How Businesses Handle Seasonal Hiring Surges Without Chaos

It’s that time of year, again. Retailers get ready for the holidays. Warehouses await peak shipment time. Hospitality braces for summer travelers. And HR teams across the globe face anticipatory angst over needing to hire dozens (or hundreds) of employees in a matter of weeks.

The difference between companies that execute these hiring efforts seamlessly and those that compound chaos often comes down to plans and systems. Because the thing is, seasonal hiring isn’t so much about getting people, it’s about processing them quickly enough to get them on board when you need them.

What Makes Traditional Hiring Go Awry at Scale

Most organizations have a hiring track conducive to bringing on two or three new employees a week. There is time for multiple rounds of interviews, thorough reference checks, and option fill to ensure onboard compatible people.

However, when one organization needs to hire 50 people in three weeks, it falls apart.

Consider all the scheduling hurdles. Managers need to interview new hires, but they’re busy prepping for the busy season. Applications come in faster than they can be reviewed. Background checks take time. By the time an employer is ready to extend an offer, half of the resumes have been put to use at Target.

Now consider the seasonal element. Seasonal hires need to start on time. Otherwise, what’s the point? A seasonal employee at a retail store hired in October for the Black Friday rush who can’t start until December is no good to anyone. If companies miss their windows of hiring opportunity, they’re left scraping the bottom of the barrel for the duration of the season.

How Systems Create Scalable Approaches

When it comes down to it, companies that know how to tackle seasonal hiring effectively don’t just work harder, they work differently. They know how to create recruitment systems that can process high volumes without sacrificing quality (or response time).

For example, early is always better than on time. The companies with the best operations start recruitment efforts 8-10 weeks before they need people on the ground, providing cushion for speed bumps along the way and creating a roster of interested candidates who are available and interested well before they get in the door.

People like standardization. When talent acquisition efforts require volume, there’s no time for personalized approaches per position. High-volume recruiting standardized templates, the job description, interview questions, assessment criteria and even email responses, are created to keep things less impersonal and more efficient enough to respond to everyone quickly.

Some companies realize it’s unrealistic to tackle this challenge with their current staff and resources. For those operations that need to fill many spots in high demand, working with professionals who specialize in high volume recruiting means the difference between being adequately staffed for peak season or limping through. These partnerships essentially extend the talent-acquisition reach without increasing the size of HR.

The Technology Dilemma

Every staffing software vendor will insist their solution solves your recruitment woes. And it’s true that technology helps, but only if it’s used strategically.

Applicant tracking systems for volume hiring can cut out a ton of administrative minutiae that bog down standard processes where time isn’t as imperative. Automated screening questions weed out blatantly disqualified candidates before a human lays eyes on their application. Scheduling systems allow candidates to self-book interviews instead of wasting two days playing phone tag with the receptionist.

But technology also poses new issues if things aren’t handled carefully. Some employers become so automated that candidates don’t even meet a live human until their first day of work; while this may be efficient, it also has no-show rates from candidates who don’t feel personally motivated by a business at which they’ve yet to put a face to the name.

The balance lies in administering operations digitally for time-saving resources (like applications, scheduling and reminders) while keeping sensitive in-person discussions (interviews, offers, first-day orientations) human centered.

Retention Is Not Discussed Enough

What many organizations fail to realize as a subsequent problem after hiring seasonal employees is keeping them long enough for it to matter.

Seasonal turnover rates are brutal. Many industries experience 30-40% of their seasonal workforce quitting in under two weeks of starting employment. When it takes three weeks to hire someone who works three shifts before ghosting, companies practically have to start all over.

Smart businesses tackle this from the very beginning during new-hire recruitment when natural selection should occur, brutally honest information about what the job entails (hours, physical intensity, stressors during busy seasons) is given. Those who endure this might not be as effective as those who are hired but at least self-select during interviews instead of quitting during New Hire orientation after acknowledging they hate retail customer service during holiday shopping season.

Companies also consider what the seasonal worker feels like during Day 1, not just a cog in the wheel who’s being used and abused likely will quit sooner than later compared with those who see themselves as valued team members, even small things like reasonable training efforts, communication and treating them as additional part-time employees instead of temporary staff make all the difference.

Hiring as a Group

A practical growing consideration revolves around batch-hiring people for group opportunities rather than single schedules. This can be helpful for seasonal surges because:

It’s more efficient, group interviews or assessment days mean multiple candidates go through processes at once; some employers have hiring fairs where qualified candidates can interview, get assessed and get offers all in one day.

It fosters connection, hiring in a group cohort means it’s no longer an isolating experience, and there’s an instant support group among fellow training group members; less likely people will quit if they’ve made friends in their training cohort.

The downside? More coordination and participants are needed beforehand, if a company needs to hire ten people all at once, they need to have ten applicants consistently, as a result, sourcing efforts have to be strong. But when people hire from 20+, it’s more worthwhile from an efficiency perspective.

Next Year’s Surge Starts Now

The companies that best manage seasonal hiring don’t treat it as an annual emergency, they treat it as an ongoing effort that starts right after one season ends and another begins.

They assess what went well and what didn’t, they keep in touch with solid seasonal workers who may return next year because rehiring someone appreciated previously is much easier than starting from scratch.

They also consider their employer branding in between seasons, the image that’s built about a seasonal employer matters; if companies are known for treating their seasonal team members badly, the next surge will only be harder.

Some companies build databases in off-seasons, keeping talent pools lined up from interested candidates means the company doesn’t have to start from scratch when it’s time for the next effort.

The Bottom Line

Seasonal hiring does not have to be chaotic; sometimes the difference is determined between smooth operation and constant firefighting through planning, systems and an awareness that regular-hiring processes may not cut it for volume recruiting efforts.

Companies that excel at this recognize they’re playing a different game than anticipated, where speed trumps all else, standardization is critical, and sometimes it’s best to acknowledge when help needs to scale operational capabilities beyond what their current team reasonably can accommodate.

Chaos isn’t inevitable, it’s just what happens when small-scale hiring processes try to facilitate large-scale needs.