Hire seasonal employees and prepare them for the holidays

The holiday season is here. With people out shopping with friends and visiting family, restaurants will be entering one of the busiest times of the year—and needing more hands on deck to serve customers. Hiring seasonal employees can be one of the best ways for you to keep things running smoothly and have a successful holiday season. If you’re looking to build out a seasonal hiring strategy, here’s how you can get started.

How to Plan for Holiday Hiring

Getting a hiring plan together well ahead of the holiday rush is incredibly important. After all, you’re not just competing for employees who are eligible to work at other restaurants. You’re also going after the same employees that Amazon, which is projected to hire 120,000 temporary workers for the holiday season, is hoping to hire. So, it’s best to get an early start with your hiring efforts.

When building out your plan, the first step is to determine how many employees you need and what positions you need to fill to support the influx of patrons. To help you predict what those needs are, take a look at the numbers from the last two holiday seasons—everything from how many employees you had staffed at different times during the day or week to your total throughput. This data will serve as your baseline.

From that starting point, ask yourself how things went over the last two years. Did you have enough team members to cover all shifts, even after accounting for possible sick days or time off? Would an extra cashier help you serve customers faster? What could another cook do to relieve the stress in the kitchen? From there, determine if you need to scale up or down staffing and for which roles.

How to Hire Hourly Workers

Once you know which roles you need for the holiday season, it’s time to put your plan into action. Start by creating job postings that will attract applicants with the skills, traits, and experience that will help them and the restaurant be successful. Remember, the holiday season is fast-paced, so you may want to look for employees who are extremely customer-oriented, friendly, fast learners, and work well under pressure.

Also, keep in mind that the people looking for seasonal work are likely also looking for something specific. To create job postings that appeal to employees who might be out to earn extra spending money, save up during college break, etc., be sure to call out how you can help them meet their needs, whether that’s competitive pay, spot bonuses, or flexible schedules. 

From there, you’ll need to advertise your job openings, and the earlier the better. 

• Use job boards that are specific to your industry
• Post hiring signs in your restaurant as well as in the drive-thru
• Pass out flyers at local events and schools
• Incentivize employees to share the postings with family and friends
• Use social media to reach more potential candidates

And don’t forget the people who worked for you last year. Reach out and see if they would like to come back.

Before you start widely promoting your job openings, be sure to have efficient tools to make the hiring process easy and quick. The last thing you want is for the busy season to pick up and be so understaffed that you have no time to review incoming applications. One way to help speed up the process is to have a simple application process. The easier you make the application process, the more applicants you’ll see complete it.

Once you start seeing applications roll in, be sure to review them as quickly as you can and get back to the applicants as soon as possible. With so many restaurants hiring for the holidays, you’ll increase your chances of landing your next hire by being the first to respond to their application. To make the process easier and faster (for everyone), consider using automated technology and two-way texting. It allows you to engage applicants with little effort and gives them the ability to self-schedule their interviews, which also reduces ghosting.

How to Set Up Your Hourly Employees for Success

Once you’ve hired your team, you want each of them to be ready to work. Sometimes that takes a little time and forethought. Your new team members likely won’t be ready to jump straight into work at 100% efficiency. So, as they get started and learn the ropes, have extra team members present for the onboarding process. Have a dedicated, permanent employee take each new hire under their wing as they get trained. Many people leave a job before their first few days because of poor training, and giving each new hire a point person to support them will help them thrive.

Also, make sure your employees know what’s expected of them. Great general managers and business owners practice clear communication. It’s difficult for an employee to be successful if they don’t know what that looks like. As you onboard each new employee, make sure they understand their responsibilities and that they feel well-trained to perform each task. If/as you notice work not being completed as instructed, be prepared to coach and correct them.

Last, but not least, don’t forget to show how excited you are about them joining the team. Nothing will give an employee more confidence about making the right employment decision than having a boss (or the owner!) be supportive and encouraging.

Final Thoughts

The holiday season can be stressful. With the right team in place, it doesn’t have to be. With a little time, you can implement a powerful seasonal hiring strategy to help the holidays be a little more stress-free and a lot more profitable.

If you would like more information on effective tools for improving your hiring strategies in this competitive and tight hiring market, reach out to one of our Hiring Specialists. We’re happy to help.