The Winning Strategy Behind Avril Supermarché Santé’s HR Transformation
Avril Health Markets: An HR Case Study
With over 20,000 job vacancies across Quebec, retail remains among the most challenging sectors for recruitment, trailing only healthcare and hospitality. To this talent shortage, retailers face sector-specific challenges: managing decentralised hiring at scale while contending with high employee turnover. How can technology, and ATS solutions specifically, simplify, accelerate, and strengthen recruitment processes? We explore a winning recruitment strategy and real-world results with Gaétane Côté from Avril Supermarché Santé.
Gaétane Côté is HR Business Partner at Avril Supermarché Santé. She participated in the panel discussion “Recruitment in Retail: Making a Difference Through Technology” alongside Marc-André Nataf, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cegid North America, at Hop! Le Sommet du commerce de détail 2023
Avril Supermarché Santé: HR Profile
What are the key HR characteristics and challenges facing Avril Supermarché Santé? Here’s the context:
- Health-focused supermarket chain operating in Quebec for nearly 30 years
- 12 store locations
- 7-person HR team, including dedicated payroll professionals
- Average of 300 to 400 recruitment placements annually
- High employee turnover—a persistent retail sector challenge
- Immediate operational impact on product distribution when warehouse positions remain unfilled
- Decentralised hiring budgets and recruitment authority (store managers), with centralised HR campaign management from head office
Addressing Retail Talent Shortages: A Strategic Approach
Before selecting an ATS, how did Avril tackle its market challenges? There’s no magic solution, but rather a pragmatic, results-driven action plan.
Avril built its talent attraction strategy on five core pillars:
Employer Brand
Strategic investment in building a strong employer identity and compelling employee value proposition.
Competitive Compensation
Restructured pay scales and enhanced employee benefits packages.
Flexible Working Conditions
Adapted work arrangements that respond to employee lifestyle needs. For example, part-time availability starting at 12 hours per week, including one evening and one weekend per fortnight, or one complete weekend day. This flexibility particularly appeals to student workers.
Work Organisation
Created multi-skilled general associate roles and operations assistant positions deployable across the sales floor to address staffing gaps, backed by premium pay above base wages.
ATS Technology
Implemented a purpose-built ATS for decentralised, multi-location enterprises: Cegid HR Talent Acquisition, integrated into the recruitment workflow.
The platform is truly intuitive and easy to use for our store managers who have limited time. Now they follow the proper recruitment process, which means we get more candidates, better follow-up, and faster placements across all positions. We’re seeing real change with Cegid HR Talent Acquisition because it genuinely simplifies things.
What an ATS Must Deliver: Recruitment at Scale
When selecting an ATS, Avril faced a dual imperative. First, they needed an intuitive platform that would save time for all store managers. An ATS that was quick to master with a user-friendly interface, enabling them to minimise time spent on repetitive recruitment tasks.
Equally critical for both head office HR and store leadership: rapid application processing. Speed in candidate follow-up was essential, both to strengthen the candidate experience and to accelerate placements in a competitive talent market.
6 Ways Cegid HR Streamlines Recruitment
To overcome talent shortages in retail, organisations must embrace a comprehensive talent attraction strategy. An ATS is one critical lever in that strategy.
In practice, which technology capabilities made the difference for Avril’s recruitment success?
Quote: The software delivers value for both candidates and recruiters; the platform is genuinely pleasant to work with. Because it simplifies the process, it saves us time every single day.
Gaétane Côté, HR Business Partner, Avril Supermarché Santé
Intuitive User Experience
Cegid HR’s ergonomic interface proved easy to use daily, serving both the HR function and store management. Key strengths Gaétane Côté highlighted:
- Streamlined candidate pool search, with applications organised by availability and other criteria
- Pre-built message templates that accelerate candidate follow-up
- Real-time visibility into recruitment pipeline status through comprehensive dashboards
Time Savings That Add Up
Store managers now spend 10 to 15 minutes daily managing candidate follow-up, down from 30 minutes pre-deployment. Rejection letters are generated in a single click using pre-built templates.
Complete Platform Control
Once configured, Avril maintains full governance over the platform through multiple customisation levels: recruitment journey stages, templated messaging, and process logic. Whether applied globally or by location, the entire workflow becomes more streamlined because the tool adapts to Avril’s culture.
Strengthen Your Employer Brand
Building from a standard template, each store can personalise job postings by adding photos and location-specific details: a message from the store manager, nearby amenities, or transit accessibility. These elements give candidates valuable insight into their future workplace and team.
Decentralised Hiring Without Losing Control
After ATS deployment, store managers operate with significantly greater autonomy over job postings and candidate follow-up, while the HR function ensures established recruitment procedures remain consistent. Hiring becomes both fluid and decentralised, and collaboration between HR and recruiting managers strengthens dramatically.
Fully Automated Recruitment Workflows
After rapid configuration and deployment, the solution operates independently. Configuration means defining each candidate journey by job type. Once set, the process runs automatically through your entire hiring sequence: initial screening, interviews, reference checks, assessments, second interviews. The solution facilitates your entire recruitment lifecycle without requiring ongoing maintenance.
The Result: Higher Application Volume
Avril saw effects immediately: the company received significantly more applications after deploying the ATS. One-click or simplified application experiences directly strengthen candidate engagement.
Combined with store manager usability and customised candidate journeys, Cegid HR Talent Acquisition enabled Avril to respond faster to candidates and consistently deliver an exceptional candidate experience.
Deploying an ATS: Keys to Success
Avril deployed Cegid HR Talent Acquisition in just 8 weeks using a proven implementation methodology:
- Dedicated project manager
- Weekly status meetings
- Store manager training
- Accessible support centre (customer support and online resources)
The HR team and store managers benefited from a dedicated Cegid project manager whose role proved central: she facilitated rigorous organisational review, job mapping, and recruitment process refinement across the entire team.
As a strategic advisor at every stage, she guided Avril step-by-step and maintained deployment momentum. Weekly meetings ensured progress and allowed course correction as needed. Dedicated training sessions equipped store managers to confidently use the new platform. Gaétane Côté notes that she and her team received exceptional support, and store leaders equally appreciated the responsive support centre.
Beyond implementation support, the Cegid partnership sparked internal organisational review. Mapping each recruitment stage by role forced Avril to reassess its entire recruitment strategy, making it more efficient and clarifying specific hiring needs. Today, the ATS ensures recruitment processes are fully aligned with real-world operations, whether on the sales floor, in the warehouse, or in the central kitchen.
What’s Next for Avril?
With the ATS now deployed, Avril’s mid-term objectives are sharpening. The company is advancing its data governance capabilities and is currently defining its own KPIs. On their radar: tracking time-to-hire and extracting deeper insights through data analytics, while analysing recruitment performance by location and region.