Three strategies to make supply chain roles easier to fill … and harder to walk away from

Chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) are facing a paradox: roles that are critical to operations are often the hardest to fill. And it’s not just about wages.

Even well-compensated positions are being passed over if they’re perceived as inflexible, physically demanding, or lacking growth potential. According to a Gartner survey, 63% of logistics candidates cite compensation as their top attraction driver, yet roles like truck drivers and warehouse order selectors remain persistently hard to fill due to perceived undesirability.

The challenge isn’t just finding candidates. It’s designing roles people want and can realistically step into. Or to flip the script, roles people can embrace, not resent, and that fit their lives. Ideally, ones that feel purposeful, adaptable, and worth investing in. For CSCOs, addressing role desirability isn’t just a talent issue. It’s a business imperative tied directly to operational resilience and long-term workforce stability.

Tackling these issues starts with rethinking how roles are presented and structured. Here are three strategies that can help shift perceptions and improve hiring outcomes.

1. Contextualize the role: It’s more than just compensation

Some roles come with attributes that candidates might initially view as less desirable: repetitive tasks, limited autonomy, or physically demanding work. But those attributes don’t have to define the role.

Leading employers are reframing these positions by emphasizing the full value of the opportunity. Instead of listing pay and hours alone, job postings should highlight the broader offer. One that includes ready access to pay, flexibility and work-life balance, career development, respect, team culture, stability, and purpose.

In one example, a logistics company revamped its job descriptions to highlight how each role contributes to the company’s mission, how employees are supported through onboarding and mentorship, and how internal mobility opens doors to long-term careers. Applications increased significantly and not because the job changed, but because the perception did.

Don’t let the least appealing part of the role dominate the narrative. Contextualize it within a broader value proposition that speaks to what candidates care about most.

2. Make the role work for them: Flexibility that reduces friction

Flexibility isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a competitive advantage. When roles adapt to meet worker needs, even less appealing attributes become easier to accept. Shift schedules, repetitive tasks, or limited location options may be moderately undesirable, but they’re not deal-breakers if employers show a willingness to adapt.

One fulfillment center tackled this by rethinking how roles were staffed. Instead of rigid full-time shifts, they introduced a managed service model that allowed for part-time work, shift swapping, and weekend-only roles. This flexibility opened the door to candidates who previously couldn’t commit such as caregivers, students, and gig workers, and helped stabilize staffing during peak periods.

Another operation redesigned warehouse roles to include cross-training and rotation, reducing monotony and increasing engagement. Employees reported higher job satisfaction and lower burnout, even though the core tasks remained the same.

3. Redesign roles to eliminate deal-breakers

Some job attributes are both highly undesirable to most candidates and critically important, like long-haul driving requirements or obtaining expensive certifications. These are the kinds of barriers that stop qualified candidates from applying, even when the rest of the role is a strong fit.

In these cases, the best strategy isn’t to mask the issue, but to remove it.

One national distributor faced persistent turnover in its driver roles due to the cost and complexity of obtaining a commercial license. Instead of continuing to recruit externally, they launched an internal training program that covered the full cost of certification for warehouse employees. This not only eliminated a major barrier but created a clear path for career advancement.

The result? Following initial investment to move training in-house, the program has resulted in ROI for the organization in the form of higher retention rates and helping to address the industry driver shortage.

Whether it’s removing a requirement, funding training, or restructuring responsibilities, eliminating the friction can turn a role from one that gets a frequent pass into a genuine opportunity.

The bottom line

Hard-to-fill roles aren’t just a hiring problem; they’re an organizational design challenge and business risk. By contextualizing, mitigating, and redesigning roles, supply chain leaders can shift the conversation from “how do we fill this job?” to “how do we make this job irresistible?”

In today’s labor market, the winners will be the ones who offer roles that open doors to growth, purpose, and long-term opportunity.

About the author

Dana Stiffler is a Distinguished VP Analyst in the Gartner Supply Chain practice. She covers supply chain talent strategies and the CSCO role.

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