Are You Ready for the January Hiring Spike?

Posted on by zippyapp

Hourly hiring is a seasonal game and the seasonal hiring trend does not end in December. January is a very important hiring month for hourly employers, as many seasonal workers are back on the market. Because of this, you need to develop a big presence in January to attract the best candidates for your jobs. Here are some tips to get you prepared for the new year hiring rush!

1. Post your jobs the first week of January. Many other employers will still be getting back into the work groove, playing catch-up with emails and voicemails. This will limit their time to post their open jobs. Posting yours before the rush can help you capture the best candidates.

2. Add seasonal SEO keywords to your job titles and descriptions. As discussed in our previous guide to Lean and Mean Job Descriptions, your job titles and descriptions are a vital piece in attracting quality candidates. Adding seasonal SEO keywords can help your jobs pop up first in January hiring searches. Our unique job distribution network allows your jobs to be posted to the most popular local job boards (think Indeed, Monster, Glassdoor, Trovit, Neuvoo, and Juju.com), giving you the most exposure to capture quality, local candidates.

3. Adopt a one-click apply process. Job applications and old-fashion apply processes can take awhile to complete, deterring the best candidates from applying to your jobs. With our one-click apply process, applicants create one application on ZippyApp and simply hit Apply to submit it to your jobs. Applicants are also able scan your locations’ unique QR code and submit their application straight from their mobile device.

4. Simplify you Applicant Management System. How much time do your hiring managers take to sort through applications and candidate profiles? On average, studies have shown it takes about 30 minutes per application. Our simplified Applicant Management System allows hiring managers to filter, tag, and archive applications based on certain criteria, minimizing the time it takes to look for the information they want.

Are you an hourly employer with seasonal hiring tips to share? Leave your comments here!

9 Steps for Peaceful Holiday Scheduling

Posted on by zippyapp

For hourly employers, ­­it is definitely not the most wonderful time of year. On top of the added stresses of hiring seasonal employees, creating seasonal schedules provides more of a burden. To minimize the risk of dampened morale, unhappy employees, and even legality issues, it is imperative to develop preventative measures to minimize scheduling issues. Here are 9 steps for peaceful holiday scheduling.

  1. Plan early. As mentioned in our previous Blog, always plan and be prepared for what is ahead. Holidays will always be an upcoming challenge for you. So will summer and back-to-school months. When you hire on a candidate, ask them what days, times, and holidays they would be willing to work. This can later avoid accusations of unlawful time off requests for religious-based lawsuits (Federal law states that you must make a “reasonable effort to accommodate employees sincere religious beliefs,” which means you must try and accommodate their time off requests for religious holidays). Also, be upfront and clear with your employees. Set clear expectations of black out days where no one gets to request time off.
  2. Don’t assume everyone wants to take time off. For some, like students back home from school break, the holidays allow for extra shifts, which equates to extra money in their pockets. Don’t assume your single workers don’t want to take time off, or that those with families want more time off. Most employees know their holiday plans in advance, so ask your staff to submit their time-off requests a month (at least) in advance so you can schedule accordingly.
  3. Release schedules for busy weeks well in advance. Create and give your employees their schedules early to allow flexibility for schedule adjustments – like shift switches and covers.
  4. Make note of seniority statuses. To be fair and avoid issues of demoralization, consider who has been at your company the longest and ask them what holidays, if any, they would like off.
  5. Consider who Has worked or is scheduled to work other holidays. Another fair tactic is to prioritize workers who have worked certain holidays previously, or is set to work a holiday already this season. This gives you reason to explain why one worker is getting the time off they requested over another.
  6. Be direct with seasonal employees. Your seasonal staff is there for just that – to keep you prepared for the holiday rush. Be upfront in your seasonal job descriptions and the number of hours, days, and times they are expected to work (we talk about this in more detail in our Guide to Seasonal Hiring).
  7. Try not to schedule consecutive shifts or coinciding shifts to the same workers. Not everyone wants to work all closing shifts, and especially shifts that coincide, like closing late one night and opening bright and early the next day. This is a great tactic to keep in mind for decreasing your turnover and retaining loyal employees.
  8. Alleviate the strain and spread out shifts. Breaking up long holiday shifts into smaller shifts evens out the strain. Also, utilizing shorter shifts is a way to monitor busy and slow times. Overstaffing and top-loading certain shifts can decrease profits, and make for unhappy employees (splitting tips with more workers means less money in their pockets too). Be flexible if it does get busier than you expect (you can utilize our “On Call” feature for times like this!) Or if it is slower than you expected, cut people and let them go home early.
  9. Incentive those who do work those holiday shifts. Incentives are a great way to attract, retain, and keep your employees happy. We are in one of the tightest labor markets we have seen in decades, and incentives make your brand stand out from the rest. A common incentive many companies offer during the holidays is time-and-a-half pay to those who work extra holiday hours/ shifts, but be wary as that can become expensive very quickly. You can also offer gift cards, more time off during regular seasons, priority pick on the next schedule, or even a small bonus to employees who work unattractive holiday shifts.

Do you have any holiday scheduling tips to share? We would love to hear from you! Comment your thoughts below.

Guide to Hiring Seasonal Employees

Posted on by zippyapp

Tis’ the season for holiday hiring! If you haven’t already started hiring your seasonal team, don’t panic. Other guides and Blogs will say you should’ve started way earlier in your holiday hiring, and to a certain extent they are right. But if we have learned one thing about hiring during this tight labor market, it is that you should be recruiting 24/7 for your hourly jobs – no matter what season it is.

The good news is a bright holiday season is on the horizon for the restaurant and retail industries, since sales figures are expected to grow and consumer’s wallets are starting to loosen. The retail industry is expected to add 755,000 temporary workers from October to November, which means it’s time for you to start hiring your seasonal employees! This guide will provide tips on how to recruit and hire during the holiday rush.

Where to look:

  • Your current part-time employees are a great first place to start looking. These workers are already loyal to your brand and are familiar with your products, which minimizes training time. Plus they are already on your payroll, which decreases onboarding time and necessary HR paperwork.
  • Past seasonal hires are another group that negates the need to train and onboard. These workers have proven their work ethic, which lessens the uncertainty of whether or not they may be a bad hire. 
  • Hiring someone who has past experience in the industry minimizes training time. These workers are ready to hit the ground running since they are already experienced and have been trained.
  • Hire year round and try not to wait for busy seasons to hire. Always be on the lookout for quality hires. As mentioned previously, we are in one of the tightest labor markets we have seen in decades, which means it is that much more difficult to maintain a steady flow of applicants. A great feature on ZippyApp is that we offer a separate section on your Hiring Page that shows your ‘Future’ job openings. This is a great way to capture passive applicants for future needs. Another feature to utilize is our ‘On Call’ feature, where applicants can select if they are available for last minute jobs/ shifts. Archive these applicants so you are ready when you need them.

If hiring based off of a new roster of candidates, there are certain attributes to be on the lookout for:
o Eagerness: A willingness to understand the job and products.
o Flexibility: Are able to work extended holiday hours and weekends.
o Fast Learner: Has demonstrated in past jobs they are quick to learn.

Mistakes to avoid:

Don’t hire a low-quality candidate just to fill a position. Anyone who works with your branding on their clothing is a representative of your company. Your customers will not forget poor service because it was given by a seasonal employee. It’s better in the long-run to leave positions unfilled than to hire an unfit or poor quality candidate (we will talk about the costs of a bad hire in an upcoming Blog, stay tuned!)

Don’t just assume your full-time regular staff will stick with you through the holidays. You have to be prepared if someone quits. Offering incentives like bonuses and/ or overtime pay to these workers can help keep them loyal through the season.

Look over your job descriptions and change them for seasonal employment, or create new seasonal openings. Your seasonal job descriptions are not the same as year-round ones. Oftentimes, seasonal workers wear many hats and need to be ready to take on and juggle a variety of tasks. By explaining this in the tasks and duties required of the job, you can reduce turnover. Be sure to add job categories and keywords related to seasonal work or temporary employment so your jobs appear during seasonal work employment searches.

If you are having trouble hiring seasonal employees, are behind in the game, or are experiencing general hiring issues – we can help! Our software is specifically designed for the hourly job market, with a core focus on the restaurant and retail industries. We provide one-stop advertising by distributing and posting your jobs to the most popular local job boards, casting a wider net for applicant flow. Learn more at: http://zippyapp.com/business.