A New Type of Hiring

The traditional school system has convinced itself that all they need to do to fix their problems is to identify, recruit, hire, and retain qualified school leaders and classroom teachers. Districts spend a lot of money trying to get the right people on the bus if you will.

But what if all that effort and all that money spent on getting the human resource question right was, in the end, a waste of effort, money, and time?

New research is now suggesting that “open hiring”, hiring that doesn’t depend on resumes or interviews, might just be as dependable as the practices most school districts employ when trying to find the right principals or teachers for their schools.

Reasons to be Cheerful recently reported that,

“Nobody responded to Catherin Bayoudhi when she applied for jobs in late 2022. She had been a hairdresser for 35 years and had no experience in other vocations. After she was forced to leave her job during the pandemic, she joined the UK government’s Restart Scheme for people unemployed for nine months or more. But when not a single offer materialized, she began to worry that, at 56, employers were discriminating against her because of her age.”

“’Nothing seemed to come my way,’ Bayoudhi says. ‘I started to get disheartened, even though I knew I was more than capable of being an asset to anyone’s business. I’ve been told that so many times at the job center, but I wasn’t getting the employment.’”

“Just as Bayoudhi was giving up hope, a job center informed her about a seasonal job opening as a customer assistant at The Body Shop. Without requesting a CV or cover letter, the application asked only three questions: Do you have the right to work in the UK? Can you work for up to eight hours in a shift? Can you carry loads of 11 kilograms?”

“The ‘no resume, no references’ approach reflects The Body Shop’s ‘open hiring’ process, which Reasons to be Cheerful wrote about in March 2020 after the company first implemented it. Now, three years later, as open hiring begins to catch on more widely, The Body Shop has shared internal data with RTBC showing the success of the approach.”

“Open hiring was developed in the 1980s by Bernie Glassman, the founder of Greyston Baskery in New York. Glassman had trained as a Buddhist monk, and was looking for ways to heal the struggling city of Yonkers, just north of The Bronx. He identified unemployment as one of the city’s greatest scourges, and chose to offer jobs at his bakery to anybody who walked in: immigrants, people with disabilities or little education, and the formerly incarcerated.”

“Greyston Bakery subsequently acquired Ben and Jerry’s as a major client, and bakes the brownies for its famous ice cream. Through this experience, Glassman discovered that a successful open hiring strategy required more than a simple open-door policy. It required comprehensive wrap-around services, too, that would help employees thrive at Greyston and future employers. The company opened a consultation center to teach other companies the lessons it had learned in the process.”

“Global cosmetics retailer The Body Shop became one of the largest companies to adopt Greyston’s methodology. The company first test open hiring for seasonal roles at a North Carolina distribution center in 2019, where monthly staff turnover subsequently fell by 60 percent. It officially adopted the practice in 2020, and later expanded it into its major markets. It has since increased the roles available through open hiring to include seasonal in-store customer assistants on three or four-month contacts, too.”

“While many perceive open hiring as an initiative with social rewards, including better diversity and community support, The Body Shop has experienced several business benefits too. Nykeba King, The Body Shop’s global head of inclusion and belonging, says that sales in stores with open-hired employees have risen by over 10 percent. There are many possible reasons for this, she says, although one factor might be that teams formed through open hiring often feel more excited and engaged in the knowledge that they’re supporting their local communities. King also thinks that the broader diversity may appeal to customers.”

“Improved retention is another apparent benefit. In The Body Shop’s initial North Carolina trial, supervisors reported that employees who entered through the scheme felt more grateful for their jobs, and were thus more likely to stay. Last year, 37 percent of seasonal employees hired through the initiative stayed on under permanent contracts, up from 30 percent in 2021, when the company was still using conventional hiring practices. Amid recent labor shortages, retention has become a bigger priority at many companies, and King says that peers at other organizations have approached her for advice on the matter.”

“As with Greyston Bakery, in addition to the business advantages, open hiring is a social responsibility practice for The Body Shop. In that respect, internal data suggests the company has succeeded. In 2022, 68 percent of those hired through the program in the US and 84 percent of those in the UK faced at least one barrier to employment. Some 68 percent were people of color, up from 55 percent in 2021.”

When I was a school leader inside the traditional system, I felt like I batted about 70% when it came to hiring the right person for the job. But the longer I waited to hire through the summer, that 70% started to plummet. Thousands of dollars were spent by the district in order for us to get to that 70%. I wonder how much money could have been saved if I had adopted more of an “open hiring” approach.

Also, how many adult learning leaders, who would have been great leading classrooms, were disqualified because a recruiter or a human resource officer didn’t like them for some reason. The social responsibility piece here is huge.

Til tomorrow. SVB