The Body Shop is introducing a revolutionary new ‘open hiring’ strategy involving no interviews, background checks or drug tests.
Its ‘open hiring’ strategy, set to launch this summer, where the first candidate that meets the most basic requirements for a job will get it, according to a Fast Company report.
This follows a successful pilot at its distribution centre in North Carolina at the end of last year.
“We’re not asking for your background check,” The Body Shop’s US general manager Andrea Blieden said.
“We’re not asking for you to be drug screened. And there’s only three questions to get a job. It’s, ‘Are you authorized to work in the U.S.? Can you stand for up to eight hours? And can you lift over 50 pounds?’ If those three questions are answered, then we will give you a chance to come work in our distribution center.”
This pilot saw monthly turnover in its distribution centre drop from 43 per cent to just 16 per cent year-on-year, reducing the number of temp agencies it worked with from three to one.
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Blieden added: “They said things like, ‘I’ve been struggling to find a job. This is one of the only places that would hire me, and I’m not going to mess this up.
“When you give people access to something that they’re struggling to find, they’re very committed to working hard and keeping it.”
The health and beauty retailer was inspired by the New York social enterprise Greyston Bakery, which sells baked goods to Whole Foods and Ben & Jerry’s.
Greyston, which says it doesn’t “hire people to bake brownies, (it) bakes brownies to hire people”, made $22 million last year and believes this hiring process is a fundamental part of its business.
The Body Shop said it plans to expand this practice to all of its retail stores this summer.
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This is incredible. At last, no over specifiying of jobs, only for the companies to wonder why they can’t find people. Look at the very basics required and then develop the person on the job. Abolish HR departments and place the basic admin element in finance and every business would be the better for it. Let the department heads spec the jobs and manage the people.