5 Tips for Hiring and Keeping Seasonal Employees

To say that the holiday season is a big deal in retail would be quite an understatement. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales are almost 20% of the industry's annual $3.2 trillion total sales, and make up as much as 30% of annual sales for individual retailers.

The holiday rush also brings about a spike in seasonal hiring. Seven of America’s largest retail chains will add almost 400,000 jobs this season, and plenty of small and medium retailers will also step up their hiring efforts to accommodate the influx of holiday customers and orders.

If you’re planning to hire additional staff for the coming months, or if you’re already in the process of doing so, these 5 tips will help you find and keep the right seasonal employees.

Lay out a plan

Before going out to find applicants, take some time to determine your staffing requirements for the next couple of months. Anticipate your needs by looking at the performance of your store last year. What went right, HR-wise? What could have gone better? Answering these questions will help you figure out how many additional employees you need and what each person would be doing. The last thing you want is to hire too many (or too few) people during the holidays.

Get in touch with past employees

Lauren Griffin, senior VP at Adecco Staffing US, advises merchants to revisit past hires.

“Reach out to past employees and ask if their personal situation allows them to work a couple of shifts,” she says. “These past employees will require a shorter on-boarding process and make training a bit easier."

Doing so will also speed up the hiring process. Since you already have an idea of the performance and work ethic of your past employees, you can spend less time vetting them.

So go through the files of previous employees, such as the people who worked for you last year over the holidays or during the summer; get in touch with individuals who did well in the past, and see if you can bring them on board again this year.

Write compelling job postings

If you decide to find new candidates through job boards and other sources, see to it that your job postings stand out. You may be hiring temporary employees, but that doesn’t mean you can keep your postings generic or half-baked. Having a polished and compelling job description will help you attract higher-quality candidates and enable you stand out from the many, many retailers hiring for the holidays.

Take a leaf from FUN.com’s playbook. The company, which owns HalloweenCostumes.com, hires around 1,500 temporary employees each year for Halloween.

Because of the sheer number of people they need to bring on board, FUN.com’s VP of Marketing Troy Eaves says that they “get really, really creative to attract such a large number of potential employees.”

Eaves says that one of the ways they accomplish this is by writing great job postings that “create a sense of overall joy from the company and people.”

Check out the sample job description that FUN.com posted when they were looking for a temporary HR assistant:

As you can see, FUN.com’s job description is full of personality and makes potential employees want to learn more. See if you can do something similar in your own job postings.

Offer seasonal workers a chance at future full-time positions

One of the biggest challenges with hiring for the holidays is instilling a sense of commitment in employees. Since seasonal workers are on short-term contracts, they probably won’t be as invested in the job as their full-time counterparts.

You can address this by considering them for full-time work in the future. “We like to tell the temp workers that if they do a great job, there are a few slots available for permanent positions,” mentions Sandra Powers from Lawyerreviews.com. She adds that doing so not only helps motivate the seasonal staff, but it also gives the company the opportunity to train seasonal employees for future long-term positions.

Create a great work environment

Of course, the best way to motivate employees (temporary or otherwise) is to create a fun and rewarding work environment. The people you hire may only be with you for a couple of months, but you should still strive to provide a great and educational experience that they won’t soon forget.

As Eaves put it, “Happiness is the most rewarding perk we can offer our employees, even those who only work with us for four weeks. We find that temp staff always walk away thanking us for letting them be a part of our fun work environment.”

Over to you!

Do you have any other holiday hiring tips for retailers? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Want more retail advice? Check out the Vend Retail Blog, where we talk about trends, tips, and other cool things that can help stores increase sales, serve customers better, and be more awesome overall.