PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS

Talent Management Perspectives

Published March 2008

To Diversify Your Talent Pool, Just Pick Up the Phone

 

  Agatha Gilmore

Chances are, as a talent management executive, you've got field offices to oversee. And while each office is a part of the same brand, the hiring process for those outlets is typically different than that for the corporate office.

Field offices often require a lot of hourly employees, and systems that work for salaried employees may not apply. Field office managers, who may or may not having hiring experience, are in charge of bringing in talent, and if one of these managers has recruiting or retention issues, as the talent leader, you might ask yourself: Is my talent pool the best it can be?

JobApp Network, an automation company specializing in hourly hiring, tried to answer this question with the unveiling of a new Spanish language phone portal that allows Spanish speakers to apply for hourly positions via phone. The phone portal serves as an alternative to the existing Spanish-language Web application program.

"The phone is an absolutely critical piece, particularly for lower-income hourly workers, 65 percent of whom do not have convenient Web access," said Blake Helppie, CEO of JobApp Network. "The Spanish phone product provides greater access to a broader applicant pool."

For businesses such as casual dining restaurants, manufacturing companies and health care corporations, it's critically important to have a steady flow of applicants for hourly positions: The turnover is higher, the ramping up process is faster and the availability window is shorter. So, particularly in markets where there is a large Latino community — in south Texas or California, for example — offering the option to apply by phone in Spanish is a huge advantage, Helppie said.

"We saw a 600 percent increase in the number of Spanish-speaking Latinos applying for jobs at one of our major quick-serve restaurants" after implementation of the new phone system, he said. In fact, now more than 80 percent of Spanish-speaking job applicants accessing the portal use the phone rather than the Web.

JobApp initially considered introducing a Spanish language phone portal when it found the majority of Latinos who applied via Web were either bilingual or English-speaking, Helppie said.

"We were wondering, 'Where are all the Spanish-speaking Latinos?'" he said. "It's a very tricky demographic to target. We found is it's very much driven by word-of-mouth, so the question is: 'How do you jump-start the initiative to create traction within the Latino community?'"

The answer came in the form of the phone system, which helps companies promote a Latino-friendly image, Helppie said. And word spreads quickly.

"You don't need somebody else to fill out that application for you; you don't need somebody else to be involved," he said. "With the addition of the Spanish phone portal, it makes jobs much, much more accessible to the Latino community, and as a result, the perception in the market among the Latinos sort of shifts."

Michigan-based casual dining chain National Coney Island, the first company to use JobApp's original system — which before the introduction of the Spanish phone portal consisted of an English and Spanish Web application and an English phone application — reported a decrease in turnover of 28 percent and a savings of roughly $450,000 in one year. JobApp is hoping inclusion of the Spanish language phone portal will only improve these statistics.