Shoe Station cuts hiring time with Fountain platform

Shoe Station Group has moved hiring administration for its stores onto Fountain, covering more than 420 locations.

After shifting requisitions, interview scheduling and related tasks to the platform, the footwear group cut its time to hire from about 14 days to six. Applicant drop-off also fell from roughly 60% to 35% as candidates were able to move through the process more quickly.

Shoe Station Group operates 422 stores across 35 states and Puerto Rico under the Shoe Carnival and Shoe Station banners. Previously, store managers handled hiring manually, including phone screening, interview scheduling and repeated follow-up with candidates.

Under the new process, requisitions open automatically and applicants can reach store systems within minutes, according to the retailer. Candidates can book their own interviews with store managers, and offer letters can be issued within minutes after a decision is made.

The system changed administrative work rather than the final hiring decision. Store managers still meet candidates and decide who is hired, but no longer need to spend as much time on paperwork and scheduling.

Rob Tant, Manager of Talent Acquisition at Shoe Station Group, said the shift has freed store leaders to spend more time in shops.

"Our stores are the No. 1 driver of our business," said Rob Tant, Manager of Talent Acquisition at Shoe Station Group. "Fountain has put a lot more time in the manager's day. It puts them back out on the sales floor."

One practical effect was less time spent trying to contact applicants. Text-based communication through mobile devices replaced some of the back-and-forth that had previously delayed interviews.

"Our managers aren't spending two, three days playing phone tag with candidates," Tant said. "Because Fountain was built with a mobile application in mind first, that's really put our stores in a position where they can communicate via text."

Hiring speed has been one of the clearest measurable outcomes. Stacey Lloyd, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at Shoe Station Group, said the improvement became apparent when the team reviewed its hiring data.

"Our time to hire was about 14 days," said Stacey Lloyd, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at Shoe Station Group. "When I looked at the metrics, we were down to 6 days. That's been tremendous."

Reporting changes

The retailer has also started using Cue by Fountain for reporting and pipeline analysis that its talent team had previously done manually. Before that change, staff pulled multiple separate reports to identify issues in the hiring process.

Tant said that earlier reporting process was fragmented and time-consuming for the talent acquisition team. Cue now highlights parts of the pipeline that need attention, leaving staff to decide what actions to take.

"Previously, we'd have to pull four or five different reports just to get to one thing that might lead to a solution," Tant said. "With Cue, I can quickly run a report that's going to suggest: 'hey, here are the areas that have the biggest opportunities in your overall pipeline health.'"

Fountain said its software manages frontline hiring from opening a requisition through candidate communications, interview scheduling and offers. Cue works across that process by taking on work teams would otherwise handle manually.

The company positions this approach as a way to shift operational tasks away from managers and recruiters rather than simply making those tasks faster. Sean Behr, Chief Executive Officer of Fountain, said the difference lies in moving the work itself.

"So many HR leaders I speak with want their managers more strategic and less operational," said Sean Behr, Chief Executive Officer of Fountain. "Almost none have been able to change what actually lands on a manager's desk. Faster software never did it, because speed leaves the work in the same place. What is different now is that the work itself moves. The manager approves instead of performing. Shoe Station Group's managers got their day back."

The changes at Shoe Station Group offer a case study in how retailers are trying to reduce the burden of high-volume recruitment across large store networks while keeping final hiring decisions with local managers.