How to Prepare For Seasonal Retail Hiring

Fall marks the beginning of seasonal hiring for many retailers across the United States, as they gear up for the most wonderful time of the year.

The holiday shopping season officially kicks off each year with Black Friday. Expect the day to be busier than ever in 2024. One survey found that 53% of shoppers plan to shop at least one day over Thanksgiving weekend, and 32% plan to shop on Black Friday specifically. That’s a 6% increase over last year in both categories.  

The surge in holiday shoppers in November and December puts pressure on store managers, HR professionals, and recruiters to hire seasonal staff by mid-November. With so many companies hiring for similar roles at the same time, it’s crucial that you’re prepared to avoid being short staffed during the holidays. 

Forecast Your Seasonal Retail Hiring Needs

Every company’s seasonal hiring needs are different. For example, J.C. Penney plans to hire 10,000 seasonal workers across its stores this year, while Target plans to hire 100,000 workers. Whatever your needs, create a plan that fits your company. Here are some holiday staffing strategies that can help: 

• Review past data: Look back to your past sales numbers to see how your business changes during the holiday season. If there’s typically an increase in sales, you’ll likely need to hire more staff.  
• Consider the current workforce: How’s your workforce currently operating? Do your staff have free time or want more hours than you’ve been able to give them? If so, you may not need to hire as many seasonal employees to help out. If, on the other hand, your current staff are already at full capacity, you may need to expand your team. 
• Use artificial intelligence (AI): AI-powered solutions, like Arya, can help automate your job forecasting job demand forecasting and determine your recruitment needs, saving you from crunching having to crunch the numbers yourself. 

Build a Flexible Hiring Strategy

Having a hiring plan can help make sure you’re prepared for seasonal changes, but you can’t predict exactly what business will look like during the holidays. To ensure you can meet fluctuating demand, build a flexible workforce with these seasonal hiring best practices:

• Hire seasonal workers: Having temporary employees allows you to staff up during the busiest part of the year without being overstaffed once the season slows down in January or February. 
• Hire a mix of positions: Plan for a mix of full-time, part-time, and temporary staff to create flexibility for scheduling. 
• Cross train employees: Cross-training team members sets them up to step into different roles or departments as needed. 
• Begin early: Seasonal hiring can be challenging because many retailers are hiring for similar jobs all at once. This creates competition for the best candidates. Don’t wait until the last minute to start hiring. 

Source Seasonal Talent Efficiently

While starting your hiring early will make it easier to hire the best candidates before another company does, you still need to source your candidates. Consider these tips for finding them: 

• Reach passive candidates: With the high demand for seasonal workers, you may need to expand your search to include passive candidates — people who are not actively looking for a new job but who are open to the right opportunity. Start with an engaging and detailed job description that will turn passive candidates into applicants by catching their attention. Highlight any interesting job features, unique benefits, and growth opportunities for growth, and make sure your company’s culture shines through. 
• Leverage social media: Many job seekers turn to social media to find jobs and evaluate potential employers. Take advantage by: 
  • Including posts on your company’s social media pages that showcase the employee experience, like testimonials from happy employees 
  • Creating paid ads to target job seekers in your area or industry
  • Find Facebook groups for job seekers in your area and post job openings to them
• Use AI to source candidates: AI-driven sourcing and screening can streamline the process of sourcing candidates. Tools like Arya automate candidate sourcing, removing much of the burden for teams who are strapped for time and budget. 

Streamline the Interview and Hiring Process

Retail recruitment trends show that the average time-to-hire — or the time between opening a position and extending an offer to fill it — in the industry is around 20 days. If you have many open positions or are fast approaching the holiday shopping season, you may need to fill positions in less time than that. Use these strategies to reduce your time-to-hire without sacrificing the quality of your candidates: 

• Automate candidate screening: AI-powered software can reduce the amount of time needed to screen resumes by automating the process. Solutions like Arya can even predict score and rank the likelihood of candidate success, helping you prioritize who to interview during the high-volume retail hiring season. 
• Streamline interviews: Interviewing candidates can take up a lot of time, but you can make interviews more efficient by:
  • Reviewing the candidate’s resume beforehand to avoid asking questions you already have the answer to (e.g. how many years of retail experience do you have?)
  • Compiling a list of questions that gauge candidates’ skills and save you from having to think of questions on the spot
  • Creating a scorecard to evaluate each candidate consistently
• Monitor recruitment metrics: Keep track of recruitment metrics so you can review your performance and apply what you have learned, so you can review your performance and apply learnings to make future seasonal hiring more efficient. For example, is there a step in the hiring process that takes longer than necessary? Or, is there a role that takes longer to hire for than others?

Onboard and Train for Maximum Productivity

With the busy holiday season fast approaching, you want to get new hires onboarded and trained as quickly as possible without compromising their understanding of the job or your team’s culture. Here are some tips for making sure your onboarding is successful: 

• Fast-track onboarding: Since they have less time to get up-to-speed on their roles, seasonal hires will benefit from training programs and managers that
  • Set clear goals, so they know what’s expected of them from day one
  • Answer their questions promptly to lead to quicker understanding
  • Check-in regularly to see how they’re doing and share feedback
• Enhance training with technology: Training software, like Zoho, or apps, like Mango, can make training more efficient and engaging. Virtual reality technology can even allow employees to practice tasks before stepping foot on the sales floor. 
• Foster company culture: Establish and practice a set of core values that will guide your company’s operations. Share these values right away with new hires, so they understand how they’re expected to act and how they’ll be treated. 

Retain Employees During and After the Season

The increased consumer demand can make the holidays a stressful time for retail workers, and retention is one of the biggest retail hiring challenges that managers face during this time of the year. Consider these strategies for retaining employees during and after the holiday season:

• Motivate employees: Offer recognition programs to make employees feel appreciated Make employees feel appreciated with recognition programs, and ensure they feel heard by offering a safe space to share feedback. Giving the team a free lunch to celebrate a goal they’ve met is just one simple retention strategy that will motivate your employees. 
• Offering incentives to stay on post-season: Seasonal hiring is a great way to see how a candidate performs on the job. If you still have work once the holiday season ends, provide an incentive, such as a raise or additional benefits, to successful employees who are willing to stay on after their temporary position ends. 
• Build a talent pipeline for future hires: Keep a list of your seasonal staff, complete with their contact information and notes about their performance. When seasonal retail hiring kicks off next year, top performers from this list should be the first people you reach out to with job offers. Also, set up a referral program to motivate your employees to source quality candidates for you.

Use Technology to Make Retail Hiring Easier

Hiring is a lot of work, and the holiday shopping season adds even more pressure to the process. Luckily, technology can make high-volume retail hiring easier. Here are some tools to check out: 

• ChatGPT: With the right prompts, you can use ChatGPT to improve job descriptions, generate interview questions, and more. 
• Chatbots: Chatbots lessen recruiters’ workloads and enhance candidates’ hiring experience by allowing them the workload for recruiters. They also enhance the hiring experience for candidates, who are able to get answers to their application questions 24/7. 
• Arya: Arya’s AI-powered solutions can automate and consolidate multi-channel sourcing, screen application, and analyze candidates for success, increasing candidate quality by up to 70%. 

Prepare for Success Beyond the Season

Preparation is the key to making sure your retail workforce management runs smoothly throughout the holidays. Make a seasonal retail hiring plan, begin hiring well in advance, and leverage technology to increase your efficiency and stay ahead of the competition. 

Book a meeting with Leoforce to learn how to use AI in retail recruitment and learn how our hiring solutions, like Applicants on Demand, can help you get ahead this holiday season and beyond.