How Behavioral Intelligence transformed talent acquisition at Enterprise Ecomm Retailer

The Challenge

With such a large customer base, one Enterprise Ecomm Retailer needed to staff accordingly to handle their volume of orders. Staffing is already a difficult task for many, but the Enterprise Ecomm Retailer was facing a bigger issue. Their Talent Acquisition team had to manage high-volume recruiting for fulfillment centers across the United States while also facing the growing trend of new hire ‘ghosting.’

Ghosting, or disappearing with no communication, has been seen in the workplace now more than ever. A 2021 report by Indeed showed that 28% of job applicants ghosted a prospective employer over the past year, up from 18% in 2019. 

Bail rates, comprised of ghosting or no-shows, have a snowball effect. Rather than carrying out critical pre-hire tasks, recruiters are chasing ‘ghost’ applicants and prospects. Not only does this result in loss of time, but it also results in loss of revenue due to staffing shortages. 

For this Enterprise Ecomm Retailer, the segment that showed the highest rates of ghosting was comprised of hourly or frontline workers. This is no surprise as this segment has been greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with the personal financial impacts of the pandemic, it still didn’t make sense why these job seekers were not showing up.

Having solved a similar problem in higher education known as “summer melt,” whereby admitted freshman students do not show up in the fall, Mainstay had the expertise needed to reduce the Enterprise Ecomm Retailer’s no-shows.

The Solution

In order to help Enterprise Ecomm Retailer improve operational efficiency and new hire yield, we focused on pre-boarding. This is the time between when the candidate verbally accepts the job offer and their first day as Enterprise Ecomm Retailer employees. An optimized pre-boarding strategy has proven its importance time and time again.

We began our partnership with Enterprise Ecomm Retailer by understanding their current workflow and identifying the hurdles to getting new hires into the door.   One such hurdle was the background check process. By implementing the Mainstay Engagement Platform, we were able to converse at scale with our AI-powered texting to guide new hires through the process and engage during the moments that matter.  When new hires needed high-value support, we would escalate the situation and alert the appropriate recruiter to intervene and do the work that only a person can do. Within two months, Enterprise Ecomm Retailer observed a 10% increase in pre-hire task completion — a key driving behavior to reducing no-shows.  

By providing ongoing support throughout the new-hire process, we established Mainstay as a trusted resource.  This was absolutely critical because when we would send new hire orientation check-ins the morning of, people felt comfortable saying that they had a problem keeping them from coming. Reasons included a variety of everyday obstacles from car troubles to daycare. Before implementing the Mainstay Engagement Platform, most of these new hires would just disappear, assuming they would be judged unreliable.  But with our trusted tool, more people felt comfortable saying “I need help” — and we were able to reschedule their start dates and keep them engaged. 

Even candidates who did not initially begin work with Enterprise Ecomm Retailer were willing to share why they didn’t show up. The Talent Acquisition team has been able to use these insights to inform strategy.  For example, Enterprise Ecomm Retailer was able to gather data that showed shift flexibility surfaced as a primary concern more than pay.  

In addition to moving the needle on the Talent Acquisition team’s primary goal of reducing no-shows, Mainstay supported substantial operational efficiency improvements. Our customized AI-powered Knowledge Base answers over 80% of questions from new hires. FAQs like “When do my benefits start?” can be answered directly at any time of the day and in their preferred language. In this manner, we’ve given the Talent Acquisition team hundreds of hours to focus on higher-value activities.

The Results

We have continued to expand our partnership with additional Enterprise Ecomm Retailer talent acquisition teams, and achieved impressive results at scale in the first half of 2022.