4 Ways You Can Improve Retail Retention with Video Interviews

A Korn Ferry report revealed that U.S. retail locations saw a 65% worker turnover rate in 2016. Throw in an average cost of $3,300 for each employee in turnover cost, and the financial ramifications of attrition become significant. There are a number of causes for high retail attrition ranging from management problems to poor fit for the role.

A leading trend among Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Retail was that their employees enjoyed the job and felt like their work had an impact on the success of the organization. In short, happy and engaged employees will stay with a company while dissatisfied workers leave.

Talent acquisition can mitigate retention problems by surfacing and hiring engaged, enthusiastic employees before competitors. Here’s how OnDemand video interviews can get those great candidates in the door before the competition.

Surface for Skills and Aptitude

Video interviewing can expedite the screening process and improve its accuracy. Instead of questioning individual candidates over 20 to 30 minutes, recruiters can review dozens of candidate responses over the same time frame. They also allow recruiters to provide a set of structured questions to every applicant.

Retailers using video interviews experience compelling results: Urban Outfitters cut their hiring time by 80% while Under Armour managed to staff a retail store in two days. 

How Under Armour Staffed a Retail Store in Two Days

Structured video interview questions help recruiters screen for ideal skills and aptitudes instead of speculating about a candidate’s abilities based on a resume. These traits provide better insight into how candidates will interact with customers, coworkers, and managers. With OnDemand interviews, recruiters can:

• Assess engagement by asking how they would organize their time given a hypothetical task list.
• Gauge empathy and problem solving skills with a hypothetical question about how they would deal with an upset customer.
• Gauge their motivation by asking how they act when a store is both busy and idle.
• Assess their passion and enthusiasm by asking how they plan to make a difference in the company.

Screening for these talents and traits surfaces engaged and enthusiastic candidates who are more likely to enjoy their work and less likely to leave for other options.

Surface Great Leaders Instead of Good Managers

An oft-cited survey from 2015 revealed that 50% of workers leave a job because of conflicts with their bosses. Mitigate the effects of poor leadership by bringing great managers to a store. Find great retail managers with more than organizational and operational skills.

OnDemand interviews also help leadership by reducing the time they spend on the hiring process. Instead of interviewing and assessing candidates during store hours, they can review video interviews at any time, freeing up their schedule during business hours. They can reinvest this time into doing what they were hired for: mentorship, leadership, and store operations.

Surface managers with a knack for building teams, engagement, and morale. Hire them to sustain employee enthusiasm and loyalty.

• Assess their leadership abilities by asking what why they want a leadership position and what they enjoy about managing and leading teams.
• Assess their maturity and emotional intelligence through with hypotheticals of difficult employees or a customer complaints.
• Uncover their leadership style by asking about how they prioritize tasks and delegate responsibilities.
• Gauge how well they reflect your company values to ensure they will positively represent your brand.
• Find out how they interact with subordinates by asking about past leadership positions.

You can ask all these questions in an OnDemand video interview. While the questions are familiar, not all candidates get a chance to respond to each one. Asking these questions in a structured format, similar to frontline employees, provides this opportunity and surfaces great leaders instead of good managers.

Improve Your Candidate Experience

Video interviews lead to a better candidate experience. Out of 1.5 million candidates surveyed after their HireVue OnDemand interview, 80% said they enjoyed the experience and felt they had the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other applicants.

Not only does a positive experience improve how candidates rate the application, it raises the chances that candidates will refer people in their network. Candidates satisfied with the candidate experience were 38% more likely to accept a job offer and 82% of those with a great experience said they would refer others.

Great candidate experiences create a self sustaining pool of high quality, high retention applicants and employees that are likely to refer other quality talent when they eventually leave.

Empower Internal Mobility

In 2014, employees cited better career advancement opportunities as the number one perk that compelled them to switch employers. If your organization experiences high turnover, consider how video interviewing can improve internal mobility.

An invitation to take a video interview can be sent to every employee when a new position opens, whether the company employs 500 or 5,000 people. While a resume or productivity figures only partially convey an employee’s accomplishments, a video interview provides them the ability to demonstrate all of their successes.

Hire Great Employees, Lower Company Attrition

Video interviewing can help with many facets of the recruiting process, from building a better candidate experience to surfacing great candidates that might slip through the screening process. Recruiters using video interviews can find talent that will perform better, be more engaged and satisfied with their jobs, and be less likely to search for other employers.