Onboarding Holiday Help? Don't Cut Corners
By Matt Pillar, chief editor
Earlier this month, I shared a few tips for hiring holiday help in a shallow labor pool marked by low unemployment and a growing population of able-bodied Americans who simply don’t want to work.
It’s crunch time for retailers to bulk up on seasonal staff, and with a limited labor market, many risk onboarding warm bodies at best, and bad actors at worst.
The holiday rush might make it tempting to skip important steps in the store associate vetting process. But, foregoing candidate screening and background checks is a risky idea and a completely avoidable mistake.
It’s a bad idea because uncommitted seasonal associates are often the most likely to pilfer cash and inventory from their temporary employers. The industry’s shrink rate is perennially higher in the fourth quarter than at any other time of the year, and that’s a result of more people—customers and associates alike—in retail stores. Terrence Shulman, JD, LMSW, ACSW, CAAC, CPC, framed it well in a blog post on hayesinternational.com last year. “The holiday season is supposed to be the most wonderful time of year,” he wrote, “but, for various reasons, statistics show that retail crime rates increase by 30%.” Temporary staffers are one of those various reasons. They know they’re entering an engagement with few string attached and a definitive end date, so their loyalty to your brand and its success is questionable at best.
Cutting corners on the vetting process is an avoidable mistake because modern solutions make employee screening a fast, seamless, and cost-effective exercise.
As a case in point, last month the Loss Prevention Foundation announced a new doctorate-level scholarship partner agreement with TalentWise, which is just such a modern solution provider. TalentWise systemically automates how employers screen and onboard new hires via a secure, cloud-based platform that accommodates compliance, industry standards and corporate policies. The company is exemplary of a new breed of third party providers that automate crucial hiring tasks to help employers achieve greater efficiency and compliance. And there’s no better time to achieve onboarding efficiency than the fourth quarter.
The partnership between the LPF and TalentWise will make numerous certification course scholarships available for distribution to retailers, universities and internal associates, and it’s telling of the growing importance of the onboarding process to the retail LP professional community.
Employee screening is an incredibly important topic due to the very seasonality of retail work. As the security experts at Pinkerton recently wrote. “The temporary nature, and relatively lower compensation compared to full-time positions, fuels some of these employees’ belief that ‘taking this one thing won’t really matter and, I’m gone in a few weeks anyway.’” Pinkerton reports that in employee screening interviews, it’s had workers admit to this mindset. It’s especially prevalent during the holiday season, they say, as these workers are also laying out a lot of money for gifts; picking one up for free, even if illegal, eases their financial burden. When it comes to hiring help for the holidays, it’s no time to scrimp on screening.