Hiring managers perform a critical role in any business. You make sure operations run smoothly and work to maximize profitability. You respond to customer questions and complaints. You train employees and motivate your teams to meet sales targets. You handle scheduling, budgets, and administration. You are the link between head office and the frontline operations of the company.
And, of course, you hire employees.
Hiring vs. Core Operations
It’s a cliche to say that people are an organization’s greatest asset. But hiring managers in hourly industries know the truth of this— a great employee can win you sales, lift your team, and contribute value to the business. But hiring managers also know how quickly a bad employee can tank a business. Hiring is risky: make bad decisions and you run the risk of alienating customers, dealing with employee theft, and managing poor morale. Each of these factors can, in turn, contribute to a high turnover rate.
Getting hiring right is important. But so are all the other parts of your role. In our recent Hiring 2020 report, we learned that hiring managers are losing large amounts of time to hiring. This keeps them from core operations and the activities that help drive value and grow sales.
In our survey, almost a third of hiring managers told us that they spent 10 or more hours filling a vacancy. The average amount of time dedicated to hiring was 7 hours per vacancy. This means a workday or more lost every time a position needs to be filled.
We wanted to know:
- What are the roadblocks that stop hiring managers from getting out of the hiring cycle and back to business?
- And how can you get past them?
Three Hiring Roadblocks
1. The resume pile
You place a job ad on Indeed for a server. How many resumes have landed in your inbox within the first hour? The first day? The first week? Most hiring managers in restaurants, retail, hospitality and other hourly industries will have experience of the avalanche of applications that follow any job posting.
In our Hiring 2020 survey:
- Two-fifths of hiring managers reported screening fifty or more resumes per role
- One in four managers told us they had to work through more than 75 resumes per job posting
High volumes of resumes mean many hours spent screening, reviewing, and shortlisting candidates.
You may think a large candidate pool means you have more chances to find the right person for the role. But candidate quality is just as important as quantity. And in our survey, one in three managers told us that less than 20% of the applications they received were from qualified candidates. That means 80% of the time managers spent trawling through those resumes could have been better spent on core operations.
2. The lag time
Hiring managers know that the hiring process takes time. Candidate screening, interviews, job offers… Every stage adds time between the point where you have a vacancy and when you have a new employee in place.
But for too many managers, the lag time between vacancy and start date is dragging on too long.
We asked our survey participants about two specific bottlenecks in the hiring process: time to start interviewing and time between an offer and a new hire starting work.
- 74% of hiring managers said it took 5 or more days to start interviewing
- 17% reported taking more than 15 days to begin interviewing
- 31% of managers told us it took more than a week for a new hire to start work
These delays can drain managers’ time and negatively affect the business. While a vacancy remains unfilled, you’re not only dedicating your time to the hiring process—but also managing the consequences of running short-staffed, whether that’s scheduling issues or reduced morale among your current workforce. Moreover, slow recruitment can lead to qualified candidates dropping out of the process meaning you’re less likely to end up with top talent on your team.
3. The poorly-performing team
With a lack of qualified applicants and slow hiring times, it’s perhaps not surprising that many hiring managers told us that they don’t have 100% of their workforce meeting expectations.
What is shocking is the scale of the issue:
- 45% of the managers we surveyed told us a quarter or more of their workforce wasn’t meeting their standards
- 22% of managers told us that more than half of their employees weren’t up to scratch
Managing a poorly performing team means that time and energy losses extend well past the point you’ve made a hire. Now, you have to manage the fallout of low performance, deal with morale issues, and limit the impact bad hires can have on the business. You’re in firefighting mode—not focusing on growing the business.
What’s more, research from CPHR has found that the presence of low performers can cause high performers—your star employees—to look for work elsewhere. This puts you back in the hiring cycle, and another step further away from getting down to business.
How to improve your hiring process
The roadblocks that stand between you and an efficient hiring process are losing you time and sales. At Mindfield, we work with hiring managers to take the guesswork, the uncertainty, and the poor results out of the hiring process—while saving you time.
With more than 4 million job seekers in our database, Mindfield knows the Canadian hourly employee market better than anyone else. Our jobseekers are pre-screened: meaning no more time wasted on resumes that don’t match the role.
With our Hiring Manager Portal you have access to easy-to-use, world-class technology, offering you a streamlined recruitment process and less lag-time when filling vacancies. Our solution makes it easier to find great employees, reduce turnover, and to get back to the tasks that drive revenue and improve your business.
Ready for an easier way to hire?
If you’re ready to stop running into hiring roadblocks, sign up for your free Hiring Manager Portal job account today.