Ann Miller, HR Manager for 30 Smoothie King franchise locations

Daniel Blaser (00:00):

<Silence> Hello and welcome to On the Clock, presented by Workstream. If you care about hiring and retaining hourly employees, you're in the right place. I'm Daniel Blazer, and today I am clocking in with Ann Miller of BCS Northern, a franchisee of 30 Smoothie King locations. We chat about some of the challenges she's experienced as HR manager with sourcing and retaining employees, and why company culture is so important to both. We also discuss how to encourage quality communication when working remote, and how automation has given her more time to spend on high impact tasks. Enjoy. Can you start off just by talking a little bit about your role and maybe some of the challenges that you're, you're facing or that you have been facing in your position?

Ann Miller (00:51):

So, I'm the HR manager for 12 Buff City soap stores and 28, pardon me, yes, 28, soon to be 30 Smoothie Kings. So they are owned by the same individual. So as you know, every part of a franchise is individually owned and operated. So I work particularly for this company. And so I would say probably the biggest aspect, of course, is always recruiting and how to reach the most people. In essence trying to have efficient time management also of course, you know, to quote an old phrase to get more bang for your buck. And so just the time that it takes to recruit from the moment you decide to recruit someone to finalizing the hiring process, it's very time consuming. And so that's probably the biggest struggle is just the recruitment and the process to get through to the hiring.

Daniel Blaser (02:00):

Yeah, we definitely hear that quite often. Approximately how many, you know, I know it varies seasonally, whatnot, but approximately how many hourly employees are spread across those locations?

Ann Miller (02:11):

Well, with Buff City and Smoothie King together, we have, I would say we average about 350 hourly employees.

Daniel Blaser (02:18):

So you talked about you know, just the, the time consuming nature of recruiting. I would love to, if, if you can, you know, drill down a little bit further into that and, you know, are you finding that a specific, you know, stage of the recruiting process is, has been proving more challenging? So, for example, just sourcing people, getting, getting enough applicants or too many no-show for interviews or, you know, are there specific components of that that have been especially challenging?

Ann Miller (02:51):

I think one of the biggest challenges is the no-show aspect. It does help to have a system where there's constant communication, therefore it's harder for the individual to, to fall off. But just across the board in recruiting in general, no shows are a very large issue or large portion of the issue.

Daniel Blaser (03:16):

How did, like, what did the, that no-show issue look like, I guess, before you started using workstream versus after? How, how did that helpfully impact it?

Ann Miller (03:27):

It has improved since using workstream, and I think a lot of that is due to, like I said, the, the ability to have a more constant communication. In, in the old days or prior to work stream, it was up to me, the recruiter, the individual to reach out. And then if I got busy or got called into another meeting, then it kind of got shuffled or put to the side. And then the longer I would take to respond, the, the less interested the candidate is because they feel that they have been ignored, lost in the shuffle. And so having a more technologically sound, quicker process, rather than the old school way of even a phone call or an email and waiting for someone else to respond. So it's just having that set process it's very timely, so it's much more efficient. And like I said, the, the candidate feels more involved and so they're more interested. They can see that the company is making an effort and this is hopefully a company they wanna work for. If we're very active in the recruitment, then we'll be active in the employment.

Daniel Blaser (04:44):

Yeah, yeah, I like that you pointed out that through line there. That's something that I hear quite often is kind of, you know, that proactivity, bringing that early on, and then employees continue to feel that hopefully. So I like that a lot. Let's talk a little bit about like speed to hire. How has workstream impacted just how long it takes to hire these, you know, a hundred plus people a month? You know, the, the speed from application to, you know, onboarding. How has Workstream helped with that?

Ann Miller (05:18):

Well, again, I think it goes back to just having the system in place. One of the things I like about Workstream is you can choose what processes you want, depending on your business, your industry, and you know, if you want a 10 step process, they'll find 10 steps. So that of course will take longer. But streamlining that helps immensely. And again, it, it gives myself, as the recruiter, our general managers, as the hiring managers, just a guide. They know step one, we do this, step two, we do this. And again, there's that constant communication, the candidate, so they feel involved in the process. And it really is very simply laid out. So I feel you can go from placing the ad to fully hiring someone depending on their schedule. Again, there's always variables, but literally within a matter of just a few days depend, again, depending on their schedule, the availability to interview and start and things. But you know, if you have someone who's ready and willing and able, they literally, we can get 'em in the store within a matter of days.

Daniel Blaser (06:33):

Question I want to ask is, let's say someone else is having some of the same struggles that you guys were facing, maybe with no shows or, or, you know, elsewhere in that process. Just what, what high level advice would you give to someone else in your shoes?

Ann Miller (06:49):

So my biggest piece of advice is to use the system. So when I first came on board, workstream was new to me and I had no idea all that it did or all that it could provide to us. I initially assumed it was post the job, and then my role as, as HR as the recruiter is done, and it goes to the hiring manager that's in the store. But having the analytics available, having the ability to systemize everything, to set up your interview availability for the candidate to schedule the interview. And that's awesome because it gives them accountability and helps them to be involved. So I, my biggest advice would be engage in workstream to to use it. It's there, it's an excellent resource. There's, I there's been a lot of work put into it and I know there's changes. Oh, you know, there's always improvements in upgrades because we learn as we go. So the processes have been established in work stream, it's just making sure they're being used. So my biggest word would just be engaged.

Daniel Blaser (08:05):

So when it comes to just attracting applicants and getting their attention obviously pay is kind of number one factor for a lot of people. I just wanted to ask, have you found that there are any other perks or benefits or anything else you can, can do maybe in a job listing or elsewhere to really attract applicants?

Ann Miller (08:27):

So I always feel that that pay is number one. And, and with that, it's very important to be completely transparent with it. If it's a range, then you need to state it's a range. If it's a dead set hourly rate or annual rate, you have to be transparent with that. But I think another big aspect beyond pay is showing in the ad or in the posting, what does the company offer, and not strictly an employee discount or whatever, but, and benefits are important, of course, if there's any insurance, PTO 4, 0 1 K, things like that. But what is the company like, what is their culture like? What are the opportunities for growth? That's a big thing we hear of in recruiting is, this is great, but what's next? What are my options? What's the potential? And being able to, well, I say verbalize by guess state, that is very important. So again, be transparent. There's, it's a great company culture. Here's the opportunities for growth. And you know, I love this section where you can put a description of the company itself. That to me as an individual shows where is the company headed, what has it done, what, where's it going? So that would tell me as an employee, if the company is growing, there's opportunity for me to grow as an employee.

Daniel Blaser (10:03):

Kind of a follow-up question, it might be very related to your, you know, that answer you just gave, but when it comes to retaining employees, which that's something that I keep hearing more and more about, I feel like six months ago, 12 months ago, was all just like, we need more applicants, we need more people in the door. And I feel like there's been a little shift. Maybe you've experienced something similar where it's now, okay, well the, the kind of chaos around just getting enough people in the door has died down a little bit. Now it's about retaining, engaging employees, making sure that they're, you know, delivering everything as far as customer service goes and, and whatnot. Anyway, when it comes to that retention piece what are, what's some advice or, or some, you know, perspective that you can lend to just increasing retention among hourly workers?

Ann Miller (10:51):

So I firmly believe we're currently in an employee market. So there are jobs out there, there are jobs to be had, and the employee feels they could be a little bit more picky. They're not afraid to job hop to find something better. The next big thing comes along. So it is very important to focus on retention. So the number one factor for me is finding out the root cause of why someone leaves. So, you know, you have to figure that out. What's, what's the common denominator, what's the issue? Because hiring is a, is a big deal and it's always been prevalent, but if you can retain your employees, the hiring won't seem so panicked, so fanatical, so emergent. It's, you know, there's always a fire. It's a five alarm fire when you need to hire someone. But finding out what can we do to retain, and I think for us personally, we provide a great culture.

(11:58):

You know, we are growing fast and there's those opportunities for growth, but it's showing the employee all of those perks or benefits versus just saying them, you know, guiding them on how to grow within the company. Because we can say there's room for growth, but how do we do that? What steps do I as the employee need to take to grow? Because, you know, I don't want, I can't just stand here and expect to get promoted or get more hours or get a pay raise. You know, we have to train and guide and lead, and that's, that's a big factor, is leadership. So I would say that's, find out the root cause of why hiring is always a panic, because that inevitably is because the retention is low. So what's causing that turnover? You gotta find the root cause of it.

Daniel Blaser (12:56):

You know, I, you mentioned that you work remotely. I know that that is, like you said, the case for a lot of HR professionals. And to me that's interesting, maybe an interesting challenge because you're dealing with a profession that's very people focused and communication focused, and obviously working remotely can throw some challenges in that. Do you have any recommendations for any other HR recruiting professionals that also work remotely that maybe just feel like, you know, they're, they, they want to increase that, that connection to applicants employees? You know, how, how do you kind of navigate that personally?

Ann Miller (13:32):

It's all based on communication. It's gotta be very open very heartfelt. It is, it can be difficult when you're not face-to-face when you're not with them, but establishing that connection via the communication, the consistent communication, rather than it feeling like a legal q and a, you have to make it feel like it's more of a conversation because it's when you're, especially if you're over the phone or texting or whatever, you can't get the nonverbal cues. You don't read their body language and you don't get all of that. So it's, it's just super important to communicate. And in my case, I'm very blessed to have an amazing management and leadership team that is on site. They do most of the in-person interviews with the candidates, and we've got a great team in place, so they do an amazing job. So I'm more on kind of the behind the scenes, the back end, but, you know, but you still have to communicate with everybody. It's gotta be open and honest communication.

Daniel Blaser (14:46):

Great, great advice. Well I wanna give you the chance before we jump off is, is there anything else that maybe you wanted to mention about workstream, how it's helped you you know, how it's impacted the business? Anything else that maybe you didn't get to before we jump off?

Ann Miller (15:03):

Well, I will say coming into this company, workstream was brand new to me, but the overall result from Workstream has been fantastic. But I do wanna give a shout out to the workstream team just because they are amazing. They answer all my questions. Like I said, it was new to me. They've provided so much training. We've set up monthly meetings to go over analytics and different things. The customer service is phenomenal. There's not a question that I haven't had answered. And some of 'em are pretty basic and I feel kind of silly, but I've never been treated like I was silly or didn't know anything. So I just wanna give a shout out to the customer service team. And it works, obviously, we, we get our ads up and we get people hired, and I think it's just a great partnership.

Daniel Blaser (15:59):

That's awesome. Well, I'll I'll definitely, you know, share that with internally so everyone can know that, that's great to hear. That's something we've really tried hard is to emphasize the support and the customer success side of things. So glad to hear that. And with that, I think you're free to go about your day. I really appreciate you taking this half hour to chat.

Ann Miller (16:21):

Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Daniel Blaser (16:29):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For more info, visit workstream.us/podcast. Until next time, we're clocking out.