You make every effort to spread the workload like butter to have a smooth work schedule all the year round. You can quote the time management theorists and have all the possible planning tools, but every year there’s a period when you find yourself buried under a pile of tasks, all of them urgent. That’s what seasonal business is irrespective of when your peak season is. That’s your sad story if you sell the New Year Decoration, Easter Rabbits or crop protection chemicals.
So you hire a recruitment agency, or you make your HR manager’s head explode, but either way you invite seasonal employees to join and get the work done. And sometimes the universe sends just what you ask for. Other times it sends lazy, unskilled undergraduates with a tiny drinking problem. So here are a few tips to make seasonal hiring a little less stressful.
Organize a short but efficient training for your seasonal staff. Provide them with the basic knowledge they will need to accomplish their everyday tasks. Thus you won’t have to look for people with certain experience and will be able to choose from a wider pool of applicants. But your training should teach them the main tricks of the trade as your customers don’t care if they deal with seasonal workforce or with your refined front-office staff. For example, if you hire a seasonal sales force, bother to make sure they are capable of a high-quality customer service before you let them even talk to your prospects.
To avoid the premature leaves and the necessity to search for new candidates to fill every new vacancy, make sure to encourage your seasonal employees to stay for the whole season. You could offer a bonus for those who helped you survive the days of overload. It would be more effective if there were people who can reaffirm that your promise is real, and for that - see the next piece of advice.
Seasonal hiring will be less stressful if your temporal employees will be willing to work with you next year. Prefer the candidates willing to come back the following year over those who only look for a place to spend a few weeks.
The recruiting module of Lanteria HR will help you with making a unified candidate database so that you won’t have to wait to see who universe brings at your doorstep. Organize seasonal hiring process with Lanteria HR - keep the right people sending applications and filling your seasonal positions.
