Meeting their needs will meet your own
Employers and workers are best served when the employer tries to understand their hourly workers ’ needs .
People BY PETER HARRISON
Hiring Hourly Workers
Meeting their needs will meet your own
Here at Snagajob we live and breathe the hourly worker experience . Through our ongoing research and daily engagement with workers , we saw a real need for resources to help guide them through their employment journey . What we heard from workers is that most of the resources they could find were focused on salaried jobs or , if hourly , on the knowledge worker .
In a partnership with LinkedIn , we examined our respective data to determine patterns that might be helpful for both workers and employers . Our goal was to provide the first in a series of resources that reveal the best options and pathways available to hourly workers most likely to lead them to fulfilling , long-term employment and faster career advancement . In addition , we aimed to offer employers fresh insight into what motivates and engages hourly wage workers , to help reduce turnover and better engage and advance them . Here are six of our key findings .
1 ) Most hourly workers are young , but older workers have more education . We found that 71 % of hourly workers are under 30 . This makes sense when you consider the most common reasons people choose hourly work , such as helping to pay for school or to start their careers . However , when we looked at education levels , the findings were more surprising . While younger hourly workers naturally have less education than older hourly workers , we found that 45 % of hourly workers over 30 have some post-secondary education , with 15 % having a bachelor ’ s degree or higher .
2 ) When it comes to hiring speed , sandwich shops and sports stores lead the pack . For many hourly workers , getting a job quickly is the difference between being able to pay the bills or not . That ’ s why we analyzed hiring speed ( the time between submitting the job application and the first day on the clock ) across several industries . We found that , on average , restaurants hire within 27 days compared with 33 days in retail ( some restaurants average as low as 15 days ). Although retail takes six days longer on average , certain retailers , such as sports and furniture stores , are more similar to restaurants in
Employers and workers are best served when the employer tries to understand their hourly workers ’ needs .
terms of hiring speed .
3 ) Telecom , grocery stores and casual dining keep employees longest . The length of time employees stay at a company can indicate how engaged they are at work . We analyzed how long employees stay as a surrogate for their engagement level and found that telecom , casual dining , and grocery employers have the highest levels of hourly worker engagement . Sports retailers , beverage , and fast food employers have the lowest . It ’ s likely that wage differences have an impact here , but we didn ’ t consider that in our analysis .
4 ) While most hourly jobs are entrylevel , restaurants have more growth opportunities than retail . Analyzing the level of experience of millions of hourly workers , we found that the vast majority of jobs in both the restaurant and retail industries are entry-level . Looking deeper , we found that the restaurant industry has a greater proportion of managerial roles . This makes sense considering that 90 % of restaurants have fewer than 50 employees . Lots of small shops means less middle management and thus a greater proportion of opportunities at the bottom and top . In contrast , there are fewer managerial , but more entry- and mid-level opportunities , in retail .
5 ) The average time it takes to get promoted varies widely by employer type . Hourly employers in beverage , crafts , and furniture get promoted to managerial positions the fastest , within two years on average . Workers in telecommunications and casual dining get promoted to managerial positions the slowest , more than three years on average . While some restaurants promote in as few as 15 months or as long as three-and-a-half years , the spread within each subcategory is much less . For example , we could expect all pizza shops to promote around the same time . This consistency likely is due to large chains dominating the restaurant industry and having standardized promotion tracks .
6 ) Many hourly workers invest in higher education . Since college graduates earn twice as much as non-college graduates it ’ s not surprising that so many hourly workers go back to school . Of the hourly workers who pursue education after starting their hourly job , approximately three quarters get bachelor ’ s degrees or above and one quarter earn associate ’ s degrees . Looking into what these workers study , we found that while business is most popular , healthcare , IT , and engineering are growing fastest . Hourly workers commonly study the arts , social sciences , and communications too , but these fields are losing popularity .
That ’ s it for now , but our hope is to continue to publish more data that will : 1 ) help hourly workers find the right job fits that lead to a better quality of life with a clear path to advancement ; and 2 ) help hourly employers understand what motivates and fulfills their workers so they can find ways to provide that . We firmly believe that both employers and workers are best served when the employer tries to understand their hourly workers ’ needs and provide them with a path for growth .
Peter Harrison is CEO of Snagajob where he leverages technology to reimagine the future of work through instant and quality connections between workers and employers . Last year , the company had a direct hand in hiring more than 3 million people .
66 MULTI-UNIT FRANCHISEE ISSUE II , 2017