How to Find Hourly Employees: The Definitive Guide - Part 1

Find the right employees by defining who the right employees are. If that "Help Wanted” sign you see hanging in the window was more honest it would say: “Help wanted, please tell us if you know where to find it and what it looks like.”

Hourly employees comprise more than 60% of the US workforce. But, somehow it feels more like 6% when you're trying to find them.

It’s challenging to hire hourly workers.

But, if you’re reading this guide, you’re far too familiar with the challenge of finding good help. So why is there so little attention given to this topic of recruiting hourly employees? Are these employees less important?

Hourly workers are just as vital as salaried employees in creating a successful culture and company. If you speak with any experienced manager of hourly workers, they wouldn’t even dare to argue that hourly employees do not have a huge impact on their company and accomplishments.

Great customer experiences start with great employees. Hourly or not.

If there are so many of these workers out there, how do you reach the right ones, get them hired, and keep them?

Recruiting is completely different for exempt vs. non-exempt employees. That’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult. Managers often try to apply the same recruiting strategies they use to find salaried employees. This guide will help you avoid making this mistake.

To apply the right strategy, you need to begin by knowing who you are trying to attract and get to know the labor pool. Let’s take a look at who these people are. What Do We Know About Hourly Workers?

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012, there were 5.3 million hourly workers. This is about 60 percent of the entire workforce. That’s over half our country’s workforce.

According to TLNT (one of the best sources for recruitment info out there), the hourly worker labor market is extremely diverse in age, gender, and attitude towards their work.

Here are a few interesting stats on hourly workers that TLNT shared:

• 39 percent of hourly employees are under 25 years old
• 33 percent are 25–44 years old, and a full 28 percent are 45 or older
• More than 80 percent work within a 5-mile radius of their homes
• Over half (56 percent) consider their jobs a full-time career
• The vast majority (74 percent) prefer to work 30 or fewer hours a week
• Most apply for three jobs at once, making employer responsiveness critical in recruiting.
• The most important factors to these job seekers are: (1) Being hired quickly (37 percent); (2) pay (33 percent); and (3) being close to home (17 percent)

You need a strategy.

Here’s why.

You are who you hire. These words are front and center on the homepage of SmartRecruiters.com. You’ve probably read a thousand different iterations of this saying from management gurus everywhere.

Do you think it matters who you hire?

It does matter, and finding employees to hire in the first place is difficult. Having a strategy that will effectively help you find, attract, and hire the best hourly employees is not easy but it is essential to the success of your company.

Now that we have looked at who hourly workers are, you can draw a few conclusions that should impact how you go about finding these employees:

• The workers are out there, you just need to define who you are trying to reach and how to reach them.
• It is a large and diverse labor pool. Young and old. Don’t forget about the 28% who are 45 or older. 61% of the labor pool are over the age of 25.
• You should keep your search hyperlocal since most of these job seekers are looking for local work.
• Most of your positions should be tailored for 30 hours or less per week. Job seekers are looking for both full-time and part-time positions, but mostly part-time. Recruiting only for full-time positions is a common mistake.
• Do everything you can to make your application and hiring process quick and easy. Speed matters.
• You can’t just focus on unemployed. Find ways to attract passive job seekers in order to find the best employees.

So, how can you incorporate these considerations into your recruiting strategy? In the next part, we will discuss the recruiting strategies and best practices.

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