GardaWorld was looking for a way to help humanize and instill dignity into their high volume hiring process.

As one of the top security companies in the world, GardaWorld hires a lot of hourly employees. Hiring in this world can feel highly transactional and can leave candidates feeling like a number. When it was time to revisit their volume hiring process, GardaWorld wanted to create a process unlike any others in the industry.

Their goal was to create an experience that allowed their candidates to feel like part of the family from the get-go. No matter what, they aim to create a process that makes getting from application to paycheck easier than ever.

“Garda has a limited pool of candidates to hire from, so experience matters. Even if a candidate isn’t hired now, they could be a great hire in the future. And they’ll remember how you treated them.”

– Scott Foster

 

The Set-Up

As GardaWorld aims to cultivate their talent pool, they wanted to create a process that made it easy to funnel in new candidates and stay in touch with older ones. They had their eyes set on finding a way to ensure every applicant had a positive experience.

Their goal was to create a process focused on building and maintaining relationships with their candidates, and they kept their eyes on a few metrics to do this.

 

Speed to Post

The time from applying to a role, to starting at your assigned post. The goal was to get this stat below two weeks.

 

90 Day Losses

They wanted to create a process that engages candidates long term, to reduce turnover in the first 90 days.

 

Overall Attrition

GardaWorld seeks to design a process where every team member is so valued they couldn’t fathom leaving.

The idea was to create a memorable, transferable, and highly personalized experience for every applicant.

With specific intricacies involved for each position or state, they were looking to build a solution that made it easy to manage the specifics so they could focus on humanizing every interaction.

 

The Solution

When it came to finding a solution, they wanted to create processes to keep a people first approach. They were looking to:

• Cultivate a process where technology was an enhancement, not a replacement
• Instill respect and dignity into the candidates working their way through the application process

As GardaWorld sought out a better process, they were looking to automate reminders and scheduling, prompt their candidates to check their emails when they have action items, simplify the process, and streamline next steps.

The heart of this process improvement was to show their candidates how much they value their work and their service.

In order to develop processes that conveyed those emotions, they chose to focus on simplifying the steps and making it as easy as possible for someone to get from application to paycheck.

As they rolled this process out, they made an effort to balance automation and humanization. Through leveraging texting, they created automated reminders for phone screens, interviews, and other events like their first day!

This technology enhancement helped them increase their interview sit rate, and made it easier for them to quickly advance candidates in the process.

“In our society today, we value information and connection now. We have to meet candidates where they are, and adapt to what the candidates need and want. Texting has become the perfect tool to meet these objectives.”

– Scott

Not only did they see an increase in participation for their in-person interactions, but they also noted an overall increase in their candidate engagement as applicants found it easier to ask or answer questions via text. With open lines of communication to their recruiters, the process had an entirely new and engaging edge to it.

 

How They Built This

When it came to designing this process, they used data to drive decisions and then let strategy come into play once they had a direction to follow.

It looked like:

• Assessing the hiring process as a whole and pursuing clarity around which areas of the system resulted in the biggest drop off.
• Using strategy to solve the root of the problem once they understood the causation.

Once they reviewed the metrics that matter, they started asking questions such as:

• What is our current applicant to hire ratio?
• How can we increase that?
• Where are our candidates dropping off?

After they had answers to their questions, they knew where to start designing the process.
GardaWorld uses SMS automation to increase candidate engagement, remind applicants of upcoming events and next steps, and prompt them to take action before they become disengaged.

They are opting to create a process with intention. Their goal is to remove as many burdens and jumping off points as possible. They continuously look for ways to make it easier on their candidates to become a member of the family.

As they have rolled these changes out branch by branch, they have reviewed branch specific data to ensure the transition is smooth, seamless, and positive.

This change wasn’t solely on the candidates side, as they rolled these new processes out to their internal teams, they were excited to hear their recruiters loved it!

“Grayscale allows our Talent Acquisition and HR Teams to contact candidates seamlessly without having to leave our Applicant Tracking System.”

– Patrick McDermott

With buy-in from the team, and candidate engagement skyrocketing, GardaWorld is well on their way to creating a volume hiring process that’s undeniable.

 

Takeaways

• GardaWorld learned how you can successfully use tech to keep volume hiring human-oriented
• They leverage data to help to inform and direct strategy efforts for maximum impact
• GardaWorld created a process to showcase how they value their employees by treating candidates with respect from the get go

When it comes to using technology in volume hiring, it’s easy to get caught up in automation. Without having a guiding light like humanizing the process, it’s possible to do more damage than good.

GardaWorld started this journey with a 22 day application to paycheck timeline. Now? That process only takes 17 days. They are on track to continue trimming and polishing the process to reach their goal of 14 days.

With the use of technological enhancements in their process they are on their way to reducing 90 day turnover.

“Employee Engagement and Retention begin in the hiring process. The best TA strategy is to keep our people, and our new uses of texting are helping us on this journey.”

– Scott

Sure, reinventing the system can feel like a lot of work. At what point does it become mission critical to take a serious look at your overall attrition? Only you can answer that, but for GardaWorld they felt it was time to deliver a white glove service to their volume hires.