when seasonal workers are an essential part of business operations

Your seasonal business has unique challenges. It must have adequate supplies and products to meet demand and trained workers on hand to support a sudden growth in operations.

Inadequate staffing can affect your ability to provide the products or services your business relies on to remain profitable. It can also result in poor customer satisfaction and a damaged brand image. One way to ensure flexibility in your workforce is with seasonal employees.

Seasonal hiring brings many advantages to your organisation, providing the necessary workers to maintain operations or prevent burnout of permanent staff during peak season. And sometimes, as you will see in our case study, seasonal employees bring additional skills to the business.

Since these workers are only around for the period you require them for, they limit payroll inflation, which can occur when you have too many employees for your needs. They also provide a ready pool of candidates should you wish to expand the size of your permanent team.

understanding the challenges of seasonal workers

While seasonal employees can be an efficient solution to a cyclical business model, they require a good deal of planning and expert management, which is why it helps to work with an experienced HR solutions partner. Some challenges you may encounter include:

accurate forecasting

Determining how many and what type of seasonal workers you need is a crucial first step that can be challenging to even veteran managers. It definitely helps if you’ve been in the business for a while and have last year’s figures. However, you must still factor in variables, which, depending on your industry, could include the economy, world events, climate and supply chain disruptions.

If you haven’t dealt with seasonality before, you’ll have a much tougher time coming up with accurate predictions and may need to rely on industry forecasts and help from experienced partners. You’ll also have to account for working capital and budgetary constraints. Finally, leave plenty of leeway in your figures to allow for higher or lower demands, providing flexibility in your workforce planning.

locating seasonal workers

Once you’ve determined what kind of seasonal talent you require and how many people you need, you must find them. A tight labour market can make this more difficult, as can the need for a unique or in-demand skill set. To combat this, consider expanding your talent pool by searching among other target groups such as students or international workers.

Partnering with an expert in the recruitment field can provide access to more candidates as well as advanced HR technology to help streamline the hiring progress. Their professional connections with universities and job boards can help you expand your talent search.

integrating seasonal hires

Periods of high demand naturally bring added stress to the business. To create a positive atmosphere of cooperation between seasonal and permanent workers, you must fully integrate both sets of employees.

permanent team

Your permanent staff must adapt to new coworkers and different work dynamics. If adding one employee can change a work environment, think about adding 50 employees at once. Help your regular staff become good managers, mentors and leaders by providing soft-skill training in time management, communication and conflict resolution. Ensure your current team members know and support company policies regarding equal employment and nondiscrimination.

seasonal team

Engaged employees are less absent and more productive, both of which can improve customer satisfaction and brand image. To help your seasonal employees engage, follow these strategies:

Foster a company culture of belonging: Whether new or long-term, employees like to feel they are part of a team.
Create a smooth hiring and onboarding process: Start new employees off with a positive experience to help foster a pleasant work environment and remember to onboard and train employees before peak season begins.
Provide opportunities for rehire or permanent hire: Letting seasonal workers know they can work again next year or may earn a permanent position gives them the incentive to perform at their best.

knowledge loss

While many seasonal workers provide entry-level work, some companies need a short-term influx of specialty skills. Organisations with this type of seasonal demand must cope with the inevitable loss of knowledge when these workers leave. Rehiring the same workers is a logical solution; however, the highly skilled worker may move to another, more permanent position in the interim.

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