Recruitment Resource

High rates of unemployment would seem a bright spot for retailers seeking to hire. Finding outstanding candidates should be easy in this environment, right?

Not necessarily, says Blake Helppie, CEO of JobApp Network, a Troy, Mich.-based firm that helps companies screen and source prospective employees.

Since the economy has created more applicants for each position, it’s become akin to the old problem of finding a needle in a haystack, only “the haystack got bigger and the needle is the same size,” Helppie says. JobApp helps make that larger haystack more manageable through a series of services that range from branded toll-free numbers and websites for applicants to contact to I-9 compliance, background checks and onboarding techniques.

TravelCenters of America (TA), a 165-unit multi-service center with locations in 41 states, uses JobApp to help staff its fueling stations, quick-serve restaurants and other traveler services. “Overnight, we had more applicants than we typically thought we had,” says Tom Maren, director of recruiting for the Westlake, Ohio-based company. “Maybe in the past they came in to the counter to get an application and it was, ‘We don’t have one here. Can you wait?’ Or they came in and applied and it was placed in a drawer so [corporate] never saw it.”

Now when applicants walk through the doors, they are directed to apply via a toll-free number or a branded website. “The beauty of all this is that we can have these evergreen postings out there,” Maren says. “At any given time, even if you don’t have an opening, you’re still accepting applicants.”

That can be critical — especially in the hourly world where the “best” candidate is often the one who shows up immediately after someone quits.

“We were not able to track our candidates,” says Michelle Holmes, director of human resources for DTLR, a 70-store urban apparel and music retailer based in Hanover, Md. “We didn’t know the volume of good or bad candidates. We really had no control over how we were selecting the people we were hiring.”

Finding the right fit
Because TA’s services range from quick-serve restaurants to heavy truck maintenance shops, all operating 24/7, it had many pressing hiring needs. Campuses of 2 to 30 acres, generally located on the outskirts of urban areas, compound the challenges. Its hourly turnover rates hovered around 140 percent.

“There had to be a way to find the right fit—individuals who could come in and like our culture and reduce the revolving door,” Maren says.

Contracting with JobApp helped TA expand its hiring pool and create dramatic improvements in onboarding. The company conducts background checks on every cash-handling employee, a process that previously required that data be input manually. Now the candidate inputs that information directly, and the hiring manager merely needs to initiate the background check. “The response I’ve gotten from the field is that it’s so much easier,” Maren says. “The manager only has to add a few pieces of information.”

JobApp’s SaaS solution also integrates with PeopleSoft to streamline human resources and payroll processes and eliminate the need for duplicate data entry.

Not only has the process improved for TA managers, it has also brought in employees who are a better fit. In a test at about 20 percent of its locations, TA found that JobApp helped reduce the number of hires who left within the first 21 days by 40 percent. Overall, the turnover rate declined 14 percent, Maren says.

The online application process helps candidates see what the job entails and rates candidates on a system of one to five stars; hiring managers can focus only on those candidates that test at the higher end of the spectrum. “They don’t have to talk to everybody,” Maren says. “We’re focused on a better fit and we’re hiring better.”

DTLR reports similar results. A candidate that rates one or two stars “clearly doesn’t match the position,” Holmes says. “We look at people who clearly are five- or four-star matches. It helps us weed through the candidates from the very beginning.”

DTLR estimates that its human resources and payroll savings equate to an annualized 400 percent return on investment. Over the first nine months of using JobApp, turnover among sales associates dropped 41 percent. The company used a control group of new hires to factor out general labor market developments, and was able to directly attribute at least half of that improvement to the use of JobApp.

Expansion made easy
JobApp has expanded its service offerings to include I-9 and E-Verify compliance and various onboarding and payroll functions with the goal of reducing inefficiencies throughout the hiring process and improving outcomes.

“A scenario that I find very gratifying is when we’re able to help a company grow significantly while reducing administrative costs,” Helppie says. He cites Mastoran, a large Burger King franchisee in New England. Prior to contracting with JobApp, Mastoran had all of its hiring functions on paper. With JobApp, it added online and telephone job applications and began to conduct background checks on all of its employees. It also added integrated employee tax credit prescreening and processing, onboarding (including electronic I-9s and E-Verify) and payroll integration.

In the past year, JobApp began offering electronic forms management with a federally compliant electronic signature process to eliminate paper-based new-hire packages and their inherent inefficiencies. “Being able to take these new-hire forms and manage them in an entirely electronic fashion with electronic signatures has been a huge draw for many of our clients,” Helppie says.
JobApp’s next area of focus is performance management, where it hopes to help clients “identify the top performers in the hourly workforce,” he says. “That’s where companies predominantly recruit line managers.”