Sports Basement + Workstream

Sports Basement

Sports Basement is a sports retail chain that aims to sell the best brands at basement prices. Today, their services have expanded beyond retail to a wide range of services from rentals to guided trips.

The concept of Sports Basement was born in 1998, when founders Tom, Eric, Dave and Marin went on a trip to Mt. Rainier in Seattle. They started off as a one-off shop, in a warehouse in San Francisco, only opening their doors to customers on the weekends. The entire store ensemble was made from scratch, from the signboards to the furnishing consisting of second-hand couches. This blossomed into a Sports Basement tradition, and fixtures are still made from scratch in their stores, even now.

At present, Sports Basement boasts 10 fully stocked stores across the Bay Area, and about 80 staff per store. They also have a rentals program, ski shops and bike shops. With a goal to "outfit the whole community", they strive to have the best prices, as their buying team sources the best products from top brands. As of 2019, they have also donated to over 1,400 local schools and charities, and raised over $10 million, thanks to Basementeers and their customers.

Tedious and Manual Hiring Process

Manual Paper Applications

Before, their hiring system was such that applicants would have to write and fill in paper applications in the store, which were then stored in a folder. There was also a need to call applicants individually, making it a tedious process. Four managers were required to work on one hiring dock, which was inefficient as their efforts could have been focused on other segments of the business.

With over 800 staff across their stores in the Bay Area, it was challenging to maintain their use of paper applications and previous hiring process. 

Lack of Visibility of Entire Hiring Process 

Hiring managers were not able to have a consolidated status update of the manpower and hiring processes across the different stores. This was disconcerting, as they were aware of the problems some stores were facing, in terms of getting employees who were a right fit with the store environment. 

Insufficient Candidates

There was also a need to hire many hourly workers in the city, instead of engineers or roles with fixed skill sets. They needed 50 $15/hour people fast, but were not able to achieve such results efficiently. 

Centralized Dashboard and Automated Hiring

Streamlined Feed

With a streamlined feed, Sports Basement is now able to do away with paper applications. Applicants can apply through either email or the mobile application, with in-built features for hiring managers to review and recommend candidates, while also adding interview and training notes. Hiring managers can also track the completion of training documents and videos through the centralized dashboard. This allows them to reduce the number of managers working on the hiring platform to 1, from the initial 4.

Furthermore, hiring managers are now able to see the number of applications they are getting, what applications are being sent in and data on how well they are hiring. This effectively provides them with a bird's eye view of how each store is doing, making communications between hiring managers across different stores a lot more efficient than before. 

Automated Scheduling 

Through the Automated Scheduling feature, hiring managers can connect their calendars onto Workstream, and candidates can select an interview time slot based on their availability. Hiring managers no longer have to manually call each applicant, and smart screening also ensures that only qualified applicants move forward to the interview, allowing them to efficiently narrow down candidates of the best quality.

Job Board Integrations

As Workstream is able to target the hiring of hourly workers, Sports Basement is able to meet their hiring needs. Job Board Integrations has also allowed them to post across multiple job boards, thus maximizing their reach and widening the talent pool available. There is also artificial intelligence involved in the job posting process, which optimizes the job postings across multiple boards and social media sites. This ensures that they are able to hire as many employees as required by each store.

Better Quality Applicants and Reduced Hiring Time

After the incorporation of Workstream, Sports Basement has seen impressive results, with a 25% increase in the number of qualified applicants and a significant reduction in hiring time by 50%!

Inspired by the success of Sports Basement? You too, can optimize your hiring processes with Workstream. Schedule a chat with us today to find out how!