Dive Brief:

• The Home Depot will hire 80,000 associates for the spring season using new technology developed​ by its engineers, according to a press statement. The home improvement chain said the new technology will help recruiters move candidates faster into seasonal, part-time and full-time job openings in 2,000 U.S. stores and more than 100 distribution centers.
• The company launched a different hiring technology last spring, called Candidate Self Service. This allowed store and supply chain candidates to schedule interviews on their own, The Home Depot said. According to the company, nearly 1 million candidates have used the technology since its launch.
• "Technology is at the forefront of everything we do at The Home Depot, and that includes taking care of our associates," Home Depot Executive Vice President of HR Tim Hourigan said in the statement. "We continue to invest in technology so we can help candidates control their own journey and welcome new hires into our family faster than ever."

Dive Insight:

The Home Depot joins several companies developing technology in-house to handle employment-related functions faster and more efficiently. Technology for these big-box retailers can streamline functions that were once time-consuming and burdensome for HR professionals and managers. This tech also frees up workers so they can spend more time interacting with customers and performing more meaningful tasks.

Walmart, for example, developed an app that allows its workers to view, accept, request and swap work shifts. The technology, called My Walmart Schedule, makes way for predictive scheduling for associates, giving employees greater control over their work and personal lives and helps the store avoid no-shows on work shifts and scheduling conflicts.

Meanwhile, Lowe's is preparing for the busy spring season as well; it announced its goal to add more than 65,000 employees in 2019, 50,000 of whom will come on as seasonal staff. It also said it plans to hire more than 2,000 new digital strategy and tech roles to help it "enhance core technology capabilities."