during a tight labor market. But with the right approach, you can make competitors play defense while you're building winning teams.

90%
Decrease in the national surplus of people with retail skills.1

HIRING IS HARDER AS RETAIL MAKES A COMEBACK

Analysis from LinkedIn shows employer demand for retail workers is on the rise.2 This makes hiring more difficult, especially in areas like New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle that have a shortage of retail workers.

Top 10 hardest jobs to fill

Top 10 Hardest Jobs to Fill

Retail salespeople have ranked in the top ten hardest jobs to fill for the last 11 years.
24% of candidates are students

24% of Retail Candidates Are Students

24% of retail candidates are students and a third are between 18 and 24 years old.
Increased competition

Increased Competition with Gig Employers

Retailers are increasingly competing with gig employers such as Uber and Lyft.
Important motivator

The Most Important Motivator

The type of work they do is the most important motivator for retail workers.3

Technology is a powerful ally as you compete for the best talent in your stores, warehouses, and corporate offices. Are you prepared to compete?

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5 Hiring Tips

HERE ARE THOSE TIPS WE PROMISED.

HERE ARE THOSE TIPS WE PROMISED.

1
Learn to Use AI
1

LEARN HOW TO USE AI

Imagine if you could...

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Use chatbot messaging to make applying for a job easier for tech-savvy candidates
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Get recommendations on best-fit candidates
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Know who has the highest likelihood to succeed
quote
“If I asked our head of HR, “Would you like an AI application?” I’m not sure what she’d say. But if I told her that I could help her do a better job of recruiting the 2,000 college kids, by knowing things like whether their GPA would do a better job predicting their future success, or the school they went to or their major or any of these hundreds and hundreds of correlations… she’s going to buy that every single day. ” —Mark Hurd, CEO, Oracle
2
Candidate on smartphone
2

ACT LIKE A MARKETER

67%
Of recruiters said they need to understand marketing to be successful.4

Savvy recruiters can build omnichannel sourcing campaigns and leverage CRM technology to build candidate relationships. With the latest recruiting cloud platforms, you can meet candidates where they are on their channel of choice and drive proactive engagement with internal and external audiences to build your talent pipeline.

Build Recruitment Campaigns Like a Marketer:

 
3

GET SMART ABOUT ONBOARDING

GET SMART ABOUT ONBOARDING

Engage associates with the training and peer support they need to succeed at the onset. The latest technologies enable intelligent, mobile onboarding experiences personalized to each employee—unlike anything your employees have experienced.

Word of mouth is a critical hiring tool; if your current employees don’t succeed, it will be harder to recruit their friends.

91% retention with engaging onboarding programs
91%
Retention of employees in the first year with engaging onboarding programs6

Guided steps
Provide guided steps to complete the onboarding process

Preboarding
Consider preboarding

Offer networking
Offer opportunities to socialize and network

 
4
Women shopping
4

CONSIDER SCHEDULING

Recent research by Harvard Business Review found that providing workers with stable scheduling improved both sales and productivity. At the same time, retail employees value flexibility and the ability to juggle other commitments such as school. Promoting a balance of stability with flexibility can help you compete for hard-to-find talent.

Scheduling
Stores that had more stable scheduling saw a
Productivity boost from stable schedules
5%
increase in productivity.7
5
Retails workers in store
5

MOVE FASTER THAN YOUR COMPETITORS

​Mobile and social recruiting are imperative in retail—where applicants are more likely to be part of a younger generation. But how do you utilize these technologies faster than your competitors, with an employee value proposition that really resonates?

Focus on:

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Stronger communication​
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Cloud automation to fill positions faster
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Continuous improvement using analytics
Clock 1 Clock 2 Clock 3 Clock 4 Clock5
-20%
Person working in store

Executing Your Retail Talent Strategy

As you consider these new ideas for your talent strategy, think about how they fit with your business plans and goals. Then identify the capabilities you need for HR to produce results. With the right talent and culture together, your retail business will be poised for success.

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  1. ​ LinkedIn Economic Graph, Workforce Report, September 2018, https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/resources/linkedin-workforce-report-september-2018
  2. Inc. (via Monster), 67 Percent of Recruiters Say It's Harder Than Ever to Find Talent. Here's How to Beat the Odds, 2018
  3. Inside the Heads of Job Seekers: US Retail Candidate Preferences, September 2017
  4. Human Resources Today, Must Read Articles to Envigorate Your Onboarding Experience, 2018, http://www.humanresourcestoday.com/2018/onboarding/?open-article-id=8855796&article-title=must-read-artic les-to-reinvigorate-your-onboarding-experience&blog-domain=clearcompany.com&blog-title=clearcompany-hrm
  5. Harvard Business Review, Research: When Retail Workers Have Stable Schedules, Sales and Productivity Go Up, March 2018
  6. http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/steven.davis/pdf/2018-06-DHI-Hiring-Indicators-Report-FINAL-1.pdf
  7. https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Jobvite_2017_Recruiting_Funnel_Benchmark_Report.pdf
  8. https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2017/06/retail-trends.pdf
  9. Oracle, HCM Benchmark Report, September 2018