London Drugs: Solution for Pre-Employment Testing

London Drugs Uses Made-in-Canada Solution for Pre-Employment Testing

London Drugs was in a bind. The large retailer required an assessment solution that was easy for their store managers to adopt, assessed job candidates quickly, accurately and securely, and provided instantaneous results to the on-site managers as well as to Head Office. It also had to be ready for the busy holiday season. London Drugs began working with Psychometrics Canada to design and build a custom online candidate assessment system to meet their hiring requirements.

Prompted by the USA Patriot Act, which gives American authorities access to any employee data stored in the United States, they sought a made-in-Canada solution for their assessment and candidate tracking system. Psychometrics’ IT experts and psychologists worked closely with London Drugs’ Human Resource department to develop a customized solution that enabled store managers to assess promising job candidates in the areas of customer service, verbal and numerical ability.

London Drugs puts a lot of effort into the selection and training of store personnel in order to give their customers a positive shopping experience. To provide excellent customer service, employees need the technical abilities to do the work and a cooperative and diplomatic personal style to effectively engage customers. The importance of these traits is quickly realized during the holiday shopping rush – a busy and stressful time for the customers and staff of any retail business.

During the interview process, candidates are logged onto a custom web application where they complete three different assessments. Each assessment is scored automatically, and results are available to store managers instantaneously, allowing for quick decision-making. Hiring results are immediately communicated to Head Office, which allows the HR team to streamline training schedules, an essential need for a company with 66 locations and over 7000 employees.

Psychometrics Canada developed this custom solution based on their CareerID.com application. Taking advantage of the existing platform, Psychometrics was able to save London Drugs thousands of dollars in development costs and launch the system in time for the Christmas recruitment drive.

After successfully piloting the system in 25 locations during one of London Drugs’ busiest hiring seasons, the system has since been in use across all 66 store locations.