Many businesses have peaks and troughs throughout the year. This means that the people requirements of the business will also fluctuate, with many industries turning to seasonal workers to manage the busy periods.
However, 62% of HR professionals say that their organisation doesn’t have a strong talent pipeline. That means that when recruiting seasonal workers, they have to work harder to ensure they get the staff they need for the busy periods.
If your business is stuck without a talent pipeline or you’re new to workforce planning for seasonal roles, it can feel difficult to know where to get started. We’ll explain how to effectively plan for seasonal fluctuations in your organisation and how to begin to put a talent planning strategy in place so you’re ready every time the busy period comes around.
What are seasonal workers?
Seasonal workers are temporary employees who work on a short-term basis to help businesses meet demand during busy periods. Seasonal workers usually work for a fixed term that can vary from weeks to months, but they never work for the business for more than six months out of the year.
Industries that often need seasonal workers include:
- Retail and logistics – over the Christmas period
- Agriculture – during harvest season
- Tourism and hospitality – over the peak holiday season
- Sporting events – during competitions
Seasonal workers have the same rights as permanent employees, such as fair pay, annual leave, rest breaks and protection against discrimination.
Usually, seasonal workers are paid hourly rather than a salary, which may differ from your permanent employees. They may work full- or part-time hours, but they won’t work all year round. Usually, they have a fixed end date in their contract, although some organisations choose not to give a specific end date so they can bring the employment to an end early if they need to.
Benefits of hiring seasonal workers
There are lots of benefits to hiring seasonal workers, particularly when it forms part of your company’s talent planning strategy rather than being a last-minute response to an increase in your permanent employees’ workload.
Top benefits include:
- Commercial adaptability: Seasonal hiring allows you to meet trading peaks without needing to employ staff long-term. It allows you to scale up and down easily depending on business needs.
- Supports financial viability: Hiring seasonal workers is cost-effective. You avoid year-round costs and reduce the risk of overspending on recruitment by only paying for extra help when it’s needed.
- Boosts productivity: As long as you have a good onboarding process and workplace culture, hiring seasonal workers will boost productivity. Not only will you have more people available to do the work, but permanent employees may become more productive as they see that you understand they need more support during busy periods.
- Improves customer satisfaction: No one likes to wait, and many organisations that rely on seasonal workers are customer-facing and see huge increases in contact or footfall around Christmas or in the summer. Bringing on extra staff to meet demand ensures that customers aren’t left waiting for too long, improving customer service and satisfaction.
- Brings a new perspective: Hiring seasonal workers encourages your organisation to work differently. Temporary workers can also bring new ideas and energy to your business, helping to invigorate permanent employees and potentially bringing improvements to your processes.
- Builds a talent pool: When you hire seasonal staff, you create a pool of trained workers who are ready to hit the ground running for future peak periods. Keeping in touch with high-performing seasonal staff allows you to call on them if you need them for future busy periods or if you have a permanent position come up that they would be perfect for.
So, there are plenty of benefits to hiring seasonal workers, and when done as part of a talent planning process, the people you employ can become valuable assets to call on.
What is talent planning and why is it important?
Talent planning, or workforce planning, is the process of anticipating new responsibilities and staffing needs and planning how to meet them by upskilling current employees, recruiting new ones, or a mixture of both.
It’s all about analysing data to help you identify any skills gaps and seasonal trends, and predicting how your organisation might grow in the long term. It helps you ensure that you have the right people resource to meet business needs at the right time.
Talent planning is important for all organisations, whether you rely on seasonal staff or not. Key benefits of talent planning include:
- Helping you to anticipate demand: You’ll be able to predict supply and demand and remain agile in a changing market.
- Reducing disruption: Roles can be filled quickly and in advance of the skills being required, reducing disruption to your business.
- Supporting strategic budgeting: It helps you manage financial requirements by analysing workforce needs and budgeting accordingly.
- Maintaining performance levels: It helps you create and maintain a high-performing workforce, as you’ll know when you need additional support and skills.
Having a talent planning strategy ensures that you’re never surprised by sudden surges in demand for extra staff members and skills. You can plan for seasonal peaks, so you hire in advance of them and get the new workers ready before the busy period starts.
How to plan for seasonal peaks
Using a talent planning process will ensure that you’re ready for seasonal peaks:
1. Look at the objectives for the year ahead
Consider your organisation’s goals and objectives for the coming year. Will you need additional resource to help you meet them?
2. Review last year
What was last year like? Look at the previous year’s demand and pinch points and think about what you could have done differently to help things run more smoothly.
3. Identify skills gaps
What skills or knowledge are you missing? What skills are vital to have for the coming peak period, and do you have enough people trained in this?
4. Do a cost analysis
Review the cost of options available to you to help you meet seasonal demand. Analyse the costs and benefits of:
- Hiring seasonal workers
- Asking existing employees to do overtime
- Hiring more permanent employees
- Training existing staff
Decide which option or blend of options will help you meet your company objectives in the most cost-effective manner.
5. Prepare for hiring
If you’ve decided to hire seasonal employees, get ready to start recruiting. Ensure you have a clear job description ready that states how long the role will last and details all duties and responsibilities.
Make sure you benchmark pay for the role to make sure it’s competitive. In the last year, there has been a 69% increase in business hiring temporary staff, so candidates have many roles to choose from. You’ll need to make your business attractive to work for.
Creating business-centric workforce planning tools
To take your seasonal hiring strategy to the next level, you might even want to consider developing workforce planning tools that align directly with your business performance data. A more tailored approach means seasonal workers are brought in at the right time – early enough to be effective, but not so early that labour costs reduce your peak-season profit margins.
For example, recently, we helped a client crate a bespoke Seasonal Workforce Recruitment Planner. This tool integrated key business metrics such as:
- Sales KPIs
- Staff turnover and attrition rates
- Average training and onboarding time
- Forecasted sales targets by location and period
We helped them map these data points so the tool could accurately predict when each store would require additional staffing – and how many seasonal workers would be needed. This allowed them to balance operational readiness with profitability. I.e. temporary staff costs won’t then eat into high-revenue periods.
Using a model like reduces the guesswork. (Just reach out to us if we could help you do the same in your business).
How to attract candidates for seasonal roles
Candidates have lots of temporary roles to choose from at the moment as businesses stay cautious amid an uncertain economic outlook. So, how do you attract candidates for your seasonal roles over another company’s?
- Hire early: Don’t leave hiring to the last minute. Candidates may need to work a notice period or wait for their current temporary contract to end, so you don’t want to put top candidates off by requiring an immediate start.
- Make sure the role is clear: Ensure the job title and description make it clear that it’s a seasonal, temporary role to ensure you attract the right candidates.
- Highlight benefits: Will the seasonal workers be entitled to any company benefits while they work for you? Will you offer any training that could be transferable to other roles?
- Target your advertising: Get your job description in front of the right people – consider advertising on specific seasonal job boards or use a seasonal recruitment agency.
- Set onboarding expectations: Include information about any tailored training you will offer seasonal employees to onboard them quickly and help them settle into the role fast.
- Recruit a pool: There’s a higher turnover rate among seasonal staff. Have more workers available on your books than you need, as you’re likely to find that some workers will leave early or find another job before they even begin their contract with you.
Onboarding and managing seasonal workers
Once you’ve recruited your pool of seasonal workers, onboarding and managing them isn’t much different to other types of employees. Here are some things to bear in mind when you’re getting started with your new seasonal employees:
Get your employment contracts right
Seasonal workers legally require an employment contract, in the same way as any other employee. Employers must provide a written contract within two months of hiring an employee, but we recommend that you do this before your seasonal workers start.
Your seasonal workers’ fixed-term contract should contain:
- Job roles and responsibilities
- Working hours
- The rate of pay
- When the contract will end
We always recommend that you include an early termination clause, should you need to end employment earlier than planned. For example, you could experience a slower peak period than you’re used to, or there may be performance issues with the employee. With an early termination clause, the process for ending the agreement early is clear for all parties.
Do background checks
Although they’re temporary staff, we still advise that you do the same pre-employment checks on seasonal employees that you would do for permanent employees. Research shows that 51% of candidates have admitted to lying on their CVs, so it’s crucial to check that your prospective employees have the skills and experience needed for their role.
Doing checks on all employees ensures you are fair and consistent. It’s essential that you carry out right-to-work checks, as there are hefty fines if you are found to be employing an illegal worker. Make sure you check that all staff have the right to work in the UK, not just those who appear not to be from the UK, to avoid discrimination issues.
Ensure workers know their rights
Seasonal workers have the same rights as other employees, so they are entitled to a range of statutory benefits. These include:
- Holiday pay
- Statutory sick pay
- The National Minimum Wage
They are also protected from discrimination and are subject to the same health and safety regulations as permanent employees, including regulations around rest breaks, so it’s important that all seasonal workers have access to and read your employee handbook and complete a thorough induction.
Set clear goals and expectations
Your seasonal workers need objectives just like all your other employees. Make sure you set clear expectations for their time working with you and offer training to help them meet those expectations if they require it.
You can manage and measure employee performance in the same way as you would for permanent employees, although your approach may need to be more dynamic. For example, performance reviews may take place informally in weekly or fortnightly one-to-ones, as your employee won’t be with you long enough for an annual performance review.
Keeping seasonal workers engaged
As seasonal workers are only with you for a few weeks or months, it can be tricky to keep them engaged. But there are things you can do to try to improve seasonal worker engagement and shape it for the future:
- Buddy up: Give your seasonal workers a mentor to help speed up the orientation and onboarding process so they get up to speed quickly.
- Provide training and orientation: Since seasonal workers are with you for a short period of time, it can seem pointless to offer them training and development opportunities. But 70% of workers say learning improves their sense of connection to a workplace, plus it can encourage seasonal employees to work for you again in the future.
- Share permanent job opportunities: Don’t forget to share permanent job roles with your seasonal staff. This will demonstrate that you value their contribution, and if they apply, you’ll have the pick of employees who already understand how your business works.
- Keep in touch: Don’t forget to communicate with your temporary staff throughout the seasonal period to ensure they are aware of any process changes and to recognise individuals when they have performed well or achieved targets.
- Do exit interviews: Regardless of how long they’ve worked for your company, exit interviews with all employees are still important. Their feedback can help shape future engagement and improve things for the seasonal workers who join you next year.
So, seasonal workers play a vital role in helping businesses meet peaks in demand, but securing the right people at the right time doesn’t happen by chance.
With a clear talent planning strategy, early preparation and a strong onboarding process, you can ensure your seasonal workforce is productive, engaged and ready to help you succeed during your busiest periods.
Investing time into planning now can save you stress later and can even help you build a reliable talent pool for the future.
How we can help with recruiting seasonal workers
Whether you’re recruiting seasonal workers for the first time or looking to improve your current approach, Fitzgerald can help. We offer practical support to help you plan ahead and recruit seasonal workers, including:
- Talent planning
- Succession planning
- Employee value proposition
- Skill gap analysis
- Job descriptions & person specifications
- Pay benchmarking
- Job advertising & media placement
- Recruitment strategy
- Assessment centres
- Selection tools
- Induction and onboarding
Book a free consultation or give us a call on 0330 223 5253 to see how we can help.
Key takeaways on seasonal recruitment
- Seasonal workers help you meet increased demand: They’re temporary employees who help during peak periods and work for you no more than six months per year
- A talent planning process is crucial: It allows you to anticipate when and where you’ll need extra support, reducing disruption and helping you stay cost-effective
- There are plenty of benefits: Your business will have greater flexibility, improved customer service, and a trained pool of temporary workers to call on in the future
- Start early: Start hiring well before the peak, be clear about the temporary nature of the role, and use targeted advertising to attract the right candidates
- Onboard fast: Tailor training to your seasonal workers and consider using buddies or mentors so they can get up to speed quickly
- Remember seasonal worker rights: Once hired, seasonal employees should be treated like any other staff member, with clear expectations, proper contracts and access to workplace rights and protections
- Keep them engaged: Ongoing communication, recognition and opportunities for future work can help keep seasonal staff engaged and improve retention for years to come
