Byline: Alexander Coolidge Post staff reporter
A growing number of retail chains and similar businesses frustrated by near-constant employee turnover are entrusting the first step of the hiring process to computers, designed to zero in on applicants likely to do a job well -- and to stay a while.
In Greater Cincinnati, Bigg's is screening job applicants using 'hiring kiosks' at 10 of its 11 stores and claims it has dented employee turnover. The touch-screen system prompts applicants with a mix of personal and personality questions to size up the job seeker.
'In the short run it saves money on paper work, but in the long term it gets us people who want to stay with us,' said Laura Tiller, Bigg's director of human resources. Tiller said the company's already seen a reduction in employee turnover.
Typically, the computers gather not just names and Social Security numbers, but also work to size up an applicant's personality and to provide hiring managers with a list of questions for follow-up interviews.
Online screening systems report on applicants almost immediately, grading them as green, yellow or red -- the last a warning of a potentially problematic hire.
One retailer, crafts chain Garden Ridge, even has its screening system set to page store managers so they can catch choice applicants before they walk out the door and apply at a competitor.
Companies including the Sports Authority Inc., Blockbuster Inc. and the Golden Corral Corp. steakhouse chain have also adopted the online screening systems.
Golden Corral and Big Boy franchisee Frisch's Restaurants of Cincinnati doesn't use in-store Internet links, but it does use the Web to vet potential managers, said vice president of human resources Mike Conner. The current system has been running for about a year.
Conner added that non-management job applicants have answers from an application test keyed into a telephonic system meant to screen potential workers. He said the automated system that assesses job candidates is a reassuring 'second set of eyes' that helps managers make hiring decisions.
Many companies using the systems have installed in-store terminals or telephones equipped with screens and keyboards especially for the purpose, while others direct people to apply on company Web sites.
'I think it's really going to take off because the technology for how people are screened is changing so quickly,' said Donald M. Truxillo, a professor of industrial psychology at Oregon's Portland State University who studies the online systems.
'Our philosophy is to let the technology do the heavy lifting,' said Richard Harding, director of research for Kenexa Corp., a Wayne, Pa., firm that designs and administers online assessment systems.
Online screening incorporates personality tests similar to the paper-and-pencil versions used by some employers as far back as the 1940s. Computers use the results much more systematically, though, letting managers instantly rank candidates or dip into the pool of applicants who have sought jobs at other stores in the same chain.
'You're able to prequalify people and focus really only on the people who look like they have the best chance of success,' said Charles Handler, an industrial psychologist whose firm, Rocket-Hire, is a consultant to employers in choosing the systems.
That's only the start for some employers. Some continue to use the systems after making a hire, feeding worker performance data -- like a clerk's sales commissions or the amount of time it takes for a waiter to 'turn' a table -- into the computer. That data is then used to help fine tune questions and desired answers that can be used to screen future hires.
That helps employers 'close the loop,' said Kim Beasley, a spokeswoman for Unicru Inc., a Beaverton, Ore., firm that makes the screening systems used at more than 50 retail and restaurant chains including Pathmark Stores Inc. and Sports Authority. 'We partner with companies throughout the employee life cycle,' Beasley said.
Online assessment could prove particularly valuable at big retailers and restaurant chains whose employee turnover rate runs as high as 200 percent a year, experts say.
Such employers, almost constantly hiring, are looking for ways to predict which job candidates are less likely to leave once they're hired, and help them cut down on the cost of finding and training replacements.
'They just lose people about as fast as they can get them in the door,' Harding said. 'What it really comes down to is, are you (the job applicant) going to stay there longer and produce more?'
Some employers say the system not only helps them settle on the right workers, but also reduce the time -- and money -- needed to find them.
Since Rock Bottom Restaurants Inc. began using a Unicru system in late 2002, turnover in its brewpubs has tailed off from about 110 percent annually to 91 percent. Rock Bottom has a microbrewery and restaurant on Fountain Square downtown.
Finish Line Inc., an Indianapolis-based athletic footwear chain, has found online screening particularly useful because the computer spots gaps in work history and helps managers, many of them young and with little experience in hiring, structure interviews.
'It really helps store managers ask all the right questions because it gives you all the questions to ask,' said Mike Marchetti, the company's executive vice president of store operations.
Text of fax box follows:
Sample questions
Employers using computers to screen job applicants usually include multiple-choice personality tests designed to match a candidate's temperament to a position. Below are two sample questions included in some tests:
* The perfect work environment for me would be:
A. One where I have a lot of independence.
B. One where I am part of a team.
C. One where I interact with people most of the day.
D. One where I react to other people's requests.
E. One which allows me to work with the same small group of people each day.
* An elderly customer comes into the branch and deposits some cash. You count it and give the customer a deposit receipt for $327.00. Thirty minutes later the customer comes back and says she gave you $337.00 and wants to know where the $10.00 has gone.
A. Explain you were careful and did not make an error.
B. Call your supervisor and let her handle it.
C. Explain that you might have miscounted and that if you did it will show up as your balance at the end of the day.
D. Put $10 of your own money into her account.
E. Ask her nicely if she could have miscounted or spent the $10 and forgotten.
* Answers: C, B. These questions serve different functions, Kenexa's Richard Harding said. The first is primarily a gauge of personality, the latter a measure of situational judgment. 'By coupling these two together, we get a little bit better idea of how they (candidates) would deal with certain situations,' he said.
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Photo
ED ANDIRESKI/Associated Press
Heather Hale, 22, fills out a job application on a computer at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Denver.