HRD spoke to Coles’ people and culture leader about how the company has recruited in the COVID-19 era
The COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on both recruitment strategies and the hiring process itself.
Face-to-face interviews have been jettisoned in favour of Skype, and businesses in high-demand have scrambled to recruit top talent quickly.
While many employees throughout Australia have been made redundant or had hours reduced, supermarket giant Coles has recruited thousands of new workers to meet unprecedented demand for goods and services.
To assist stores in safely providing for the community, the company have amplified the use of technology to support their hiring around Australia, said Tammy Ryder.
The general manager, people and culture central, told HRD that the events of this year have driven “significant change within the talent acquisition function”.
“For example, during our COVID response, we swiftly introduced new video interviewing technology to enable our store managers to hire team members more safely and efficiently than previously. This is now BAU for us,” she said.
In particular, Ryder said it’s important their recruitment strategy connects to the experience for hiring managers (line leaders), candidates and those in the TA team leading the recruitment.
“A focus and alignment with a corporate purpose helps bring talent acquisition strategies to life. Connecting people to purpose and showing them how their work matters makes engaging our team members that much easier.”
Read more: What is the secret to a killer recruitment strategy?
This year has also seen Coles recruit more than 4,800 Indigenous team members and the company aims to employee 5,500 Indigenous staff by 2023.
“Our new hires contribute to a 120,000-strong team, helping 21 million customers every week,” said Ryder.
The ultimate goal of Coles People & Culture team is to transform and position themselves to meet the challenges in the retail environment and support their corporate vision to become the most trusted retailer in Australia.
To achieve that, the Coles Talent Acquisition is tasked with finding the top talent and inspiring them to bring their unique skills to the company.
Indeed, Coles recruiting efforts has seen it earn a spot as a finalist in the 2020 Australian HR Awards for Best Recruitment Campaign.
“Talent Acquisition and a best practice recruitment function is an important part of our strategy because it helps us attract the diverse talent we need to ensure our people capability reflects changing customer preferences and our ambitions for Coles over the longer term,” said Ryder.
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“It’s also about remembering that our candidates are also our customers, so every interaction matters.”
Ryder said Coles deliver a professional in-house TA recruitment service that hires around 30,000 team members a year into Coles Australia-wide.
“We’re really proud that we’ve formed a Talent Acquisition team of recruiters that have the skills and dedication required to deliver against our business objectives,” said Ryder.
“Our team is made up of technical specialist recruiters and volume recruiters that service our Coles Group brands around the country – delivering both high volume recruitment and niche industry capability.”
The Australian HR Awards take place on 3 December 2020. To register, click here.
