How to Hire Seasonal Employees to Support Your Workplace

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Businesses of all sizes will often turn to seasonal employees to help ease pressure on their core teams when workloads spike. Tax season and end-of-year projects are two common scenarios for hiring these reinforcements. However, highly skilled contract professionals can help companies in many other ways, from shoring up customer support teams to assisting with financial reporting to helping launch product marketing campaigns.

Uncertain economic conditions and challenges in hiring permanent talent in a competitive labor market are prompting many employers to amplify their use of contract professionals. In a recent Robert Half survey, more than half (57%) of U.S. hiring managers said they plan to increase the number of contract professionals in their department before the end of this year.

If your business is among them, here are three tips for how to hire seasonal employees successfully.

Specialized recruiters can help put your seasonal hiring on the fast track. A talent solutions firm like Robert Half knows the job candidate marketplace in your industry and city. Many of our recruiters have worked in positions like those they now place, and that experience can help them identify strong candidates for your available roles.

When you and your team are already stretched thin, trying to make a host of new hires in a short period can be an impossible ask. (It can also lead to costly hiring mistakes.) Recruiting specialists can help you locate, vet and onboard several seasonal employees at once, whether you need those contract professionals to work on-site or remotely.

Skilled recruiters can also provide insight into the latest hiring trends, such as:

Which jobs and occupations in the contract space are in high demand

How you can ease burnout with your current staff by engaging contract talent

Why many skilled professionals choose to work as seasonal employees

Want to grow your understanding of what’s happening in the labor market? Read the latest Demand for Skilled Talent Report from Robert Half.

The process for how to hire seasonal employees includes many of the same steps you’d take when hiring permanent staff. For example, before hiring contract professionals, you will want to evaluate their skills and experience and get a sense of their work style. A recruiter can help you with all that and more when you want to supplement your team with skilled contract talent.

When you identify candidates likely to meet your needs, you must be ready to move quickly to secure those professionals. After all, many other companies are hiring seasonal employees, too. A recruiter can help you be nimble by working with you to craft job offers and set appropriate compensation for contract roles, based on market standards.

Before you meet with a specialized recruiter to discuss your company’s seasonal hiring needs, consider researching the expected pay ranges for the roles you need to staff so you can have an informed discussion. Robert Half’s latest Salary Guide can be a useful resource for this process.

To help set up contract professionals for success while working at your firm, you will need to clearly outline their specific duties and responsibilities. During the hiring process, a recruiter can help you communicate these details, along with the time frame and other key expectations for the engagement.

It can be valuable to write a detailed job description before you bring a contract professional on board — and go over it with them on their first day on the job.

A key advantage of this approach: In the event the contract position becomes something more after the tax season ends or another critical project is done and dusted, you’ll be able to accurately determine how well the person fulfilled the job. Employers often find that seasonal employees make great candidates for permanent roles.

Again, tax season isn’t the only time you may want to hire contract talent. These professionals can be helpful when your business has staffing gaps to bridge or you need short-term access to specialized skills. For example, according to Robert Half’s workplace research, 37% of employers are increasing their use of contract talent so they can staff AI and automation projects.

Here are other situations when hiring seasonal employees can help your business:

Hectic holidays — Many employees use their vacation time during the summer months and end-of-year holidays. When several team members are out of the office at the same time and for an extended period, stress levels can rise for the remaining employees tasked with keeping projects moving forward. Contract professionals can provide welcome support and help keep burnout at bay.

Classrooms and meetings — Educational institutions and local governments have an ongoing need for contract workers to provide reliable IT infrastructure and tech support for online instruction and remote public meetings. The rise of virtual learning programs has also increased the need for designers, developers and video production professionals to help develop content.

Open enrollment periods — During open enrollment periods, employees throughout the United States sign up for health insurance plans and other benefit programs for the year ahead. Companies need to evaluate benefits and field questions from employees as they consider changes to their plans. They must coordinate and communicate the policies, practices and procedures, all while making sure data-entry tasks and day-to-day operations are not neglected. That’s another area where skilled seasonal employees can help.

Whether you’re facing tax season demands or talent shortages, or you need help with a special project, a little preparation can go a long way toward securing the skilled contract professionals your company needs. Apply the strategies outlined above for how to hire seasonal employees, and you can align the right support exactly when you need it — and take the load off you and the rest of your team.

Robert Half is here to help. Learn more about our flexible staffing solutions, and how we work with you to find the best approach to meet your specific needs.

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