Scaling Your Hospitality Brand Through High-Volume Hiring
- By Harri Insider Team | April 11, 2024
When business is thriving, the ability to grow and scale a hospitality brand is exciting for many operators. It’s a great opportunity for existing employees who want to further their career, and for operators to find great talent to help launch new locations. With all the excitement that comes from scaling, opening new locations, or even simply facing seasonal demand peaks, it can be challenging to hire a high volume of candidates and also maintain brand consistency. Fortunately, you can still master high-volume hiring to fill roles quickly without sacrificing quality, by placing a special emphasis on streamlining the recruitment process.
Prior to setting out to hire a high volume of candidates, figure out what areas of the recruitment process can be optimized. Current manual hiring processes can be automated, or perhaps unnecessary questions included in the application process. Consider how your job applications and interview processes are tailored to efficiently filter candidates for high-volume roles. Make sure your job descriptions clearly convey the role, expectations, and culture.
Optimize Applicant Screening and Enhance Candidate Experience
Screening applicants is usually a laborious process for hiring managers. It also requires a keen eye for detail to pick out those who truly fit the job requirements and company culture. You need tech to be on your side to help streamline the hiring process when hiring a high volume of candidates.
When you empower your hiring managers with the right technology, you can streamline your recruitment efforts by having the ability to organize and filter applicants by assigning tags, groups, and notes to their profiles. This gives your hiring managers a comprehensive view of the top of the funnel so they can quickly accept or reject candidates.
“Harri’s interface is unlike any other system I’ve used in my HR journey and it is truly a platform my colleagues and I feel is designed for restaurant and hospitality operators looking for efficiencies in hiring. This system showcases a streamlined and user-friendly hiring workflow from end to end, allowing my hiring managers to achieve their hiring objectives with an efficient approach to recruiting. Harri’s team also strives to deliver excellence and timely support through the swift fulfilment of integration requests. Harri has been a best-in-class ATS solution taking our parent company, Red Engine, from a handful of venues in one country to 25+ venues across the UK and the US.”
Amber Vicknair, Director of People at Red Engine
When the screening process is handled digitally, it also provides a better experience for candidates. In addition to saving hiring managers time on screening, candidates are able to have more flexibility and autonomy over scheduling interviews when you make it easy for them to do so within your applicant tracking system.
For many brands, especially during expansion, it can be difficult to strike the right balance between an efficient recruitment process while also making sure to source the best teams. “The biggest challenge we faced was recruiting the best teams ahead of our new openings nationwide and Internationally,” shared Janene Pretorius, Director of People at The Ivy Collection.
“Despite the high volume of hires required, it was imperative that we didn’t forget the importance of our people, ensuring they had a positive experience throughout the recruitment and onboarding process.”
Harri: A Partner in High-Volume Hiring Success
For the Ivy Collection, keeping the recruitment teams constantly motivated was key to resolving that challenge. Janene continues, “Harri was an incredible resource throughout the expansion as we were able to track all recruitment processes through one source. The ability to manage hundreds of applications across multiple locations from one place was so valuable as it ensured seamless communication to all our applicants in a professional, standardised and efficient way.”
Streamlining recruitment by leveraging technology has wide-reaching effects beyond automating tasks and taking some of the pressure off hiring managers. Relying on tech to handle the top-of-funnel activities empowers hiring managers and teams to keep their focus on providing exceptional service and maintaining your culture and core values.
In just a handful of years, Hawaiian Bros went from a worthy concept to a thriving nationally recognized company – named one of QSR’s Best Brands to Work For – without sacrificing its ‘ohana culture and core values. Helping to grow the business behind the scenes is Harri, empowering the talent acquisition and workforce management processes and giving Hawaiian Bros the scalability it needs to keep promoting its Aloha Spirit across the U.S.
“Always receptive to our need to scale quickly and confidently, Harri provides the agility, data and depth of functionality that Hawaiian Bros requires.”
Aaron Bowen, Executive Director, People Solutions, for Hawaiian Bros
Navigating the complexities of high-volume hiring in the hospitality industry necessitates a strategic blend of efficiency, brand alignment, and quality. Operators, equipped with innovative technology like Harri, find themselves not just filling positions rapidly but transforming the recruitment process into a strategic advantage. For these operators, even amid growth spurts or seasonal demand surges, the quality of hire and the essence of the brand remain uncompromised.
For a deep dive into high-volume hiring, check out the High Volume Hiring Playbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Franchisors in Hospitality.
