Preparing for Surges in Retail Hiring with RPO
With the holiday season approaching, retailers nationwide will begin their large-scale seasonal hiring. In fact, Spirit Halloween started hiring in July to fill 40,000 seasonal associate positions. Is your organization one of the 38 percent of retailers struggling with labor shortages while faced with the daunting challenge of recruiting hundreds—if not thousands—of workers this fall? If so, it’s time to consider recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) as your solution.
By working with a proven RPO provider to deploy a custom-fit recruitment program, your business can benefit from a flexible solution designed to fill your open positions quickly and capitalize on the 74 percent of retail workers looking for a new job in 2023. Here are the most compelling reasons why retailers and other companies with seasonal hiring demands should leverage RPO to handle their recruiting needs and keep their businesses running smoothly.
Greater flexibility and scalability
Every business’s recruiting needs differ, so RPO programs are not designed to be one-size-fits-all. Whether your organization wants to hand over some—or all—of its hiring responsibilities to a third-party provider, this recruiting service enables companies to retain as much control over their talent acquisition process as they’d like. In seasonal retail businesses, it’s important to find a recruiting solution that can be scaled up or pared down at a moment’s notice, which makes RPO services so useful. Reap the benefits of this flexible solution to increase the size of your workforce before the start of the holiday season.
Creating a valued partnership
Upon aligning with the right fit RPO partner, a discussion should take place between both parties to strategize on your recruiting approach. What types of candidates are you searching for? What kinds of skill sets do these candidates need to do the job—and do it well? How will these resources help bring value to your business? By holding these conversations at the onset of the recruitment process, your RPO provider will help enhance your employer brand by implementing optimal strategies to attract talent. This valuable partnership will serve your organization well during the RPO program and beyond.
Lending support to internal TA teams
23 percent of retail workers are displeased by the length of time of the hiring process. If your talent acquisition (TA) resources have been reduced or you are struggling to keep pace with a high number of open requisitions, it’s time to call upon RPO recruiters for help. Your RPO team can gain access to a customized email address, allowing them to become an extension of your in-house team and a spokesperson for your company’s brand. This ensures candidates are consistently experiencing the strengths of your organization’s brand. RPO offers a proven way to lend support to your internal recruiters.
Increased candidate quality
By leveraging support from an RPO partner, your organization will benefit from greater candidate quality. Why? RPO programs use advanced sourcing and recruiting platforms to connect with a broader candidate pool. With help from RPO recruiters, your company can uncover even the hardest-to-find candidates that will help address your most pressing talent needs. Plus, with a suite of behavioral tests or skill-based assessments at their disposal, your RPO provider can examine candidates’ skills and abilities to determine their aptitude for the job.
Outsource specific roles
Does your organization need help hiring hundreds of retail associates? What about recruiting dozens of skilled e-commerce experts? Experienced web developers? Supply chain specialists? RPO providers can do it all. Before beginning a large-scale project, RPO recruiters take the time to get to know the role for which they’ll be recruiting and the local markets. They’ll learn industry-specific terms and lingo so they can “talk the talk” with prospective candidates. If your company wants to outsource one specific position, deploying a project-based RPO solution can effectively scale your workforce within an expedited recruiting timeline to meet your retail needs.
Summary
As the need for seasonal workers ramps up in the weeks ahead, don’t let your internal TA teams get overrun by these hiring demands. With the current economic uncertainty, it’s advantageous to have a recruiting partner that can provide the results you want, when you want. Engaging with a proven RPO provider presents a practical solution to quell your talent woes. Regardless of your need to hire frontline retail workers or bring on back-end e-commerce specialists, the right recruitment process outsourcing program can help you get the job done.
Interested in learning more about Broadleaf’s success with retail RPO? Check out this case study to discover how we hired over 10,000 hourly associates with a 10-day average time-to-fill.
And download our RPO E-Book for Retailers for a more in-depth look at recruitment process outsourcing for retail businesses.
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