When the festive season is around the corner, the demand for seasonal workers grows. But recruiting them can be a challenge for your HR team. Surprisingly, you cannot take it frivolously because hiring them requires the same commitment as permanent employment. Poor hiring and management of these ad-hoc resources can cause immense losses to the business. It makes sense to streamline the hiring process and get the best people on board. Here are some proven hacks HR managers rely on for successful seasonal recruitment.
Leverage Your Knowledge Base
A common oversight in the recruitment process needs to pay more attention to the utility of a comprehensive recruitment glossary. Such a glossary is not merely a collection of terms but a valuable resource that can streamline the hiring process, ensuring clarity and consistency across all stages of recruitment.Â
By familiarizing yourself and your team with crucial recruitment terms, you can enhance communication, improve job postings, and make more informed decisions. Incorporating a recruitment glossary early in the planning phase aids in identifying the most relevant strategies and criteria for candidate selection. It’s advisable to integrate this glossary into your recruitment toolkit well before the peak hiring season begins, ensuring that all team members are on the same page and equipped to attract the best talent efficiently.
Get a head start
The worst mistake businesses make is to wait until the last moment to find the right seasonal talent. You may have to compromise with the quality and skills of the candidates due to the last-minute rush. The best approach is to start early and have a clear strategy for holiday hiring. Post requirements a couple of months before the season to get a broader pool and better possibilities for finding suitable candidates.
Create a process
Starting early is half the work, and creating an efficient hiring process does the rest. Do not take things lightly only because the resources are temporary. Test the aptitude of the candidates and use knowledge assessments to evaluate them. It is crucial to identify their strengths, assess prior experience, and understand their readiness to learn. Knowing your potential hires better enables you to adapt onboarding and training content to address the gaps instead of starting from scratch.
Treat seasonal employees fairly
Another aspect of getting ready to bring in a seasonal workforce is to review the remuneration and benefits you plan to pay to them. Ensure they match the minimum wage criteria, as you will not want to get into compliance trouble. A seasonal employee may not be a permanent resource, but they deserve fair treatment. Ensure that you give them the same baseline benefits and protections as your regular workforce.
Seek local candidates
Local talent makes the best choice for seasonal roles as they often want to work only for a specific timeline. Picking the right ones fine-tunes your hiring process as you can reach out for a relevant candidate pool without wasting time elsewhere. Look for students who want to work for the holidays as they are eager to earn extra dollars. First-year students are ideal as they will probably return season after season. The good thing is you will not even have to train them every year because they already know the job well.
Invest in training
Using the same training content for seasonal employees as full-time hires is a good idea. Although it spells an upfront investment, you will end up with higher productivity and fewer mistakes. Both are crucial because you need the best people in the short holiday season. Make sure that you put seasonal hires to work only after proper preparation. The last thing you want is missing out on sales just because these workers fail to handle the customers well enough. As a part of training, align them with company culture and vision.
A robust seasonal recruitment and management strategy can get you more sales during the demand boom. Luckily, you need not do a lot to have the best workers on board, as these HR hacks take you a long way.
Also read: Three Ways to Protect Your Small Business
