Pre-Hire Assessment for Warehouse Operatives

Warehouse work can be physically demanding, repetitive and challenging. As a result you may experience high staff turnover, high new hire failure rates and low application numbers. The right pre-employment assessment will enable frontline recruiters and hiring managers to reduce new hire turnover as well as make smarter hiring decisions that lead to higher staff productivity. 

Not only this, but if assessments are used at the top of the recruitment funnel, they will help you identify which candidates to prioritise in the recruiting funnel much more quickly. We have a particular process called ‘Apply to “Hi” in 24 hours’ for warehouse recruitment which involves using assessments to replace the need for hiring manager interviews.

The Statistics

  • The warehousing industry is among the top four industries with the highest worker turnover rate at 46.1% (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • The direct cost of replacing a frontline worker is around 20% of their annual salary (According to the Center for American Progress (CAP)
  • It costs a 3PL at least $7,000 to replace a single warehouse worker.

Common Frontline Jobs in Warehouses

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Warehouse Operative

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Warehouse Assistant

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Loader / Stocker

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Material Handler

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Forklift Operator

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Warehouse Worker

Why Use Pre-Employment Assessments in your Warehouse

Applicant volumes can be relatively low for entry-level warehouse operative jobs. And finding staff tends to be very competitive. This means that the quicker you can process a candidate from application to offer the better chance you have of filling jobs with the best talent. Using assessments as a replacement for the phone screen or in some cases interview means candidates can apply and know within minutes if they are to be offered a job.

 

How to Use Pre-Employment Assessments for Warehouse Workers

Unlike other industries, assessments for entry-level, frontline warehouse roles can be used to automatically select candidates for the job. Most of our warehousing and logistics customers use their assessments at the start of the hiring process – just after the point of application and some use their Realistic Job Assessment as a replacement for a job interview. Hiring managers can use the time they would have spent interviewing to onboard and engage new employees instead in an orientation day. Recruiters can use the time they would have spent screening candidates on finding great people to apply int he first place.

What Tests to Use

Warehouses and distribution centres are not all the same. For example, some workers use LLOPs (Low Level Order Pickers) to navigate through the warehouse whereas some don’t have this equipment. Some are more involved in matching labels to packages or loading items onto bays. ThriveMap works with innovative companies to create bespoke assessments that model the skills and competencies required to thrive in your unique warehouse environment.

Administering a realistic job assessment approach ensures not only that candidates have the right combination of skills and competencies to thrive, but also that they know what type of working environment they are committing to ahead of joining. Often this involves a combination of judgement based questions to measure basic competencies such as an awareness for health and safety and skills-based questions to measure essential attributes such as attention to detail, navigation or label-matching.

In recent years we’ve seen the emergence of technology-literacy questions to measure whether candidates can cope with operating handheld tech systems. ThriveMap’s approach to this is to typically involve simulating the tasks that people find challenging when in the role and designing realistic scenarios and tasks. This has been proven to be more effective than generic tests at establishing whether candidates will be able to perform the tasks your roles demand.

Where to use assessments in the recruitment process for Warehouse operatives?

When recruiting staff for warehouse roles its best to use assessments at the top of the recruitment funnel, automatically after job application to identify which candidates to prioritise in the applicant pool for faster, more effective hiring.

Why ThriveMap?

ThriveMap is the #1 Realistic Job Assessments platform.

Combining the most predictive selection methods into one assessment, ThriveMap’s Realistic Job Assessments take candidates through the experience of a working day in the role in your company – giving you and them a better picture of suitability from the outset.

We’re different for the following reasons:

You’ll get complete personalisation

Each company is unique. In fact, each role within each company is unique. Someone could perform well in the same job in another company and fail in yours.

We measure behaviour in context.

People behave differently in different contexts. Measuring someone’s ability in one environment does not mean they’ll display that ability in another.

We give you full transparency.

Jobs are constantly evolving. Unlike other assessment providers, if something’s not working, you have the power to change it.

We make your candidate the hero of the story.

We place the candidate in the heart of the story of a typical work day. If they don’t like the sound of the role or culture they can withdraw from the process at any time.

How ThriveMap Helps Warehouses and Distribution Centres to:

  • Improve new hire retention
  • Hire more productive employees
  • Save time recruiting