Oftentimes, companies prioritize the talent assessment strategy for hiring a high-level employee – like a biotech engineer – over that of high-volume position – like a call center agent.

In reality, the same concerns govern both processes, and the consequences of deprioritizing less specialized roles can be costly.

Highly-specialized positions are often thought to provide greater value for the company, and are therefore given a greater amount of focus and scrutiny. As a result, the hiring and assessment processes used to hire highly-specialized employees differ greatly from those used to select frontline workers.

However, what most organizations don’t realize is that fundamentally, the processes are fairly similar:

  • The company must define the job
  • The company must determine what will make a candidate effective in the giving position
  • The company must then work to find the most qualified people

Learn how to understand and dramatically reduce attrition

The truth is that effective recruiting and hiring processes for all positions can reduce potentially negative impacts on your bottom line by ensuring that the right employee is hired the first time.

Understanding the Worth of Your Frontline Employees

When it comes to hiring for hourly or lower-wage positions, many companies underestimate the true value of their frontline employees, such as their call center agents and retail store clerks.

Part of the issue is that companies may have the preconceived notion that if a job is specialized, they have to invest more in hiring those people. There’s a widely-held belief that if frontline employees don’t work out, the company can just as easily find a replacement with minimal impact.

The average cost of turnover in frontline jobs is about $4,500 per term.

But in practice, organizations incur tremendous losses when attrition rates are high among frontline employees.

The average cost of turnover in frontline jobs is about $4,500 per term. By ignoring the importance of frontline hiring, businesses consistently bring the wrong people on board, and the high volume of turnover that results from this can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line.

While they may not be part of the management or development teams, your frontline employees are the first (and frequently the only) connection with the customer. These transactions, which happen at the rate of hundreds, or even thousands per day, play a vital role in consumer perception: a good transaction can create a lifetime customer, while a negative transaction could lose a customer forever.

In other words, your frontline employees provide value to your organization that is comparable to that provided by employees in highly-specialized positions.

While an individual engineer or plant manager may indeed bring greater value to the organizations than an individual call center agent, consider the customer service function as a whole; strong frontline employees impact the company’s success by providing better customer service, which drives greater value.

The Dangers of Ignoring the Importance of Frontline Hiring

The main difference that arises when it comes to assessing frontline candidates as opposed to highly specialized ones is, well, the volume of candidates.

Unlike high-level positions that receive fewer applications, you may receive thousands of applications every term for high-volume positions. Using the same level of scrutiny you would when hiring a candidate for upper management in cases like this would be impossible.

The inability to evaluate each candidate individually to determine if he or she would be a good “fit” for your company makes it very difficult for companies to make sound hiring decisions.

Unfortunately, this often leads companies to make split-second decisions typically based solely on the job application. Recruiters and hiring managers are overloaded as it is, and research shows that the average recruiter spends just six seconds on each resume they receive.

All too often, it turns out that they hired the wrong person ” and the process starts all over again, adding more costs to the talent acquisition process. For the greatest hiring results, employers must break the myth that hiring for high-volume positions should entail less effort or insight into the candidates than their more specialized positions.

How Predictive Pre-Hire Assessment Tools Help

Companies that get their frontline hiring process right ” the organizations with lower turnover, better retention rates, and happier employees ” understand that the fundamental processes for specialized positions and high-volume hiring shouldn’t look all that different: evaluate the candidates, determine their fit, and make informed hiring decisions.

Automating the selection process through the use of predictive talent assessment software is an effective solution to not only help companies sort through the massive amounts of applications, but to distinguish each candidate’s strengths and motivations, as well as predict the likelihood of workplace success.

Pre-hire assessments give you precise and useful information to make more informed decisions about the candidates you select to work for your team. Using talent acquisition tools that provide objective data means relying less on guesswork, spending less time sorting through applications, and ultimately making decisions that translate directly into greater profitability for your company.

It makes sense to strengthen your recruiting and hiring processes at all levels within the company ” including your frontline. An automated, predictive talent selection process significantly reduces hiring time and costs, and ensures you hire the right employees for your company.

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