In his book Cosmetic Counter Survival Guide, veteran makeup artist Chris Scott writes of the importance of finding "that person" — the one that can be trusted to intuitively meet unique skincare and makeup needs rather than simply sell the latest product.That's not only true for the customer seeking advice; it's also essential for the store staffing the counter.
Unlike other segments of a department store, Scott says, the cosmetic counter requires its sales force to regularly get up close and personal with consumers — and as a result, a top associate can't just be a pretty face. It's more important that the associate be able to build relationships, problem solve and be creative to get the job done.
"A little bit of experience doesn't hurt," he says. "But when hiring someone, that's not what you put your money on. It's more about the kind of person that they are."
With more than 20 years in the industry, Scott learned his lesson through perseverance and gut instinct. In the meantime, The Bon-Ton Stores — with 275 department stores under six banners in 23 states — was coming up with similar findings. Its method? Statistics and psychology.
Capturing the right candidates
The Bon-Ton Stores, with dual corporate headquarters in York, Penn., and Milwaukee, had noticed something amiss among its cosmetic sales associates, known as beauty advisors. The roughly 3,650 employees, who supported 13 different cosmetic lines, had a higher turnover rate than associates in other parts of the stores.
Denise Domian, senior vice president, human resource operations for The Bon-Ton Stores, says cosmetics is a key differentiator for the company. Beauty advisors receive some 30 hours of training in their first 60 days, but too many were falling away within the first few months of employment. The organization already had an assessment tool in place for store associates overall, but it somehow wasn't the right fit for those in the cosmetics department.
"In the cosmetics area, there's a greater degree of customer interaction and actual selling that goes on," Domian says. "Much of the rest of the stores are service-oriented first, rather than selling-oriented. Based on feedback from our stores, we discovered that perhaps we were not capturing the best candidates."
Bon-Ton already had a relationship in place with Kenexa, a global provider of business solutions for human resources, and in 2008 began exploring new solutions. Kenexa's assessment arm offers both off-the-shelf and custom tools for qualifying, hiring and promoting, so it came to the table with employee backgrounds in fields like business, statistics and psychology. Bon-Ton was using the Kenexa 2x Recruit applicant tracking solution, as well as assessments for sales employees and distribution center associates.
Kenexa organizational consultant Tiffany Greene-Shortridge worked with Bon-Ton to create an assessment tool specifically for the cosmetics department (it had offered assessments for drugstores with cosmetics counters). The process began with five key areas that have been shown to predict individual performance and potential: experience, skills, abilities, personality and judgment. Then, over the course of several months, Kenexa interviewed high performers and management about the elements they considered important for the job. That insight was then matched with questions that could identify those factors in potential employees and later tested against performance data using a sample of currently employed Bon-Ton cosmetic beauty associates.
The actual questions on the final assessment are proprietary to Bon-Ton, but could include, for example, determining the next number to appear in a set sequence. Mathematical queries are a component of cognitive ability, Greene-Shortridge says, and may point to problem-solving skills.
"When we first started down this path, Bon-Ton warned me that some individuals would believe that beauty was all you needed to be a part of this industry," Greene-Shortridge says. "But that's not necessarily it. You need some brain power behind it, and I think they found that pretty interesting."
It turns out that cognitive ability is actually the No. 1 predictor of success for cosmetic counter employees. "It's about being able to think on your feet and respond to customer needs," Domian says. "It makes sense.... I think one of the ways we probably missed the mark was in looking for a perceived image of a successful beauty advisor: Someone who loves fashion and beauty. And while that's important, it really opened our eyes to the whole situational judgment piece. She's really a problem solver."
A more focused application
The new assessment, Domian says, was just one part of a comprehensive strategy for beauty advisor retention. The company also developed a standardized interview guide for use by hiring managers. Since 2009, more than 35,000 candidates have taken the Cosmetic Beauty Associate Selector assessment, and 1,500 have been hired. Those new associates achieved an average 2.1 percent increase in total sales per hour than previous employees hired without the assessment, and the numbers continue to add up. In addition, the turnover rate for beauty advisors has declined — so much so that it's now lower than turnover for associates in other parts of the company's stores.
The assessment does add about 20 minutes onto the time it takes to fill out an application, Domian says, and some have questioned whether that's too much to ask of someone who has not even been interviewed.
"It does make for a longer process, and that means some people will come out for a lack of interest or time," Domian says. "But part of you has to ask, if someone is not willing to put that kind of focus into the application, then do you really want to employ them anyway?"
Domian and Greene-Shortridge both speak of the Bon-Ton/Kenexa partnership as a rewarding one, and plans are already underway for additional solutions. Kenexa likes to work with clients — whether they are retail, call centers, hospitality or executive offices — that are equally as vested in the process, Greene-Shortridge says.
"That would be somebody who really cares about getting the right applicant in place, who wants to show a return on investment with the assessment that's being created," she says. "And the whole notion of a great partnership is to be able to take that partnership all the way through the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to the exit interview.... We always want to be able to come back to our partners with a great story of how their assessments assist in identifying top talent and, ultimately, higher revenue."
Makeup artist Scott, meanwhile, is still working to ensure his clients get a good story, as well.
"Generally speaking, we spend a lot of time with our clients," he says. "It's usually not just someone walking up to the counter and saying, 'Ring this up.' There's some bonding going on. In all sales, you need to be a people person. But in cosmetics, you have to be genuinely interested in people."
And genuinely adept, it seems, at quickly assessing needs, coming up with solutions — and just maybe, doing a math problem or two along the way.
Thanks to Fiona Soltes / NRF / Stores
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