Unfortunately, for a lot of you, summer means hiring temp workers by the hundreds (or thousands!) and getting people onboarded rapidly. As summer speeds around the corner, anybody in the tourism and hospital space are ramping up for the busiest season of the year.
In fact, with the staycation boom sticking around for another year, ParkDean alone is hiring 7,000 people as part of a bumper plan for this year’s busiest season. That sounds like a lot of paperwork!
Does the thought of seasonal hiring give you nightmares? Are you beginning to wish you started your hiring process in January?
Well, have no fear. We’re here to help with top tips for every HR leader to avoid burnout and chaos with a robust recruitment and onboarding strategy.
It’s never too early to plan
It’s always the way. We find ourselves thinking “if only I started this earlier”. Or “if only I planned this process thoroughly”. And if the past two years have taught us anything, we need to expect the unexpected…and have a great plan in place.
But where do you start?
First, you need to ask:
What went well and crucially, what were your pitfalls last time?
Were your candidates engaged in the process? Did you even consider it? If they’re not engaged in the recruitment process, the chances are you’ll lose out on the best candidates.
Was onboarding smooth or did it fall to pieces? Your onboarding process doesn’t have to be a struggle, and we can help you.
Did bulk-hiring affect your organisational culture? How can you avoid this moving forward?
Who do you want to hire and where can you find them?
As the summer season rolls around, students will be returning home from university and in need of jobs throughout the summer, so it is likely you will find yourself appealing to Gen Z (those born between 1996 and 2010). But if you want to attract them in their droves, you need to think like them.
Top tip: 67% of Gen Z use social media daily. To attract these digital natives, get advertising on your social platforms!
How many people do you need to hire?
Be realistic. As soon as you hear that sound of picnic-packed, sun-cream-slapped families, there’s no turning back. Ensure you have enough cover to make this summer your most successful yet.
Now, this may look like a lot of work. But the right tools can answer all your seasonal hiring woes so you can take back summer.
Automation is your best friend
Hiring thousands of seasonal employees is exhausting. But you already know that.
Your days are filled with scanning endless applications, burying yourself in paperwork, smiling through hundreds of interviews, more paperwork, responding to emails, and of course, more paperwork.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Imagine an automated workflow that would do all those repetitive tasks for you? Sounds too good to be true?
What you need is an Applicant Tracking System(ATS).
Meet Recruit
With Recruit, our ATS, you’ll attract and retain top talent while delivering an excellent candidate experience. Recruit scales with your business, so say goodbye to stressing over seasonal recruitment.
And thanks to talent banking (your very own portal full of candidates who have previously applied for a role in your company), you’ll have instant access to loads of ready-made candidates. Reduce your time and cost to hire!
Onboarding at the touch of a button
Just like recruitment, your onboarding process doesn’t need to be clunky and full of paperwork. In fact, with the right software, it can be so seamless that summer will still be waiting for you to enjoy!
58% of organisations say their onboarding typically focuses on paperwork and processes, rather than the overall experience for the employee.
But a great onboarding experience means better employee performance, and better employee performance means a reduction in summer chaos for employers (you!).
It gets better! The smoother your onboarding experience, the more likely your current seasonal staff will speak highly of your brand or even come back, reducing your recruitment marketing costs for next year.
Besides, it’s 2022. Technology is literally at our fingertips. So, save your precious time and invest in a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to assist you in empowering, developing, and leading your people.
Meet Sapling
Our HRIS, Sapling, takes care of boring HR tasks. With Sapling’s ability to automate and streamline core HR tasks, the onboarding process only takes minutes. And integrated with our ATS, all candidate information lands straight in Sapling without the manual hours!
Because when you have more time to spend on the bigger matters at hand, that’s when you can lead HR, not just manage it.
Don’t wave goodbye to your summer just yet
Seasonal hiring is exhausting and a downright nightmare. There needs to be a balance in life, and with a few simple tools, you can wave goodbye to boring paperwork, and hello to summer.
Speak to one of our HR experts about how we can help you strengthen your seasonal recruiting and onboarding strategy today.
Written by Claire Moloney Claire is an enthusiastic and meticulous content writer whose passion is to support growth and continual learning for everyone.
