Tips on How to Find Seasonal Employees For Small Businesses | #hrmanagement #hrexecutive

As a small business, you may have the need for more labor and help during the holidays or just for a few months during the year. You need extra help during that time, but you do not need those employees to work all the time. Finding employees who will work seasonally with you can be tough.

Many companies are going to have cycles of slow and busy periods. Adding in more employees will be a necessity during the busy cycles, even if you do not need to keep them around to work all year long. Check out some of the steps you can use to hire seasonal workers when you need them.

1. Look for Seasonal Help Early

You should already know when your busy season starts. It is best to start preparing for this early on. If you have a busy holiday season that starts at the end of November, start looking for the right employees when summer winds down. Some of the things to consider when getting started include:

• What staffing goals do you have for this busy season?
• Which positions do you need to fill?
• Are there ways you can make training fast and effective?
• What are the tax obligations you will have?
• Will you offer employee benefits to these workers?

The earlier you can answer these questions, the easier it is to understand the needs before the busy season starts. Keep these questions in mind when coming up with the seasonal job description you will need to write.

2. Use More Than One Channel to Find Employees

Do not rely on just one job board to help you find seasonal employees. When you connect with your candidates through more than one channel, you will increase your chances of finding the right workers as well.

Consider using some combination of social media, your own business website, and local job boards to help you. Even message boards at college campuses can help when you need to hire seasonally.

The more channels you can use to find employees, the better. Consider different online job boards that are out there, local and national depending on your business, and write a compelling copy to go with the open position. This will make it more likely someone will want to work seasonally for you.

3. Ask Your Employees

You already have some amazing employees who are working hard at your business. Why not consider asking them for some referrals for seasonal workers. This is a great way to connect with the network of your employees and can bring in some more talent to your business.

Your employees are a great source to use because they already know a lot about your business and some of the skills and knowledge that it takes to succeed. And they will want to pick other people who will make them look good on the job.

Get the word out to your employees through the newsletter, emails, or in meetings. Consider offering a small bonus if one of your employees recommends someone who gets hired into the seasonal position.

4. Consider a Job Fair

Many small companies like to work with job fairs and other similar strategies for seasonal workers so they can connect with more than one candidate all in one place. When set up well, it can give you a way to dedicate just a few hours to meet lots of candidates without having to schedule things separately.

If possible, try to set this up to meet as many candidates as possible and even do interviews on the spot. This is a quick and efficient way to create the pipeline of candidates that you need. In some cases, you can have other team members answer questions and do some of the interviews along with you to speed the process up.

5. Consider Working with a University Recruiter

You may find that working with a university recruiting agency can make life easier. These recruiters often have many great candidates with lots of skills that could be good for any seasonal positions that you want to fill.

Even if they do not have the right candidates available right away, they can do a lot of the heavy lifting. They will search for candidates and help advertise the open position, saving you time from doing it on your own.

6. Connect with Your Past Employees

Some of the past employees that you had at your business may have left for school or other jobs. They may have left on good terms and are looking to earn some money when they come back from college or extra cash around the holidays.

This is a good pool of talent that you can look to. You may be able to connect with some of your past employees and see whether they would like to come back for a few weeks on a seasonal basis.

Some of your employees who have gone on to other companies, who have left for college, or who are retired may be willing to do some short-term work and take on a few shifts to meet your increasing demand for a short period of time.

When you use the existing network of employees who have already worked for you, you get the benefit of working with workers who already perform well and can do the work without a lot of training.

Finding the Right Seasonal Employees

Finding seasonal employees can be a challenge. Many job seekers are looking for a job that will last long-term so finding the right talent is not as easy as it may seem. Offering a good compensation plan and some good benefits for these positions may be the trick you need to get those good employees in the door for seasonal work.

As a small business owner, you will find that you need seasonal employees on occasion to help when times get hard. But you will not want to spend hours on end interviewing candidates. Check out some of the tips above to help you find the seasonal employees that you need.

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