12 Considerations For Improving Seasonal Hiring In Your Warehouse

For many companies, seasonal hiring is an absolute necessity. The quality and the number of hourly workers can mean success or failure in fulfillment and your company’s service and profitability.

Many of our e-commerce clients have peak order weeks which are 10 to 14 times higher than their average weekly order volume. As much as 70% of sales and a higher percent of profit is either made or lost in the holiday peak. For consumer businesses, the fourth quarter peak often overlaps with spring product introductions in late December through January.

Read: Warehouse Improvements to Implement Before Holiday Season

Your local economy and regional competition are big factors for peak season hiring. One client whose market unemployment is below 3% advertised for fall part time warehouse workers. Human resources generated 45 potential candidates; only 3 were qualified and showed up for the initial interview. They also learned they had to adjust their hourly wage rates upward to be more competitive.

If Amazon is a local employer (as it is here in the Richmond, Virginia metro) they will set the pace for the number of part time and seasonal associates hired and the wages paid. Amazon has two massive facilities in Richmond. Here is a link from July 2018 advertising part time warehouse workers. For reference, “Petersburg” is a city near Richmond.

The web page referenced above is for the position of Amazon Warehouse Fulfillment Associate with an hourly wage of $11.75+. “The opportunities at Amazon are designed to help you find an hourly role that fits your life right now, including full-time, flex-time, and part-time positions.” It describes the position completely and has an “Apply Now” button.

Frankly, we were surprised at the wage of $11.75 per hour, but with low unemployment in the area, it’s a reality. What are other employers in your area paying? Is your starting wage high enough to make it easy to find part time seasonal labor in your warehouse?

Read: What is Employee Turnover Costing Your DTC Fulfillment Operations?

In many businesses, holiday peak season hiring decisions are underway. Here are 12 considerations for being successful at seasonal hiring.

Returning seasonal employees

Companies that have the greatest seasonal need often attract prior seasonal employees year after year. They stay in touch with past employees that performed well and want to earn some additional holiday money.

“Refer-a-friend” bonus

Offering a “refer-a-friend” bonus can widen your talent pool. Make the bonus contingent on the referred associate staying the entire season and having acceptable productivity and attendance (define this in advance in your referral policy).

Good job seasonal bonus

Like the “friend bonus”, make payment contingent on staying the entire season with acceptable productivity and attendance.

Internet job portals

Portals such as Monster, Snagajob, Glassdoor and Indeed post an incredible number of jobs. We see companies posting the same job on multiple job portals.

Temporary help agency

Using a temp agency is not often a favorite of fulfillment managers. However, this is the easiest way to quickly source reliable temp associates. The upsides are that the agency does the screening and hiring, and also commits to provide a specified number of qualified workers. You may find some great workers among their placements. You’ll want to work with the agency to be sure you have the right to replace workers with a minimal amount of hassle. The downside of using an agency is the increased costs, which in total may be higher than the hourly rate you may pay internal employees (keep in mind, however, that you are not paying benefits to temporary associates).

Interstate highway billboards and facility banners

As we travel around the country working with clients, we see billboard and banner advertising for warehouse workers along with hourly rates. What catches our eyes is how high wages are compared to other markets.

Some recommendations may be too late to implement this peak season. Consider these before your next peak:

Compensation surveys

Like the client example above, do regular compensation surveys. Especially for hourly workers, being competitive makes a huge difference in the number of candidates generated.

Employee turnover

Develop a turnover report to identify the turnover rate and reason for leaving. Knowing the reason of leaving is important. Some reasons for leaving might include, “never came back from lunch,” “hired yesterday, never showed up today,” “I didn’t know warehouse work could be so tiring.” During this peak season, gather the statistics that will help you address these reasons after the peak.

Determining the cost is to hire an hourly associate is something you must also do. Additionally, should you be recruiting a higher number of seasonal employees, considering some people just never work out or don’t show up after training?

Implement web based corporate recruiting site

Create a dedicated recruiting website for your business to advertise and recruit personnel for all jobs. Make it possible for candidates to apply for jobs immediately and submit their information online. Make it easy for them and cut down on the manual and telephone communication.

Local job fairs

From client experience, job fairs work well for some and not for others.

Training costs

Do you need more time to train people to make them totally productive at peak? Too frequently these inexperienced and insufficiently trained people make little contribution and increase cost.

Qualifying potential candidates

Do you have a Human Resources person who can screen qualified candidates? If you’re a large company adding hundreds of part time workers, this is an immense job.

As you ponder all of these considerations, also consider the costs of recruiting and how part time and seasonal labor adds to your operations costs. In many businesses, seasonal associates are essential to making company goals. Good hunting!

Read other blogs by F. Curtis Barry & Company on peak season readiness:

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Written By: Brian Barry