How Walmart Is Revolutionizing Retail Hiring through Mobile Technology

Yinnette Olivo

Lead User Researcher

This case study delves into Walmart's initiative to transform its hiring process. Focused on agility and ease of use, the project leveraged mobile technology to enable managers to perform hiring tasks on the go, reducing the time and complexity of recruiting retail associates.

The Vision

Empower Walmart’s store managers and associates with a seamless, mobile-first hiring experience that redefines agility and efficiency in retail recruitment. By leveraging innovative mobile technology, we aspire to transform the hiring process into a streamlined, user-friendly journey, ensuring that the right talent is onboarded quickly and effectively to meet the dynamic needs of our global retail operations.

The Task

Empower Walmart's retail managers to prescreen, interview, hire and onboard new associates in less than 24hrs.

The Personas

Emily needs to hire five new cashiers quickly. Using the Walmart Hiring Mobile App, she effortlessly posts five requisitions in one sitting. The app allows her to duplicate a recent job listing or create new ones. As applications roll in, the system automatically pre-screens candidates and populates the qualified list.

If one role is filled, the app seamlessly assigns similar candidates to the remaining positions. Within 48 hours, Emily has candidates in the onboarding process, guided through every step. For specialized roles, such as a Pharmacy Technician, the app allows her to post one job at a time, ensuring certifications are met.

Emily has been with Walmart for 15 years, working her way up from a cashier to the store manager. She’s responsible for the overall operation of the store, including hiring, staff management, and customer satisfaction.

Goals:

  • Efficiently manage staffing needs, especially during busy seasons.
  • Ensure smooth onboarding for new hires.
  • Maintain store productivity without compromising her time on the floor.

Challenges:

  • Balancing administrative tasks with on-floor management.
  • Quickly filling multiple positions with qualified candidates.
  • Managing specialized roles that require specific qualifications.

Jordan is Emily’s right hand, having worked at Walmart for 10 years. He started in the electronics department and moved up to Associate Manager. Jordan handles day-to-day operations and assists with hiring and onboarding when needed.

Goals:

  • Support Emily in managing the store’s staffing needs.
  • Ensure that new hires are trained and ready to work.
  • Maintain store efficiency by managing shifts and schedules.

Challenges:

  • Stepping in to manage the hiring process when Emily is unavailable.
  • Balancing his responsibilities with assisting in the hiring process.
  • Handling specialized roles that require additional oversight.

The app keeps Emily updated on the hiring progress while she manages the store floor, making it possible to handle hiring tasks without interrupting her daily duties. Even if her hiring associate is on vacation, Emily can stay on top of things, ensuring her team is fully staffed and operational.

The Results

Through Walmart’s new mobile hiring solution, I’ve experienced a significant shift in how I manage recruitment. The ability to screen and schedule interviews directly from my phone has streamlined my day, allowing me to focus on other essential tasks. The AI-driven pre-screening has made finding the right candidates faster and more accurate, while job posting automation saves me time. Overall, this system has reduced our hiring process to just a day, making it easier to keep my store fully staffed and running efficiently.

Hire me and start your journey to a better product experience!

What is Yinnette's background history and education?

I am a user experience researcher, product strategist, and design leader with a focus on enterprise service design. With 24 years of experience, I began my career as an engineer and transitioned into digital product design, eventually specializing in product strategy and user experience research, where I’ve been for the past 14 years.

My expertise lies primarily in enterprise environments, often working on the agency or service design side. I’ve focused on developing internal productivity and efficiency products, such as hiring solutions, HR systems, and employee resource repositories. My user base has predominantly been employees within these organizations. My skill set includes developing comprehensive solutions for new product rollouts, company pilots, product improvements, and digital transformations for existing solutions, serving user bases of up to 100,000 or more.

I studied Web Design then Visual Communications at the International Academy for Design and Technology based in Tampa. I have a  certification in Design Thinking from the Luma Institute. I received formal training in Six Sigma and hold a Green Belt certification from The New York Times and PM1 from Cardinal’s Agile Program.  

My process involves independent research, participant recruitment, session planning, design thinking workshops, focused ideation sessions, wireframing, and creating high-fidelity designs. I also support product owners in feature refinement and collaborate with engineering teams to QA the experience, ensuring the features align with my research and business requirements.

Most recently, I worked at Discover but was laid off earlier this year due to Capital One’s acquisition of the company. I am now seeking my next opportunity, ideally in service design, which is my passion. I am excited to find a company where I can continue to make a lasting impact.

Most recently, I consulted for a startup called Muzes. At Muzes, I joined the team as the Director of UX to lead their UX team, which grew into having a much larger role and leading product strategy. Muzes is an AI-assisted generative procurement platform, akin to LinkedIn for procurement. Procurement teams can generate extensive questionnaires for their suppliers, who create profiles and respond to these questionnaires. The platform uses AI, including sentiment analysis and LLMs, to grade and score the responses.

I made significant contributions to the product strategy, assisting the engineering team and stakeholders in documenting all features. I conducted extensive research with design partners and discovered that the product being built was quite different from the original plan. I helped realign the entire team with the new product direction and led the design team in creating a custom design system that matched the new goals. I also helped engineering focus on delivering a more attainable MVP. 

Tampa, FL USA

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