Background

The second-largest fast food hamburger chain needed to address frontline hiring challenges that their global locations all faced. Every day, more than 11 million guests visit their restaurants worldwide, and the organization was struggling to fill open roles fast enough to meet the needs of their customers.

Goals

As an international restaurant corporation, the fast food chain makes active hiring decisions in countries all around the world. Although a global presence has its business benefits, such a wide array of markets can complicate recruitment processes—especially in a high-volume hiring environment.

In Argentina, for example, the restaurant chain has 180 stores that process 3,500 job applications and 110 new hires per month. On such a broad scale, most of the organizational challenges were related to the standardization of the recruiting process between separate restaurant locations.

Before Emi, the fast food corporation’s most significant pain points included:

• Operating with a recruitment process that required store managers to spend too much time on HR-related tasks
• Fielding negative feedback from candidates due to a poor candidate experience
• Managing a complex, high-volume recruitment process for hourly workers  

Solution

The fast food chain’s HR team wanted to reduce the time HR managers spent on recruiting tasks and create a better overall experience for frontline candidates. 

Collectively, the team recognized how these goals had the potential to contribute to a more proactive and organized recruitment culture. Turning to Emi’s AI-powered recruitment platform, the fast food chain has been able to automate time-consuming tasks like candidate screening and interview scheduling while also delivering a better candidate experience.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, the restaurant industry has faced significant employment and staffing shortages globally. Standardizing its recruitment processes with Emi has given the chain a recruiting advantage and protection against interruptions in daily business operations, especially as those operations relate to providing exceptional service to customers.

“Emi helped us shorten our recruitment process, decrease our early turnover, and increase our number of applicants, providing a better experience for candidates all along the process.” HR Manager at leading fast food chain

Results

Optimize job matches for every new candidate

One of the ways that the fast food chain sought to improve the recruitment process was by making it easier to find jobs and apply to them. With Emi, the company accomplishes this through in-store QR codes that attract new candidates organically. This strategy uses the strength of their globally recognized brand to showcase new opportunities.

Emi also helps the company’s candidates locate the best fit roles according to the distance from a home or university address. Emi automatically assigns a set of optimal stores for each candidate. Improved matching reduces frustration and commuting time, ultimately improving employee engagement and retention.

Eliminate wasted time with convenient pre-screening

Before Emi, the fast food chain’s HR team acknowledged how much time was wasted on ineffective processes that didn’t truly meet all of a job applicant’s needs. With Emi’s automated pre-screening and 24/7 chat options, recruiters can now replace phone interviews with personalized processes that accommodate each applicant.

Emi helps the company answer all questions that candidates may have. The platform serves as the point of contact while candidates wait to hear back on the next steps. With Emi, applicants receive a timely hiring decision and always know where they stand in the hiring process. This clear, transparent communication improves the candidate experience and is highly valued by the organization’s standards.

Automate hiring processes for busy recruiters

In the past, the chain’s recruiters were spending multiple days a week going back and forth with candidates to coordinate interviews. Now, automated interview scheduling through the Emi platform helps store managers reclaim hours in their work week.

Hiring managers can easily revisit candidate pools and view highly-ranked candidates that weren’t given a previous offer. Emi also allows managers to send previous applicants automated notifications when new, better-fitting positions become available.

Unify HR standards to foster easier hiring decisions

Any successful recruiting initiative requires all the stakeholders and users to be on the same page. With Emi, the fast food chain has enhanced its ability to unify specific standards for position requirements and ensure that recruiting selection criteria are transparent and well-defined.

To build a complete understanding of the entire recruitment funnel, the HR team leverages Emi to measure and track important recruiting KPIs. Emi improves visibility with real-time access to HR data and user-friendly analytics dashboards, keeping everyone up to speed with recruitment goals and progress.

Since partnering with Emi, the HR team at the leading fast food chain has also been able to: 

• Reclaim 10% of store managers’ work time previously spent on screening and scheduling
• Recover 5-10% of the HR team's time previously spent on interview coordination
• Accelerate time to hire by 30%—saving an average of 5 days
• Grow candidate applications 4x, resulting in 10,000 new candidates reached monthly
• Boost the attendance rate for first interviews to over 90%