Summer isn't just the season of sunshine and vacations. For many businesses, it's also the time of peak demand that necessitates hiring additional, often seasonal, staff. While the influx of business is welcome, managing an expanded workforce—especially temporarily—can stretch the resources and capacities of your management and HR departments thin.
Combine recruiting new staff with your existing staff being more likely to take vacations during this time, and the issue is significantly more complicated. However, partnering with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is a viable solution to this annual challenge. They have the expertise and capability to streamline your operations to help save you time and money – which can offset the necessary increase in scale for the season.
In this post, we discuss how your company can manage their seasonal staffing surges – and what else you can do to make summer easier for everyone at your company.
Tips for Managing Your Summer Staff
The arrival of summer staff, akin to the season itself, should be full of potential rather than problems. But to ensure summer is fun for everyone, your team must carefully plan policies to make things fair and equitable.
To ensure this, consider the following strategies to manage seasonal employees and your existing staff effectively:
Standardize an Orientation Program
Orientation isn't just for full-timers and can be a quick way to get your short-term staff up-to-speed with your company. A well-structured orientation program lets you showcase summer staff about your company’s ethos, history, and their role within the larger mission, fostering an immediate sense of belonging and purpose. Even if you conduct a shorter orientation for temporary staff, it can help them feel supported and cared for – making them advocates for your company and ready to come back year after year.
Implement a Buddy System
New surroundings and expectations can be daunting. Assign each summer hire an experienced mentor to guide them, making their transition smoother and more personal, so they can learn the culture and procedures directly from your existing staff.
Offer Flexible Scheduling
Flexibility isn't just a buzzword—it's a strategy. Given the temporary and sometimes unpredictable nature of summer employment, adaptable scheduling can make your company an attractive choice for top talent. It also helps you support your existing staff by giving them more support to spend time with their families. Summer is also a season when children are home from school, so giving them the freedom to adjust their schedule lets them achieve an optimal work-life balance. Flexible scheduling lets you accommodate the lifestyles of all your staff, improving your overall employee experiences.
Provide Training Modules
Efficient, modular training ensures that your team upholds service standards despite the season's hustle and doesn’t waste any time. It’s about getting everyone up to speed—fast. An HR outsourcer can help you standardize training procedures that let you scale how you teach new workers about the common parts of their roles. Digital training tools, like a Learning Management System, allow new hires to learn at their own pace and on their own time, ensuring they are well-prepared without overwhelming them from day one.
Institute Incentive Programs
Nothing spurs performance quite like incentives. Whether it's rewards for positive customer feedback or team achievements, such programs can motivate your staff to excel by laying out a clear path to let them know what they can achieve and how they will be rewarded. Your employees want to do their work, but incentive programs give them additional structure to know which marks to hit and by when.
Communicate Expectations Clearly
Ambiguity is the enemy of efficiency. Setting clear, precise expectations helps manage performance and maintain your operation's quality standards. When it comes to summer, letting your employees know what’s expected of them gives them further room to plan and accommodate their work requirements and family needs.
Celebrate Achievements
Acknowledging the hard work and success of your summer staff boosts morale and solidifies their bond with your organization. Celebrating achievements also gives you a platform to remind workers about maintaining their work-life balance and commend everyone for their team efforts in maintaining their workload throughout the season.
How a PEO Can Streamline Staff Management
While the tips above are crucial, implementing them can be time- and resource-intensive. This is where a PEO comes in. A PEO can significantly reduce the HR burdens associated with seasonal hiring by managing paperwork and onboarding processes and standardizing training programs and employee handbooks. This partnership allows your in-house team to focus more on recruitment and hands-on training than administrative tasks—transforming your seasonal employment strategy from a logistical headache to a streamlined process.
Partner with PRemployer for Your Summer Staffing Needs
Understanding the unique challenges and opportunities that summer staffing presents, PRemployer positions itself as an expert ally in navigating this seasonal shift. We offer comprehensive solutions tailored to managing staffing surges effectively, ensuring that the only heat you're dealing with this summer is from the sun and not from the stresses of staff management. By leveraging our expertise and services, you can enhance your company's summer performance and unlock your seasonal team's full potential.
Summer is a time for growth and opportunity for your business and the individuals who join your team for the season. With the right strategies and a partnership with a PEO like PRemployer, you can ensure that this summer is productive, profitable, and positive for everyone involved.
