It’s that time of the year for bumping up your seasonal staff for extra reinforcement during the holidays. Although you need the help right away, don’t make the mistake of overlooking onboarding your holiday hires – expecting them to “hit the ground running” without any real training. After all, untrained seasonal workers could harm your business more than having no help at all. They could provide bad customer service, make errors at the cash register or even expose your business to theft.
Here are some tips to getting your temporary holiday workers properly trained and productive in a reasonable amount of time.
- Hire the right people. The first step toward having productive employees is finding employees who will be productive. Just because you’re hiring a temporary worker doesn’t mean you should fast-track the hiring process. Take the time to review resumes, do background checks and contact references. Letting a dishonest person or a poor worker onto your team — even on a temporary basis — could do irreparable harm to your business. Imagine the impact if that employee steals from you, insults a customer or provides bad service.
- Provide training before business hours. Spend at least one hour with your seasonal employees on their first day before you open for business. This should be adequate, focused time for them to learn about your business and how you run it. Cover the basics, including how to greet customers, promote your products and services, and handle the checkout process.
- Integrate your seasonal staff with your regular workers. To deliver superior and seamless customer service, look for ways to bring your seasonal and regular employees together as a team. (Your customers will sense the difference if you have two tiers of employees.) Invite your seasonal workers to regular staff meetings. Include them in any sales contests or commission programs. Host a lunch or happy hour where your seasonal staff can get to know your regular employees in a casual, stress-free setting.
- Have seasonal employees “shadow” your regular workers. Allowing your new people to spend a few hours with your experienced workers will help them learn the processes — along with the tips and tricks — that make your business successful.
- Provide regular feedback. Don’t wait until the end of the first day or first week to correct or compliment seasonal workers. Employees can pick up bad habits quickly. Take time to correct mistakes in a constructive way when they happen. And make sure you give credit when new employees do something right. Offering praise is a great way to boost productivity.
- Don’t go for the easy fit. It may seem like a smart move to put seasonal workers behind the cash register, thinking this is the place they can provide the most help. With today’s complex point-of-sale systems, however, this shouldn’t be your first choice. Due to the requirements of processing credit and debit cards, the need to make change and all that’s involved with packaging products, this is often the place where temporary employees can make mistakes and create a negative customer experience. Leave this part of your operations to your more experienced workers.
And finally, don’t forget: Most seasonal workers are just that, people who are looking to earn a few extra dollars during the holidays. But many are high-potential workers that could stay on to become your superstar employees. Giving these people the right training starting day one could pay off for you and your business over the long term.
