Logistics Recruiters Cast a Virtual Net for Workers
With warehousing business booming, companies are using digital tools like geofencing to find likely workers in a tight job market
Job seekers line for an ‘Amazon Jobs Day’ recruitment fair. PHOTO: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
Warehouse workers driving to their jobs at many of the new distribution centers dotting the U.S. landscape may not be alone—recruiters could be on their digital trail.
Some logistics companies looking for workers in a tight U.S. job market are casting a virtual net, using a technique called geofencing to target people as they drive by sites or even park their cars in competitors’ lots.
It is an industrial version of a strategy some retailers and restaurants use by tapping into the digital footprints consumers leave with their smartphones, flashing sales pitches at customers even as they walk the aisles.
Instead of coupons for sweaters, however, logistics recruiters are serving up advertisements for job openings in a field where companies are scrambling to keep up with the growing demands of e-commerce and a robust U.S. economy.
“If somebody is going to sit in their car for 30 minutes before their shift…and watch YouTube, I want them to watch our ads in the preroll,” said Melissa Phillips, senior director of digital operations, acquisitions and engagement for staffing company EmployBridge.
The digital recruiting push comes as logistics companies are grappling with the tightest labor market in decades. Warehousing and storage payrolls nearly doubled in the past decade, reaching 1.19 million jobs in May 2019, according to the Labor Department, as booming e-commerce businesses have spurred the rapid expansion of sprawling fulfillment centers to handle online purchases.
Amazon workers run past a line of applicants waiting to enter a job fair. PHOTO: ELAINE THOMPSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Although the pace of hiring has slowed in recent months, the overall jobless rate is at a 50-year low of 3.6% and logistics providers and staffing agencies say competition for labor remains fierce. To lure workers, companies are raising wages and offering perks such as productivity bonuses and improving workplaces with features such as on-site gyms and salad bars.
Companies also are turning to digital tools such as geofencing that have become familiar in the consumer world.
Logistics companies are serving up recruitment ads on social media to people who have searched for jobs using keywords such as “warehouse” or who live within a certain radius of a facility, a strategy known as geotargeting. Such tactics are fast and cheap compared with television or radio spots and enable businesses and staffing agencies to launch mini-campaigns aimed at specific groups, such as temporary workers from the previous holiday season.
Geofencing, in which companies use the Global Positioning System and digital signals emitted by smartphones to zoom in more precisely on prospective recruits, kicks the search for employees up a notch.
The technology enables companies to set up a virtual perimeter and sends targeted ads, texts or push notifications to location-enabled mobile devices in a particular area.
Supply-chain operator Geodis SA uses geotargeting for digital campaigns in Atlanta, Dallas, central Pennsylvania, Indianapolis, Ind., and Nashville, Tenn., to recruit people who live within 20 to 50 miles of its facilities. The company also uses geofencing for its Facebookads in those areas.
“During some of these targeted campaigns for particular warehouses, we’ve had people walk across the street from one of our competitors to apply for a job on their lunch break,” said Randy Tucker, Americas chief executive for the France-based company.
Companies haven’t abandoned more traditional recruitment methods, such as radio spots or listings on online job boards. But the new digital tools can help raise a company’s profile with prospective applicants, a potentially important factor in a market in which the promise of a 50 cents-an-hour raise may be all it takes to get a worker to switch companies.
“In the warehouse/distribution/trucker space, all those people are employed,” said Melissa Hassett, vice president of client delivery for ManpowerGroup Solutions Recruitment Process Outsourcing, a subsidiary of staffing company agency ManpowerGroup Inc. “It’s not like they’re hitting the job boards. We have to find them where they are, get the message in front of them several times before they actually go and apply.”
To help fill warehouse and driving jobs at medical-waste management company StericycleInc., the ManpowerGroup unit places ads on the navigation-app service Waze that pop up when a person drives past one of the company’s warehouses. “In some cases, we’ve drawn a line around the parking lot of a competitor’s facility,” said Ms. Hassett.
She estimates that some 50% of Stericycle job applicants now come from digital marketing campaigns.
Kenco Group, a third-party logistics company based in Chattanooga, Tenn., sometimes focuses on residents with an easy reverse commute to one of Kenco’s 100 facilities, which can make the site more attractive and can improve work attendance.
“If they have a 15-mile commute into traffic, it might take 45 minutes,” said Scott Mayfield, Kenco’s chief administrative officer. “Take it away, it decreases the drive time and increases retention.”
E-commerce logistics company Radial Inc., which provides technology and warehousing services for customers such as Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. and World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., has tailored its recruiting efforts to target certain ZIP Codes and what it deems likely workers. The company ran more than “100 different campaigns over multiple sites, going aggressively after people who were looking for seasonal work and fit the demographic of a warehouse or telecom person,” said Tim Hinckley, Radial’s chief commercial officer.
The company’s online job applications increased by 690% from 2017 to 2018, he said, with 67% of those driven by social media. That is a boost for a business whose workforce may quadruple to as many as 20,000 during seasonal peaks.
“This stuff does work,” Mr. Hinckley said, “and it gave us an incredible advantage.”
Write to Jennifer Smith at jennifer.smith@wsj.com
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