1. Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks
of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 0615
Retail industry :trends and impacts on
Recruitment strategy
Thanks to my smartphone and all the smart apps and website available, I can pretty
much buy everything in 2 clicks. This reality had a huge impact on retailers and forced
them to rethink about their business and strategy.
As employers, retailers had to adapt their recruitment and HR strategy too: both
candidates and employees want to engage and apply in not more than 2 clicks.
So, what are the current trends in retail? How retailers can adapt their recruitment
strategy to be an attractive employer? What are the benefits for candidates and
employees?
What are the current trends in retail?
“Brick is the new Black”
This tagline has been launched by Bill Simon Walmart’s Former CEO, during the
Retail’s Big Show held in New York, last January. The growth of both on-line and mobile
commerce had a massive impact on the customer retail experience changing the whole
process of buying: the way consumers check a product, choose it, and make a buying
decision. Today, the growth of retail activity is a combination of on-line and on site
commerce. Customer services, buyer experience, and personalization are major assets
for the traditional “Street side business”.
After a decade of massive investment on online strategy, Brick and Mortar is back, and
it is seen as a new opportunity that enables brands to create new personalized services
for customers and new concept stores that reinforce branding strategy.
The Digital experience
Most of these new concept stores are fully equipped with new technologies.
Digital experience is a buzzword that appeared a decade ago, but now this innovative
technology is a reality that allows a new way to buy and engage consumers. Some
retailers, like the Leclerc group in France, decided to launch their own apps to be part
of this innovation momentum in retail : thanks to one of these apps , consumers can
scan and compare all the products in Leclerc ‘ stores to its competitors : they can check
the price, the sizing, some comments. In department store, an intelligent mirror enable
buyers to pick and choose items, directly sliding on the mirror; buyers can also virtually
try the items they chose.
The main point about these innovations is that they empowered buyers. Retail definitely
redefined its buyer experience with a customer centric approach. The other major
AUTHOR :
MELANIE HACHE BARROIS
HCM STRATEGY DIRECTOR
SOUTH EUROPE
@MHACHEB
“Brick is the
new Black”
Bill Simon Walmart’s Former
CEO, during the Retail’s Big
Show held in New York
January 2015

2. impacts of these new technologies is about the collection of consumers’ data. All the
website, on-line and now on-site tools and devices collect consumers’ data.
By analyzing, these data, retailers can know more about their customers’ needs, and
habits, and feel the new interests and trends.
As a consequence, retailers can improve their customers experience and offer a higher
quality of services.
And so, what about data?
James Curleigh Levi’s CEO compared the retail industry to the music industry saying
that “retailers need to engage their customers as fans using social networks”. The use
of social media is a powerful tool for retail as it can be integrated in a 360° strategy:
both customers and candidates can be engaged on the same level to boost the brand
awareness. Of course, social networks are also a great way to collect data. In fact,
retailers are now able to collect a large amount of data on social, website, apps, in
stores …To be efficient and have a real business strategy, retailers need to use
predictive analytics. Business Intelligence can help retail to face the new challenges
and the customers’ expectations. Thanks to analytics they can choose how to invest to
improve the buyer experience and offer a unique experience in stores.
So retailers transformed their business to be more consumer centric and improve the
buyer experience.
How this improvement could be a benefits for Recruitment in retails?
Recruitment is key in retail, HR has strong challenges to face: mass recruitment,
seasonality, several profiles of workers (white collars, blue collars, and temporary
workers, apprenticeship, and specifics skills).Recruitment management is essential to
reach business objectives in retail industry as workforce is at the core of business.
First of all, retail is an industry where people matter more than in other industries.
Without people, a retailer can’t sell .That is the key point to explain how to improve
recruitment in retails.
“Retailers need
to engage their
customers as
fans using
social
networks”.
James Curleigh
Levi’s CEO

3. The second key element, is the 360° strategy: retail needs to be aligned in its both
branding, and employer branding strategies as consumers and employees are often
the same target.
Assuming this two main points, it is easy to understand that retailers should use their
experience in improving buyer experience to improve its candidate and employee
experience.
Digital Blue collar
Like consumers, the use of smartphone is largely spread even among blue-collar. Blue
collar represent a large part of the workforce in retail.
Retailers need to be strategic using the appropriate social media to target Blue collar
candidates: avoid LinkedIn and invest in Facebook for experienced candidates and
invest in Pin interest or Instagram for youngsters. LinkedIn is a great tool to target
managers /white collars.
In the meantime, keep it simple: when you build your recruitment process, and career
pages, be people centric: take time to choose a good look and feel that will improve the
candidate experience.
The candidate experience needs to be aligned on the buyer experience in terms of key
messages, branding strategy, and user experience.
But, what are the current and true benefits from a candidate or employee point of view?
What are the current and true benefits from a candidate or employee
point of view ?
Placing the individual at the heart of operations does not mean complexifying your
candidate and employee relation with complex workflow and information.
As reported by Deloitte, people check their mobile devices up to 150 times every day
and multiple communication flows (“hyper-connectivity”) are minimizing employees’
ability to absorb and process information. Simplifying HR practices and employee
systems was identified by Deloitte to promote workplace flexibility .So the key word to
build an efficient HR and Recruitment strategy with an improved user experience is
simplicity.
As a consumer, a candidate or an employee, all of us, we are looking for a simpler and
elegant user experience .A candidate will be more attract and engage by a company
that have the same easy interaction he can have as a consumer: as he will know how
create social interaction, check information, apply quickly, have feedback, etc… and it
is mainly the same for an employee: the more is easy to connect, the more your
employee will be engaged.
To conclude, improving recruitment strategy, enable retailers to improve their employer
branding and retain the best talent. Then, the use of social media and a great candidate
experience will position retailers as innovative employers where innovation and
technology are strong values. In retail, your candidate is often your consumer, and your
consumer is often your employee. A people-centric approach lies at the core of any
modern operation, regardless of sector. Retail should place the individual at the heart
of their operations to stay competitive and attractive.
Know more about Oracle HCM Cloud for a Modern HR :
https://cloud.oracle.com/global-human-resources-cloud?tabID=1383678916332