Summer is almost here, and many organisations that employ a large number of temporary workers throughout the summer, start to begin preparing for their summer peaks, but reliable staff is difficult to find–especially during peak season. Finding excellent seasonal labour has become increasingly difficult due to a diminishing labour pool.
What can you do to brace yourself for the yearly summer peaks? Here are 6 tips to help you prepare for peak hiring season this summer.
Start an Employee Referral Program
A referral programme is an excellent technique to attract new employees. Create an employee referral programme to assist in finding new employees who will work well with your current coworkers. Current employees will be grateful for any benefits you can provide and will be more willing to assist when the need arises. Work with an outside recruiter to locate more potential prospects for extra outreach.
Plan Ahead
It is critical to develop a strategy with enough time to align each piece. No matter what business you are in, you should plan at least six months ahead of peak season. This gives for the time necessary to identify the desired skill sets, find the right number of people, and adequately train them for what's ahead based on the sorts and levels of complexity of the client journeys they'll be aiding, as well as what they should and should not do. Defining these indicators will have a significant impact on the type of people you hire.
Find Support
During high seasons, the quality of work and staffing needs can be difficult to meet. New hires' performance tends to be worse at first, which can drag down the total performance of your staff. Lack of help is a common concern, particularly during onboarding support because newer employees require more instruction when they first start.
Whether it's for the retail summer season or just high-volume call times in your company, properly staffing is critical to creating exceptional customer experiences. A solid staffing plan can make all the difference when preparing for peak season.
Allow Time for Seasonal Staff Training
Seasonal employees' training periods can be less than that of a typical full-time employee; training for temporary personnel can be two-thirds the duration of a permanent employee. As a result, while allocating tasks, it is critical to be realistic. Allow your seasonal employees to concentrate on low-hanging fruit and questions with a high volume. As a result, your permanent employees will be able to focus on tackling more of the higher level, complicated inquiries for which they are trained.
During peak times, give your best performers some extra time.
Paying overtime rates when you can hire temps at lower rates than permanent staff sounds nonsensical. However, it can be viewed as a bonus for some of your top-performing full-time workers who wish to work to supplement their pay during the holidays. When you take away that option in favour of hiring someone with less experience and longevity with the firm, they may even see it as a negative. This is not to argue that you should offer overtime to anyone. If you are monitoring performance in any way, you already know who your best employees are, and you can be strategic about offering them opportunities for extra work to reduce the number of temporary employees you need. The additional cost of overtime can be offset by the training cost and initial lower productivity of temp labour.
Consider hiring from alternative talent populations
Hire people with disabilities, retirees, ex-forces, college and university students, and others who can flex to meet peak needs. These populations frequently have lower churn rates than regular labourers. In addition, they may be able to increase their hours to help fulfil some of the peak demand. They can be fantastic and dedicated assets that you can use to supplement seasonal labour requirements. Subsidies and tax breaks are provided in some situations for businesses who hire from these groups.
Many businesses are discovering that retirees make excellent full- or part-time employees. Retirees bring years of great job and life experience, and they frequently value flexible schedules that allow them to enjoy their retirement while also earning a little additional money. And, as the Baby Boomer generation continues to retire, this labour supply is steadily expanding.
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