BONUS: Five MORE Challenges Facing Retail Hiring Managers (And Solutions to Overcome Them)

We recently discussed the top 5 retail hiring challenges managers face to ensure they are adequately staffed as consumers shift back to in-person shopping experiences (if you missed them, you can check them out here).

And with the retail industry being one of the largest, it is no surprise that we are back with five additional challenges facing retail hiring managers right now. Since your recruitment strategies can impact your overall profitability, we’ve also included tips on how interviewstream can help you along the way! Check out our bonus 5 retail hiring challenges below:

1. Seasonal retail recruitment strategies
2. Local talent competition
3. Hiring for multiple locations
4. A balance between training and hiring
5. Hiring the best retail managers

Bonus five retail hiring challenges

1. Seasonal retail recruitment strategies

Retail staffing needs are volatile due to seasonal sales. While retailers can typically anticipate these seasonal rushes and estimate their staffing needs, altered consumer habits driven by the pandemic are now introducing uncertainty to an already challenging high-volume hiring process. To make things worse, retailers are often not equipped with the technology needed to screen and interview so many candidates.

But don’t fret! From video interviewing to automated interview scheduling tools, platforms like interviewstream can empower your recruiters and hiring teams to make the right hiring decisions while streamlining your screening and interviewing processes.

Tip: Use on-demand video interviews to screen candidates faster and automated interview scheduling to cut out the back-and-forth emails and phone calls that come with traditional interview scheduling.

2. Local talent competition

Retail stores are often in a close radius to one another, thus increasing the competition for local talent. Your candidates have a lot of options so it is imperative that you build your local talent pool and keep them engaged. Yes, you should continue to advertise your role openings using traditional channels like online job boards and in-store signage, but also go outside of the box and implement recruiting techniques that increase your reach within the community, such as text-to-apply applications and multi-language support for candidates who are applying online.

Tip: Differentiate yourself from competitors by using videos throughout your website and career page to highlight the perks of working for you (like the killer discounts your employees receive) and engage interested applicants by putting a real person in front of them.

3. Hiring for multiple locations

Retail stores often have multiple locations and can be owned by either corporate or franchises. When retailers are hiring for multiple locations without a centralized hiring process, they have a steep hill to climb as the candidate experience is often inconsistent. Once again, scalable remote interviewing tools like interviewstream give all retail locations access to the same technology, centralizing your recruiting and hiring while standardizing your candidate experience.

Tip: Centralizing your recruiting and hiring process across all locations can help you meet EEOC and OFCCP requirements and prevent employment discrimination lawsuits.

4. A balance between hiring and training

Training is challenging for retailers due to the constant turnover and need to rehire the workforce. The industry also has the added stress of training across state lines, countries, and time zones. So how can you tackle training? Simplify the training and onboarding process by recording training videos for your employees everywhere. These training videos keep the process structured and once your recordings have been made, leaves you with more time to focus on your retail hiring needs.

Tip: If you have multiple locations, spread the workload of creating training videos across all your locations –  giving each location the opportunity to contribute and decrease your preparation time even further.

5. Hiring the best retail managers

“People leave managers not companies.” Studies show that 50%  of people have left a job to get away from a bad manager, something that especially rings true in the retail industry. Having the best managers in place will create a strong team in turn, reducing employee turnover. And, in a perfect world, these rock star managerial candidates would be lined up at your door. But #reality, you need to go find them! So what’s the best way to find the best managers for your retail stores? Identify the best managerial candidates in your talent pool by asking the right interview question.

Tip: Use interview builders or interview guides to compile questions for your hiring team that assess specific managerial skills and score candidates against the same criteria, ensuring all your managers are hired because they are in fact the best candidates for the job.

Start tackling retail hiring challenges

Recruiting the right people for the retail industry can be challenging. Some challenges can be overcome easily, however others need a bit more planning and time. If you leverage the latest innovations and technology (like interviewstream), you can recruit ideal team players much easier and faster.

Let us help you up your retail recruitment game! Set up a time to talk to an expert today and learn how implementing interviewstream technology can help you get the best retail employees in your door and keep them there.  After all, shopping is always a good idea, so let’s make sure your customers have the best experience possible!

About The Author

Meghan Peterson is the VP of Revenue at interviewstream. She combines her experience in sales, recruiting, and tech to support customers of all sizes in her role. If you’d like to pick her brain about her advice here or simply start a conversation, feel free to give Meg a shout at mpeterson@interviewstream.com.