Short-term employees can be extremely valuable to companies during the holidays. This time of year is busier than most, and it’s also the time when many of your permanent employees are taking time off to spend with their families. You don’t want to be stuck short-handed and not being able to meet your customers’ demand because you have too few employees. However, if you’re thinking of hiring temp staff for the holiday season, there are a few things you need to consider. Here are three tips that can help you through the process.
1. Think Ahead
Temporary staffing agencies are very busy during the holiday seasons. Many companies rely on temps to get them through the holidays, so your agency might be short-handed if you wait too long when hiring temp staff. Waiting until the very last minute to ask your staffing agency for some additional workers is a bad idea. The agency might have already sent all their qualified workers to other companies, so you’ll be left with no options or just unqualified temps. And both these situations can affect your bottom line. To ensure you get the best temporary employees during the holidays, start planning early so your temp agency can meet your staffing needs effectively.
2. Pay Attention to Experience and Prior Training
You want to hit the ground running during the holidays. You know it’s your busiest time of year and you don’t have any extra time to train your temp workers. This additional time can cost you a lot of revenue if you’re short on bodies. To ensure your temp employees are ready to work from the first day, pay close attention to experience and prior training when hiring temp staff. If a temp has worked in a similar store or industry before and has used the same computer systems or equipment that you will need him to use, you can be more confident that he’ll already have the training necessary to start working right away during the holidays.
3. Holiday Pay
Depending on the industry you work in and the location of your business, you might be legally required to provide holiday pay for your temporary workers, as well as the 1.5 premium for the day’s work. Many companies are clueless about these laws, while others try to find loopholes to not pay their temp workers any holiday pay.
All employees—even temp workers—are entitled to receive holiday pay if they’ve worked their scheduled shifts before and after the statutory holiday, based on the Employment Standards Act. Some companies will try to get out of dishing out this extra cash to temps by cancelling one of these two shifts. However, this doesn’t work. The worker is only required to work his regularly scheduled shifts before and after the holiday, but this doesn’t have to mean the exact days before and after. The amount the temp worker is entitled to is based on his regular wages for the four weeks prior to the holiday.
If you’re hiring temp staff for the holidays, make sure you know your local employment laws related to holiday pay to ensure you’re in compliance.
Don’t let being short-staffed during the holiday season hurt your business. Hiring temp staff can be a great idea to get you through the holidays without a hitch—while meeting all of your customers’ needs without any issues. However, if you’re thinking of hiring temp staff for the holiday season, make sure you plan ahead, consider their prior experience, and brush up on holiday pay laws in your industry and location.
