Identifying which workers are worth keeping takes structure and the right management, expert says
With the holiday season approaching and a new intake of seasonal hires underway, some employers are treating the process as a gateway to finding full-time employees.
One in five Canadian managers (20 per cent) say their company plans to hire more seasonal workers than a year ago, with 81 per cent saying seasonal roles are a great way to find full-time employees, according to an Express Employment Survey.
But how do you identify the employees who should make the transition from seasonal to permanent?
Hayden Woodley, assistant professor of organizational behaviour at Western University in London, Ont., says it requires a structured trial period, deliberate people management, and a rethinking of how employers build their pipelines.
Numbers come before fit in seasonal hiring
The problem with identifying who would be a good fit for a permanent role is that the standard of recruitment is fundamentally different. When retailers hire seasonal workers, it is more about filling the roster than evaluating capabilities, he says.
““I need 10 people who can get the job done. And then from that 10, you might identify — ‘Okay, these are people I’m going to bring back every year.’ And there are certain people where it might be: “‘This was good, but maybe try to find a different place next year.’”
Unlike full-time hires, where employers screen carefully before extending an offer, seasonal hiring means employers must accept upfront that some of the cohort will underperform, he says. The challenge is identifying, from that mixed group, the people worth keeping.
“Performance appraisals are usually an HR tool used to identify whether you can terminate an employee or not,” he says. “Real performance management is day-to-day operations.”
HR playing a mentor role
In seasonal and retail environments, HR cannot always be as involved in the day-to-day process of spotting strong candidates. That is why Woodley says it is critical for HR to work closely with managers throughout the season — not just at onboarding.
“Usually, I like to say that HR is the hub of the wheel of an organization. But in this situation, it’s more like gears — where that manager has to be able to observe performance of people and get that back to HR,” he says.
That means managers reporting back regularly to HR on who is struggling, who is not fitting in, and who is genuinely interested in staying . It also means HR helping managers recognize their own biases in the process.
“They hire based off of surface-level characteristics, and not the deep-level characteristics they need to pick up,” he says. “So HR needs to ask: ‘How does this manager recognize their biases?’” he says. The seasonal experience, Woodley adds, is the best situation for a trial period — but only if employers are transparent about it with employees. Letting workers know directly creates a more collaborative experience.
“We’re hiring 10 seasonal employees this year. Our goal is that three to four of you return to us next year. For those of you who may not want to return — that doesn’t mean we don’t want you,” he says, as an example.
What to look for in a seasonal hire
Identifying which seasonal employees could fit a permanent role — and the overall culture — is not always straightforward, Woodley says. The person managers and HR should be watching for what he calls the “centre point person.”
That is someone who can navigate the different dynamics of the workplace regardless of who is around them. Seasonal hires come in different cohorts each year — and the person who can be comfortable across all those dynamics is worth paying attention to, he says.
“Even here at Ivey, students come in and they’re in sections. They sit in the same class with 78 students every day and they think they’re supposed to all be best friends with each other. And I’m like, that is an unrealistic expectation. But there are certain people in the section who everybody — it’s not that they’re friends with them, but everyone respects. That’s the person. That person’s going to be able to handle this well.”
Building a pipeline, not just filling a roster
For top performers who want to move on from the workplace, Woodley says employers can still make the most of the situation before they leave.
"Get that person to train the people who do want to stay. That’s the matching part of it,” he says.
Having a departing top performer train a motivated but developing employee is a form of succession planning that seasonal employers rarely formalize, Woodley says.
Employers should stop thinking of seasonal cohorts as temporary and start treating them as a recurring pipeline. That means identifying one or two people each season to grow into supervisory roles — people who can then help set the tone for the next group of new hires.
“If somebody wants to move up in the organization and is curious about it, talk to them,” he says. “Give them the opportunity to be successful.”
