How to Plan for Seasonal Employees in Your Business: 13 Important Tasks to Take Care of

Hiring seasonal employees can be a great way to adequately handle an uptick in the demand for your business or service. However, planning for seasonal employees is no easy feat.

It requires careful thought and preparation to ensure that the company is able to effectively maximize the potential of its seasonal employees while also creating a productive working environment. 

In this article, we explore 13 important tasks that need to be taken care of when planning for seasonal employees. 

Analyze Your Hiring Needs

Not every role needs to be filled due to seasonal demands. For instance, if you run a restaurant in a popular tourist destination, you likely don’t need to hire an extra manager during the summer season despite the influx of new customers because managers don’t have a direct impact on a customer’s experience.

However, you will likely need to hire a new set of waiters, cleaners and perhaps even a new chef or two, to meet up with the seasonal demand that is usually associated with summer in tourist destinations.

In other words, the first step when it comes to planning for seasonal employees is to accurately analyze your hiring needs. It is important to assess the number of seasonal employees you need to hire, the skills and qualifications that are needed, and the role each employee should play in the organization. 

By doing this, you can ensure that you are hiring the right people for the job and that you have enough staff to meet your needs.

Put Up a Job Listing

Of course, while it’s possible to find seasonal employees through word of mouth and referrals, it’s much more effective to put up a job listing on a job board. According to a survey by Monster, 47% of workers are open to working multiple jobs, this means that when you put up a job listing, you’ll be able to attract a large pool of seasonal candidates who are looking for some extra income.

Your job description should outline the duties and responsibilities of each seasonal employee for the respective roles you’re looking to hire for. This will help to ensure that each seasonal employee is aware of the role they will be interviewing for.

Develop Employee Policies and Procedures

As a business, you need to define policies and procedures for your employees. These policies include everything from pay rates and hours of work to a disciplinary procedure. 

By developing employee policies and procedures, you’ll be able to make sure that all seasonal employees are treated fairly. You’ll also be able to make sure that the company’s policies and procedures are in line with legal requirements for seasonal employees.

Set Up an Orientation Process

Unlike your permanent employees, seasonal employees have no experience with your businesses’ mode of operation, hence, you need to bring them up to speed.

The best way to bring your seasonal employees to speed is to set up some sort of orientation day, orientation camp or even a generalized orientation process. This process should include an overview of the company, its culture, policies, and expectations. 

It should also provide the seasonal employee with a chance to ask questions and get to know the team as it will allow them to quickly become accustomed to their role and their responsibilities for the duration of their seasonal employee period.

Develop a Training Program

You need to set up a training program for your seasonal employees in order to help them perform their duties in a satisfactory manner. The seasonal employees you hire may have strong skill sets, but you still need to train them on how to apply those skill sets to your business – hence the need for a training program.

Without this training, your employees will likely struggle to work efficiently and productively. The training program should include information about the company, its products and services, and any specific job-related skills that are required. 

This will help to ensure that seasonal employees are able to quickly become productive members of the team.

Calculate How Payroll Taxes Will Be Affected

When you bring on seasonal employees, it’s important to calculate how payroll taxes will be affected. Here’s a quick rundown of some things to keep in mind while calculating payroll taxes:

Determine The Location Of The Seasonal Employees

In the United States, payroll taxes are determined by the state in which the employee works. Employers must pay taxes to the state, federal, and sometimes local governments.

Determine The Amount Of Wages You’ll Pay Your Seasonal Employees

The amount of wages paid to a seasonal employee will generally impact the amount of payroll taxes you’ll have to pay as an employer. Generally, the higher the wages, the more taxes must be paid.

Determine The Payroll Tax Rate

Payroll taxes are different for each state, and you as an employer must determine the applicable rate for the state in which you’re operating.

Calculate The Payroll Taxes

Once you’ve determined the wages, location, and applicable tax rate, you can then quickly calculate your tax obligations for your seasonal employees. The amount of taxes will depend on the amount of wages paid and the applicable tax rate.

Make The Necessary Payroll Tax Payments

Once you’ve calculated the amount of payroll taxes, you’ll have to make the necessary payments to the appropriate state, federal, and local governments.

Set Clear Expectations

Perhaps the most important task to undergo when hiring seasonal employees is to set clear expectations about their role. This includes expectations about hours of work, job duties, and deadlines. 

Setting clear expectations will help to ensure that seasonal employees understand the role they are taking on and what is expected of them.

Provide Necessary Resources

When planning for seasonal employees, it is important to provide them with the necessary resources they need to do their job well. After all, without the right resources, you can’t expect employees, much less seasonal employees, to perform at their best.

The necessary resources include access to equipment, software, and materials. By providing the necessary resources, you’ll be able to ensure that your seasonal employees are able to maintain a high level of productivity.

Set Performance Metrics

Performance metrics are an important part of any employee’s job. Without them, it’s hard to identify who’s contributing to a company’s growth and who’s not.

That’s why as a business owner, it’s important to set performance metrics for seasonal employees to ensure they are performing in a way that moves the needle in your business.

If you’d like to encourage your employees to hit their performance metrics, you can do so by incorporating incentives such as bonuses for specific performance-driven milestones. According to the Incentive Research Foundation, companies that reward their employees with incentives generally report a 22% increase in productivity.

Monitor Performance

It’s not enough to set performance metrics, you also need to constantly monitor your employees’ output based on the metrics you’ve set. You can do this through regular performance reviews or by monitoring their work on an ongoing basis. 

Monitoring your seasonal employees’ performance will help to ensure that they are meeting the expectations of the company.

Provide Feedback

Feedback is important for employees because it provides them with a better understanding of their performance and how they can improve. It allows them to identify areas they need to work on, while also giving them the recognition they deserve for their successes. 

Feedback also helps to build trust between managers and employees, and encourages an open dialogue between them. In other words, if you’d like to help your seasonal employees improve at their roles while also fostering a good working relationship with them, then you need to provide feedback to them.\

Develop a Termination Process

As their name suggests, seasonal employees are inherently temporary. Business owners generally hire seasonal employees to handle periods of high customer volume.

With that said, it’s important to develop a seamless termination process when you hire seasonal employees. This will ensure that the company is able to quickly and effectively end the employment of any seasonal employees that are no longer needed. 

This should include details such as notice periods and any severance pay that may be due to the employee.

Follow Up

Business owners might find some value in following up with seasonal employees after their employment has ended. That’s because, even though your need for a seasonal employee may have expired, you will likely still need to hire more seasonal employees at some point in the future.

And who better to hire than someone who already has experience working for you? Beyond that, by following up with your previous seasonal employees, you can gain valuable insights that can be used to improve the employee experience in the future.

With all that said, planning for seasonal employees is a critical task for any business. By taking care of the 13 tasks listed above, you will be able to create a productive working environment for your seasonal employees.