When you’re in a seasonal business, it often doesn’t make sense to hire permanent, full-time staff. In your slow season, you have a bunch of employees with not enough work on their hands, but you’re still required to pay their full salaries. On the other hand, when the busy season hits, you’re understaffed and you’re missing employees who have key skills that are needed right away.
These complications lead to profit loss either way, not to mention an uninspired workforce, hefty overtime costs that you have to pay out, and an uneasy, unbalanced workflow–and cashflow.
There are many benefits of using temporary staffing for your seasonal positions, because temps suit your needs to a T. Below, we explore three benefits of using temporary staffing and what it can do for your season business.
1. You Can Hire According to the Nature of Your Business
We’ve discussed before how seasonal businesses see drastic changes in workloads from one season to another. Whether you’re in retail where winter holidays means an influx of customers, or you work in the snowboarding/skiing industry where your business is pretty dead in the summer, seasonal businesses understand how work is constantly fluctuating. You need people –many people– at certain times, but you can operate with a skeleton staff at other times.
You would benefit from using temporary staffing in seasonal positions because you can hire exactly the number of people you need when demand is high. You can set their contracts to terminate when you know your slow period is approaching. You don’t need to worry about lay-offs or letting them go. They know up front how long the employment period is and you can rest easy knowing there won’t be any difficulty when their contract is completed. No commitment, and no messiness.
2. Temporary Staff Allow You to Boost Your Business–Especially If You're Just Starting out
Perhaps your business is a new one. If this is the case, we’re probably safe to assume that you don’t have a whole lot of extra capital. That means that you likely cannot afford to hire and offer full-time salaries and benefits to many permanent employees. But it also means, because your business is new, that you have to hustle more than ever–and that requires a lot of hands on deck.
One of the benefits of using temporary staffing is that it reduces the risk of losing money, especially for periods of time when the organization might not be making a lot (e.g. when you’re starting off). They can help tackle the start-up workload, but once the first 6-12 month hustle is complete, you can choose if you want to employ them full-time or not.
3. It Takes the Hassle out for You
When you hire temporary staff through a temporary staffing agency, the agency will be their legal employer. This means that you pay the agency, who in turn pays the employee. That saves you money on payroll administration, HR, and compliance for this individual. All you have to worry about is the agency’s hourly fee for that employee. This is one of the best benefits of using temporary staffing: it can reduce your expenses significantly.
It also gives you a chance to try out employees, see if you like working with them, and if the seasonal position has the possibility of becoming a full-time or regular position, you may choose (at your leisure) to hire them on in a permanent capacity. Fortunately, there is then no pressure to make a quick hiring decision–you can simply choose to change the status of their contract.
Liberty Staffing can help you fill the seasonal roles at your organization. Contact us today.
