Hiring hourly workers is easy: there’s a huge candidate pool to draw from, hourly positions require little to no experience, and these workers have minimal impact on an organization’s success.

Wrong.

Wrong.

WRONG!

Yet many HR articles, and HR tech solutions seem to focus on recruiting for salaried positions.

I don’t know about you, but what our clients want most, is an effective way to engage, recruit, and hire hourly workers.

The high demand we see for this category of candidate indicates that recruiting hourly workers is no cake walk. In fact it’s often an extremely competitive market (depending on the specific position of course.)

Nor has my experience led me to believe that hourly workers are not a vital part of a company’s culture and achievements. At Jobcast, we work with so many incredible organizations where the majority of their staff is comprised of non-salaried positions, and we wouldn’t dare suggest to them that those employees do not have a huge impact on their company’s success.

Take Earls Restaurant for example:

“Great guest experiences begin with great partner experiences. At Earls, our people are our most important resource in delivering irresistible food and engaging experiences that build relationships for life!”  – Jessica Slussar, Earls Family of Restaurants

Jessica also makes it clear that although many of the candidates Earls hires do not come to the company with a huge technical  skill set, this does not mean they hire just anyone.

In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Earls recruits new employees with potential for advancement in mind. They have found a huge return on investment when they put stock in their employees’ future by providing training and encouraging advancement from within.

At Earls there are many great examples across the company of partners who started out as hostesses, and dishwashers, only to become President, GM, and Chef.

So, when the HR team at Earls hire these “unskilled workers”, they are looking for the soft skills required to excel in higher level roles.

Then there are organizations like Fraser Health Services.

Fraser Health is currently building capacity to address unprecedented population growth. This means they need hourly workers; lots of them!

But, the hourly workers they need are not your average candidates.

Fraser Health provides the best care possible: they prioritize safety, quality, and innovation in healthcare. This means that they rely on their staff to be highly skilled, well trained, and educated.

Fraser health Authority is not the only health care organization preparing for increased demand, so the candidates they’re after are a hot commodity, and as such, they must do everything in their power to attract, engage, and recruit them.

These are just two examples of companies that demonstrate the importance of a focus on recruiting hourly workers. We see similar examples every day.

At Jobcast, our clients have taught us that hourly workers are vital contributors to your company’s success, that the quality of hourly workers does matter, and that recruiting these candidates is a challenge that needs to be addressed!

Another thing our clients have taught us?

Facebook is a powerful tool for engaging hourly workers – Tweet it!

Fraser Health currently has a brilliant Facebook recruitment strategy. They use their Facebook Page to promote job openings, to show potential candidates the positive work environment they can expect, and to highlight incredible innovations and projects that inspire job seekers.

Earls has used Facebook to run their hugely effective “Earls Wants You” recruitment campaign, successfully meet recruitment goals in one of their most competitive markets. They have also built up a recognizable employer brand using Facebook’s photo galleries, and run effective, highly visual Facebook Ads campaigns to reach passive candidates.

Facebook allows both organizations to target specific demographics, reach passive candidates, and entice those potential hires by showing off their company culture, and perks.

Both companies also use Jobcast’s automated social sharing feature to broadcast their open positions across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Plus.

Fraser Health Tweets all of their latest job openings!

This way they reach as many potential candidates as possible!

We’ve worked with so many fantastic companies to help build their employer brand, and implement successful social recruiting campaigns with a specific eye towards hiring for non salaried positions.

Next week, we’ll go over some of our favorite strategies and discuss how you can recruit qualified hourly workers using social!