Retailers learn to trust web-based hiring systems, sometimes the hard way

When a grocery store manager decided to override his chain’s web-based hiring management system to hire a job candidate flagged as potentially dishonest, he learned to trust the system. The employee stole $400 in merchandise, Katherine Jones, author of a recent Aberdeen Group study on automated hourly workforce management systems, tells InternetRetailer.com.

“Retailers in general are seeing the value in these systems and learning to trust them,” says Jones, managing director of Aberdeen’s human capital management practice.

The dishonest job candidate, when filling out a web-based application at an in-store kiosk, answered test questions in a way that indicated she had a tendency to disregard company property and possibly steal. But the store manager chose to override the system’s recommendation against hiring the candidate because of her experience in having worked at a nearby, competing supermarket. “The store manager figured the candidate would bring along loyal customers from the other store,” Jones says.

The chain’s HR manager, who had accessed the same online application from headquarters, resisted the hiring based on the system’s recommendation, Jones says. But when the store manager persisted, the HR manager offered a compromise to minimize the risk of hiring the applicant by offering her a position in the deli section, but not at a cash register. “So they put her in the deli section where she stole $400 worth of food,” Jones says.

The study, “Managing the Hourly Workforce,” which was released last week, is based on an online survey Jones conducted in association with the Human Capital Institute, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. More than 220 companies participated in the study, including retailers, restaurants and travel organizations.

Responses from other retailers indicated that store managers were also surprised at the level of convenience provided by the web-based hiring systems. For example, she adds, one store manager, after reviewing on his office computer an application as it was being entered in real-time at an in-store kiosk, decided to immediately interview the applicant.

“We’re seeing over and over examples that collectively are showing the value of these kinds of hiring systems in the retail environment,” Jones says.