Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER March 7, 2016 NEWS 3 SIMPLE > pg. 17 Lessons to be learned in mass recruitment Looking to hire 6,000, Home Depot shows challenges, best practices of seasonal hires BY LIZ BERNIER HOME DEPOT will be hiring nearly 6,000 sales associates in Canada for the spring season — including full-time, part-time and seasonal positions. It's a huge undertaking for HR, and it's certainly not without its challenges, according to Alicia Gilmore, manager of talent plan- ning and acquisition at Home De- pot in Toronto. "We do have a centralized re- cruitment model so we recruit for 182 stores but from one location. So a lot of the energy is placed where that's concerned," she said. "Every year, we forecast what our sales numbers are going to look like for our spring season, and we work with a recruitment plan to make sure that we have the number of associates that we need to have in our stores." It takes an army of recruiters all working in tandem and mak- ing optimum use of all the tools in their arsenal — both old and new, said Gilmore. "From a recruitment perspec- tive, it's a lot of planning online, so partnering with job boards, mak- ing sure that we have a presence on the different aggregators (such as) Indeed, Simply Hired, Google," she said, adding other partners of- ten include Monster, Workopolis or Facebook. "We're trying to make sure that we get that presence, ultimately, to get the candidates online to apply." Home Depot also has hiring events across the country, often at the same time and on the same day, she said. is way, it's driving candidates into the stores, and then they can set up interviews with the store leaders at the same time. "We find it absolutely helpful when you're doing seasonal hir- ing to have career events because you can have interview events," said Gilmore. "We can do the screening and then sometimes, depending on the volume, have a setup where we have interview rooms," she said, adding it's basically one-stop shopping. "We can get through a lot of the process at the career event." e retailer also tries to high- light its employee referral pro- gram, said Gilmore. "So we do have the referral events as well before (the job fairs), trying to encourage our as- sociates to refer friends or family that they would like to work for the Home Depot, so we give them that chance as well." ere are recruiters who are responsible for recruiting for each district — with about 10 to 12 Home Depot stores per recruiter. "And they're provided with additional support during those times. So they may have a sea- sonal worker there who is helping them with booking interviews and scheduling interviews," said Gilmore. "So we do ramp up a bit in terms of our staff." ey also work with partners such as Monster and Workopolis, she said. "They will help to promote some of our current events or they will also help to promote that the Home Depot is hiring," she said. "We use social media to create awareness and to try to drive traf- fic to our career sites." Because it happens every year, human resources has the whole routine down to a science, said Gilmore. "We adjust our staffing levels to adjust for wherever we're going to peak," she said, adding that the company moves staff and resourc- es around to where it requires the most help at different points dur- ing the process. And Home Depot has an over- arching focus on excellent cus- tomer service, so that key value is built into the phone screens and pre-screening before a candidate even comes in for an interview, said Gilmore. ere are also as- sessments on the value through- out the application process. And a training program com- bines product knowledge training and job shadowing. "We build those outwards into the onboarding process, so we've factored that into our staffing timelines," she said. Lessons for large-scale recruitment ere are a number of best prac- tices HR professionals can take away from Home Depot when it comes to seasonal recruitment, according to Dianne Hunnam- Jones, district president at Robert Half in Toronto. For one, it's important to re- member to evaluate the organiza- tion's needs, not just hire bodies, she said. "Fill the need, not the desk. What happens so often in sea- sonal hiring is you think you need to fill that spot. But really look at what skills are required for that job." e next step is to thoroughly create the job description. "What are you looking to ac- complish? What do those people need? And what are the skill levels required?" she said. If that job description is fleshed out properly, each new hire knows what she is coming in to do and exactly what's expected of her. "It's amazing to me that when

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