Turnover is a perpetual problem in retail, with nearly every position needing to be filled at least once during the year. For fast-food restaurants, the challenge is even more daunting: the turnover rate is around 175 percent.

That forces managers who know more about marketing and preparing food to spend much of their precious time on hiring tasks. Technology, notably in the form of application kiosks or websites, was supposed to change all of this. But kiosks break, and many candidates for hourly positions don’t have reliable Internet access. The end result: managers fall back on paper applications, sorting through the volumes and deciding which candidates to interview, all while the fry buzzer is going off and a customer is asking for more ketchup.

“We needed a process that would streamline recruiting, reduce manager subjectivity and provide a consistent standard to identify and select candidates,” says Melissa Smith, director of people services with Church’s Chicken.

Atlanta-based Church’s partnered with JobApp Network, an automated hiring solution for hourly workers. Its testing of JobApp Network in 40 corporate-owned outlets in the spring resulted in a 63 percent reduction in turnover. The product has since been implemented in all 272 corporate-owned stores; two large Church’s franchisees have signed on to use the JobApp system.

Since many hourly workers seek jobs by walking into the location, JobApp places in-store dispensers that offer a pull-tab containing a branded phone number and web address. The dispensers take up about 1 sq. ft. in the store and require only occasional refilling – meaning considerably less space and attention than kiosks typically found in larger retailers.

“The industry really has moved away from hiring kiosks,” says Blake Helppie, CEO of Troy, Mich.-based JobApp Network. “We just install a sign and our patented JobApp dispenser on the wall. If applicants come in inquiring about a job, they pull a ticket from the dispenser. That can be done without the hiring manager being interrupted.”

Would-be employees apply over the phone or Internet in English or Spanish. The phone portal uses five different technologies, including interactive voice response, speech recognition and digit capture. It asks applicants to spell out their last names “because speech recognition alone isn’t going to work 100 percent on proper nouns,” Helppie says. “On the back end, it’s all converted to data. When somebody applies by phone, the data we capture is presented in the same PDF format as an Internet application.”

The phone function also helps to ensure a diverse workforce. An analysis of JobApp’s data found that 41 percent of minority applicants used the phone to apply, compared with 19 percent of whites. Church’s has found a significant number of applicants via phone.

At Erickson Oil, which operates 66 Freedom Valu Centers in the upper Midwest, the success has been mostly Internet-based.

“We wanted our applicants to be able to apply by phone and online because we didn’t know if they would have Internet access,” says Pat Zik, human resources coordinator for Erickson Oil. “We didn’t want to miss anybody. We have been surprised that the majority of our applicants have been coming in through the Internet. One of our district managers was skeptical at the beginning, but he’s now on board. He likes that he can even click on an icon to hear what an applicant sounds like, which can help in decision-making.”

Ranking applicants
Regardless of how the application is filed, matching software scores the applicant and ranks candidates based on how well they fit the criteria determined by the retailer. A hiring manager can see all the applications at once and determine which ones to interview based on the five-star scale.

“We’re asking if they’re willing to clean bathrooms, if they’re willing to work 365 days a year which is a true reflection of the job,” Zik says. “Instead of each manager explaining it to them when they come in for the interview, it is right there [in the application process].”

The ranking is based on pre-qualifying criteria, such as whether an applicant has the basic skills and can work the required hours. It also scores based on psychometric testing, which predicts whether his viewpoints on a series of questions about honesty and work ethic fit with what the company desires in its employees.

JobApp Network has a database of more than 3,000 position-specific questions that “can drill down into elements of success for that particular role,” Helppie says. “A lot of the challenge is that … the hiring manager often doesn’t have the time to really identify what the characteristics of a successful employee are. With Church’s, we developed position-specific questions for all their key positions. The matching works on all levels – location, wage expectations, skills and experience.”

JobApp Network’s scoring criteria also features mapping software that can prevent job seekers from completing the application process if they live beyond a pre-determined distance from the location – or route them to a location that is closer to them. “The product is great, but the customer support was stellar,” Smith says. “The desire to understand our business and customize the solution to fit our industry was key.”

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