Background

Since its founding in the 20’s, this leading convenience retail chain has become a benchmark in the Mexican retail industry, operating in 17 states and employing more than 22,000 people nationally. The company also operates multiple distribution centers, logistics support services, and retail-wholesale programs to fulfill its mission of providing value to society.

Challenges

Even amid a global pandemic, the team dubbed 2020 as the year to centralize and streamline existing HR operations. The company’s goal was to move away from a dispersed team of 300 recruiters across the country who worked in a siloed fashion, and transform frontline recruiting into a single, coordinated effort.

The retail chain envisioned a centralized talent acquisition strategy to support its complex, high-volume hiring operations for over 2,500 retail stores across Mexico. Some of the most pressing needs associated with this transition were:

• Hiring tens of thousands of frontline retail workers
• Managing communication and interview coordination with 2,780 store managers simultaneously
• Allocating candidates to certain stores based on priority and urgency
• Collecting candidate documentation in secure, digital formats
• Reducing the time to hire from its current length of seven days

The HR team also recognized the value in collecting organized candidate data to build KPIs that better reflected an in-depth, nationwide recruiting process.

“Emi arrived at the best time because we were looking for a technology that could help us simplify our processes." - Head of Talent Management

Solution

When companies need customizable solutions to manage high-volume recruiting, Emi provides on-demand support to get the job done. Emi helped the retail chain launch the responsive AI chatbot to automatically screen candidates, coordinate interview scheduling, and analyze feedback.

“With 24/7 chat, Emi allowed us to have an easy-to-use and agile tool for quickly bringing in our candidates and starting their recruitment process.”

The two-way chat functionality provides benefits to candidates and hiring managers alike. With more transparency and clarity into the entire recruiting process, job applicants have a seamless experience from applying to onboarding. At the same time, hiring managers are able to more effectively identify the best-fit candidates for each role. And, in a candidate-driven labor market, this ability to hire efficiently is critical for business success.

Results

Creating a centralized recruitment process

Emi's application gives the talent acquisition team the ability to follow every candidate’s journey in real-time. It also allows hiring managers to proactively address any issues during the recruiting process.

The retail chain can now allocate resources based on accurate, real-time recruiting data—something that wasn’t possible before implementing Emi. By integrating Emi’s platform with the company’s existing Human Resources Information System (HRIS), all candidate data captured with Emi is also automatically synced and stored in the company’s HR system of record.

Automating time-consuming hiring activities

By using Emi’s responsive AI chatbot, store managers are now able to leverage the 24/7 live chat feature. This tool allows them to set up interviews based on their availability and provide candidate feedback post-interview.

The chat-based solution is also used to gather candidate information from walk-in applicants for on-the-spot retail hiring. Using Emi, the talent acquisition team can accelerate time to fill—a key factor for hourly and frontline workers in determining where to work. The company has also gained tangible insights into who the best candidates are and where their skills may be best utilized.

Building a strong candidate pipeline

By integrating Emi with the company’s social networks and digital media campaigns, the retail chain can now attract and engage with more potential applicants by meeting them where they are, on the social platforms they already use.

Now, candidates can engage via live chat to complete the screening process quickly. This includes coordinating upcoming interviews with store managers, updating their recruiting process status, and uploading required documentation.

For candidates who walk into retail locations knowing that they want to submit an application, Emi delivers simplified tools to help. With Emi, the hiring team can manage walk-ins, run live job fairs, and easily manage alternative conversational flows to help candidates apply anywhere, anytime.

Improving hiring speed and quality

As a national corporation that employs thousands of retail workers across Mexico, the ability to streamline hiring processes and shorten candidate wait times is essential. Given the competitive employer market, the organization needs to be able to respond professionally and proactively to avoid losing top talent.

“With Emi, we can now find the type of candidate we’re looking for in retail—a type of candidate that if we don’t contact and recruit him/her quickly enough, will simply go to the next company to get a job.”

Using Emi as the foundation of its frontline recruiting strategy, The company has been able to: 

• Shorten the candidate hiring cycle by 45%
• Reduce the time it takes to collect candidate documentation by 97%
• Increase the number of candidates who interview with a store manager and are subsequently hired by 50%

“The fact that the team at Emi has been working closely with us—from set up, to implementation, to achieving the results we've seen—and that they're still supporting us, has definitely been a great added value for us.”

Ready to centralize your high-volume hiring processes?

Emi has helped leading high-volume employers like Walmart, Heineken, and Burger King fill their open roles faster—and we can help you too. Schedule your personalized demo to find out how.