Growing Manufacturer Needing a Smarter Engagement Strategy
Hearth & Home Technologies is a US-based manufacturer that brings warmth and comfort to homes with inviting and innovative fireplaces. They sell to customers through multiple channels including retail, specialized dealers and builders of new construction.
“Our member-owner culture is at the core of this success, empowering all members to implement change and move the company forward. We are trained, but we will never stop improving.” – Hearth & Home Technologies, hearthnhome.com
The pandemic brought on difficult changes for every industry and company, and Hearth & Home was no exception. They saw an increase in demand for their products as people hunkered down in their homes. This increased demand meant that they would need to increase production, which meant the need for rapid new hiring. Many manufacturers are competing for the best quality candidates as well as racing to fill roles to meet increasing production demands, and Hearth & Home is no exception.
Like many manufacturing companies, Hearth & Home was not prepared for the increased number of roles that they quickly had to fill. At one point, they had nearly tripled the number of open requisitions which was a significant increase for them They needed a way to quickly volume hire the best talent while still providing a great candidate experience.
Reaching Candidates Where They Are
Often in manufacturing talent networks, candidates do not own a personal computer and can sometimes struggle finding reliable access to Wi-Fi. Hearth & Home found it difficult to communicate and engage with candidates through their traditional channels of email and phone calls and needed a way to stand out to candidates against competitors.
“We needed to be able to get to people where they were on the devices that they were using.” – Steve Lewis, Director of Talent Acquisition
With over 1,000 members (as Hearth & Home refers to their employees) and a need for additional engineering and production roles, the company looked to Jobvite for help. They needed a way to make the apply process easier for candidates, and a way to make it easier for recruiters to engage with these mobile-dependent candidates. Before Jobvite, Hearth & Home had a very manual, disparate talent acquisition process that included sourcing from job boards, separately reaching out via email or phone call, and then another system to schedule interviews. They also struggled to find a way to let their candidates apply from their mobile device.
Candidates often took two or more days to respond to emails and phone calls, as they weren’t often on email during work hours. But the Heath & Home TA team knew that these top candidates do always keep their phones on them and are constantly checking them. So, what’s the best way to reach them? Through text messaging.
“We needed to be able to get to people where they were on the devices that they were using.”
— Steve Lewis, Director of Talent Acquisition at HHT
A Mobile-Optimized Candidate Experience
The Hearth & Home TA Team knew that they could adapt to the changing industry and offer a quality candidate experience to stand out against their competitors. In order to quickly fill the open production roles in order to meet growing demand for their products, they needed a mobile-optimized candidate experience and apply process.
“We leaned on the people at Jobvite for understanding how we needed to evolve our apply process and deliver a better candidate experience.” – Wendy Blodgett-Verdouw, Talent Sourcing Specialist.
Combining Jobvite’s smart recruiting technology and a solid understanding of their talent market, Hearth & Home leveled up their TA process. By knowing what was important to and the behaviors of their candidates, they leveraged Jobvite’s Intelligent Messaging which allowed the recruiting team to send text messages to candidates, making scheduling multiple interviews in a day a breeze.
Response from candidates immediately improved nearly 50% for Hearth & Home after adopting Intelligent Messaging and Jobvite ATS. It allowed their TA team to effortlessly have a conversation with a candidate, get an immediate response, and easily schedule interviews all within the Jobvite platform within a matter of minutes, instead of days.
Jobvite’s fully integrated suite allows Hearth & Home to seamlessly collect and use data in their recruiting process. Striving to achieve data-driven recruiting is important to the TA team. Steve explained that the comprehensive product suite from Jobvite consisting of Jobvite CRM, ATS and Onboard, provides valuable functionality and was a big part of their decision to work with Jobvite.
About Hearth & Home Technologies
Hearth & Home Technologies is the largest manufacturer of hearths in the world. Headquartered in Minnesota, they pride themselves on innovation in design and technology. Hearth & Home Technologies holds over 100 patents in the industry and benefit from their large distribution network. Proving the best service and product to customers continues to be a focus for them as they grow.
