I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of the incessant bad news, especially about the pandemic. Though it is a reality we can’t ignore, we can’t let it beat us either. I’ve found looking back at the challenges we’ve overcome to be a light in the darkness. It brings me hope.

Think back to nearly a year ago, when the reality of the pandemic was setting in. Perhaps the most underrated essential industry, retail supermarkets, never stopped serving us. Leaders had to quickly figure out how to keep serving communities while adopting new health and safety protocols to take care of their workers on the front lines.

Unsurprisingly, there was a surge in unemployment at that time, as many non-essential sectors shut down for the sake of public health. That meant grocers worldwide now had the unique opportunity to do more than sell food; they could hire the jobless and directly help them put food on their tables at home.

Coles Group didn’t see it as a choice. It was a responsibility. But there were a lot of unemployed people. Would Coles realistically be able to handle it? How could they ensure they didn’t burn out team members? Did they have systems in place to allow hiring managers to prioritize the right tasks, delegating the repetitive administrative work to automation?

When people were losing jobs and hope, at the onset of the pandemic’s initial lockdowns, Coles stepped up and started a hiring spree. With the fastest and most flexible hiring assessment already integrated into their process, they were confident their team could manage. But they had no idea just how many lives they would change.

Find hope in the record results of Coles’ success story