Companies around the globe are struggling to fill their ranks with workers. As workers, sensing their newfound bargaining power, leave lower-paying jobs to find more lucrative positions, it’s often retailers that feel the pinch of the labor shortage most acutely.
Tight Labor Market Leads to New Approaches
Some retail employers have seen the writing on the wall and have realized they need to fundamentally change their recruitment strategy if they want to have enough bodies to keep their operations running. An extreme example of this can be found in a large Australian liquor store chain.
“Dan Murphy’s, a liquor store chain with more than 250 outlets across Australia, has said anyone looking for a temporary role over the festive period will be given an on-the-spot 10-minute job interview if they take their resume into their local store,” says Chloe Taylor in an article for Fortune. Taylor writes that Dan Murphy’s is looking to hire 2,200 people “to fill positions over the Australian summer, with most roles offering a minimum of 20 hours per week and every new hire being eligible to receive ‘heaps of benefits.’”
Getting Creative with Recruitment
The new hiring push comes amid an extremely difficult labor market situation for Australian employers. “Australia is currently dealing with profound talent shortages amid its tightest labor market in decades, with the jobless rate hitting a 48-year low in July,” writes Taylor. “The phenomenon prompted the government last week to lift permanent immigration intake by more than 20%, meaning Australia will accept a record 195,000 immigrants in the current fiscal year.”
While most companies may not be able to adequately vet workers in a single 10-minute interview, Dan Murphy’s approach is worth noting because the chain recognizes that it cannot simply wait out the labor market shortage by continuing with the same hiring processes that may have worked in a fundamentally different labor market a few years ago.
Employers simply can’t expect to fill all their open positions in the current labor market if they are unwilling to adapt their hiring processes to fit the new reality.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.