WH Smith is a household name in the UK and most of the company‘s 17,000 staff were customers before they joined so the company's employer brand is important to its success.
A key benefit of the project has been a redevelopment of WH Smith‘s recruitment website to fully reflect its position as a leading employer and to enhance the candidate experience.
The retailer is working with StepStone Solutions to implement the technology.
WH Smith's HR director, Anthony Lawrence, said: "Several large retailers were using the StepStone Solution and were clearly happy with it. The functionality, user-friendliness and flexibility of the solution matched our needs very well.
"Asking candidates to apply online made sense for us. The majority of our candidates are completely comfortable online and this becomes more true with every passing year."
Early results of the roll-out in stores indicate that the solution is saving time for store managers at every step of the recruitment process. They do not have to look through as many applications because the system does some initial screening for them.
Job adverts direct candidates to the online recruitment site where they answer initial qualification questions. Store managers are also saving time by letting the system schedule interviews and generate all correspondence with candidates. Internal processes, such as getting approvals from an area manager or getting references checked, are also more efficient now that they are done electronically.
