How to not let mass seasonal recruitment take away your festive cheer…

 

With December just around the corner, there comes the imminent period of carol singing, eating copious amounts of mince pies and the buying and receiving of thoughtful gifts. For the most part the festive cheer overwhelms everyone, however for industries such as retail it can be dampened by the urgency to onboard as many temporary employees as possible to manage the surge in shoppers during this busy period.

With such mass seasonal recruitment, it can quickly make the process impersonal likening it to a conveyer belt notion with the added pressure of the UK adopting shopping holidays such as ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ it means time scales become tighter and seasonal recruitment starts much earlier.

So what can businesses do to ensure they provide a high-quality onboarding experience to each of their new starters during the festive period?

Common onboarding blunders

With seasonal employment commonly only being a temporary contract, it’s crucial that everything goes smoothly in the transition from prefered candidate to first day. This ultimately enables the new employee to join the organisation quickly, feeling confident within their role so they can hit the ground running.

You wouldn’t be tempted to venture into a shop with a less appealing Christmas display in the window, so why would a new employee want to join a company that fails to put together an appealing and correct contract?

In a survey of 4,000 office workers, webonboarding found that almost four in ten (39%) of respondents admitted to having a problem when starting a new job, either between the offer and them accepting, or when they actually started. Manually managing high volumes of contracts can increase the opportunity for errors, however, the contract is the first point of contact between the business and a new starter, so it’s fundamental this represents the organisation well.

Effective onboarding process

You want employees who can embrace the Christmas cheer and deliver a great customer experience, so therefore it’s essential you provide them with an onboarding process to mirror this. In addition, the research found that nearly eight in ten (79%) agreed that they would have settled into their new role much more quickly had there been a better process. With time being so precious during the seasonal recruitment period, it’s imperative to seamlessly deliver a good experience.

This means, engaging with the new starters as soon as the roles have been offered and coming to an agreed start date and creating a contract that covers all bases.

For more efficient ways of managing high volumes of onboarding,automating your employee onboarding process might be the best option. You can introduce your new starters to a centralised online portal where they can access their contracts and digitally sign them, removing the time-consuming job of printing, signing and posting back to their new organisation. If changes are required, the administrator can then sign in and amend the contract in real time.

Quick training

With time being of the essence, seasonal recruits can prepare themselves before day one by using the online portal to download key documents and watch introductory videos.  It’s still imperative to support and train new staff to a high level so they can manage and be competent during this busy time. Plus the onboardees progress can then be tracked by the HR team providing them with greater visibility of each stage.

First impressions count

86% of employees globally, agreed a good onboarding process provides a great first impression, so once this is successfully achieved, it’s time to provide a fantastic first day.

You wouldn’t choose the perfect present and not wrap it, so it’s important once you’ve found the perfect employee you continue to nurture and support them. With 10% of employees confessing to leaving a new job after just a few days, and the average cost per hire being £195, it’s essential a new onboardee is made to feel welcome and settled into the team to prevent unnecessary company costs from accumulating and the entire process having to start all over again.

The festive period can be a chaotic time, so eliminate your business from one stress and look to digitalise your employee onboarding process this festive period.