Wood Words

Do You Need Seasonal Staff – Or Is It Really Time to Hire?

Does your Middle Tennessee business have predictable, seasonal surges in business?

Many of our clients engage seasonal temporary employees to handle short-term upticks in demand – and with good reason. Seasonal temporary employees:

  • Save money in the recruiting and hiring processes (including the cost of a bad hire).
  • Reduce overtime, health benefits, taxes and workers’ compensation costs.
  • Increase business flexibility and alleviate capacity constraints.
  • Provide access to specialized, trained workers.
  • Increase your direct-hire candidate pool (you can evaluate temporary employees’ performance on the job and offer direct employment to high performers).
  • Protect your organization from economic downturns or other market forces that could constrict growth.

But what happens if that temporary uptick turns out to be longer-lasting than you thought? If you’re one of the many employers throughout Middle Tennessee that are seeing slow but steady increases in business, how do you know if you simply need temporary staff for a surge…

…or if it’s really time to grow your core team?

Here are a few telltale signs that you’re understaffed – and need to hire:

  1. Temporary employees are handling your critical operational work. Seasonal staff are great for handling support functions, specialized/discrete projects and tasks that require little training. Their primary role is to free your direct staff to do what they do best. If you’re consistently relying on temporary employees to accomplish essential business functions, you may want to consider converting those workers to part-time or full-time, direct employees.
  2. Your direct employees never have enough time to get their core work done. Every business has it’s crunch time. But if your staff is constantly behind, missing deadlines or neglecting key responsibilities, consider whether additional employees might be required to ensure you hit your goals.
  3. Absenteeism and mistakes are up – and productivity and morale are down. Chronic overwork presents in a number of ways. Employees become stressed, burned out and disengaged, leading to poor quality work and high absenteeism rates. If you notice these signs, consider when the problems started. If performance and morale issues began shortly after your business picked up, you may need to hire more people to lighten the load.
  4. Your company growth and/or culture is being compromised. Seasonal employees and task-shifting are sound short-term approaches – but they’re not cure-alls. If you are:
    • forced to turn down new business (because you just can’t handle it);
    • draining profits to pay regular overtime;
    • struggling with higher-than-normal turnover rates;
    • failing to meet employees’ expectations for a healthy work/life balance;

…it’s time to consider adding direct staff.

Need to hire? Need seasonal staff?

Or, are you unsure? Wood can help. Our Nashville staffing and recruiting experts will work with you to identify the root causes of the challenges facing your business – and design an intelligent solution to meet them.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email