KEY POINTS:
If you hire large numbers of young people in widely dispersed locations on an almost continuous basis, going online makes sense.
The Warehouse's execution of what has become a common recruitment strategy, the careers website, has put the company and its website designer, Tribal DDB, in the finals for a Webby. That's the prime award for web sites, the equivalent of the online Oscar.
The winners are chosen by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, an organisation set up to help drive not only the creative, technical and professional progress of the internet but other forms of interactive media as they appear.
It's an invitation-only academy, with its 500-plus member body including internet, business and creative luminaries.
As well as the main Webby awards selected by a panel of judges, there are People's Voice awards in the 100 plus categories, chosen by votes on the Webby site.
Another Kiwi entry this year is Electro City, a game developed by Genesis to teach about energy management. It is in the game category.
Past winners have included the site for the 2006 New Zealand International Arts Festival, which won the events category, newzealand.com, which won the tourism category two years in a row, and the New Zealand Herald website, which was an official honoree in the newspaper category last year.
Carl Steward, of Springload, the company which designed the International Arts Festival site, says winning a Webby gave the small Wellington firm a huge boost.
"It's the highest international award for websites and widely recognised in the industry," Steward says.
"It was external recognition of what we thought we were doing well anyway."
Business picked up once the Webby went in the trophy cabinet, with some high-profile clients like Kiwibank coming on board.
Trolling through this year's Webby-nominated sites, there's no shortage of strong design and there's also plenty of pushing the technology edge.
Thewarehousecareers.co.nz looks deliberately basic, decked out in the retailer's red and gray livery and with lots of pictures of staff members.
"It had to fit our brand, which is pretty down to earth," says Paul Walsh, the general manager for human resources. "We wanted to reflect the business so we wanted it to include real people in the business.
"It needed to represent all aspects of our business: the support office, the stores, the distribution centres.
"It had to be easy for people to access. We did not want 10 clicks until they got where they wanted to go."
The Warehouse has about 9000 full-time equivalent positions and, with a 30 per cent annual staff turnover in its operational area, the stores, there is a constant need for new faces.
Bulk hires are managed by recruiting firm Alignment, particularly when extra staff are being taken on for seasonal peaks, but the company has rebuilt its in-house team to handle most salaried hires.
Walsh says the web site helps capture data on applicants for salaried and waged roles.
People can indicate on the site the jobs they're interested in and the locations where they are willing to work.
"It's enabling us to push rather than pull. Every time we have a vacancy, we don't need to go out and advertise again, we can ask suitable people in the database if they are still available," Walsh says.
The time to hire salaried staff has been cut from 44.9 days last year to 39.7 It is also proving its worth in filling the waged positions. The site has only been live for eight months but 20,000 people have already indicated their interest.
Walsh says the cost per hire for waged staff has gone down from $736 in 2006 to $164 this year.
Greg Forsyth, the managing partner of Tribal DDB New Zealand, says while the site looks simple, a lot of smarts are under the hood.
By clicking on the pictures, viewers can learn about the roles in the company and possible career paths.
"There is a lot of strategic thinking with the client," he says. "Staff members are profiled and there are links to blogs and audio and video.
"It would be wrong to say this is just recruitment. It's also about changing the employer brand of The Warehouse.
"For Generation Y, we wanted them to drive deeper into what The Warehouse is like to work for."
The effectiveness of the site can be measured in how many people bother to register once they go on the site, which is much higher than international norms.
That percentage may go up, as web designers round the world take a peek at what is regarded as a Webby-standard job site.
* www.webbyawards.com
* www.thewarehousecareers.co.nz
