Being short staffed or having staff that aren’t providing quality service will inevitably leave customers with a bad impression that could ultimately jeopardize your future business.
It’s important to remember that the need to add staff to keep up with holiday surges isn’t limited to brick-and-mortar retail companies. Countless businesses from manufacturing to warehousing to call centers to shipping and logistics companies and beyond — are impacted by holiday surges. Driven by an improving economy and evolving consumer behaviors, businesses in a wide range of industries have begun hiring tens, if not hundreds of additional workers to meet the demands of holiday season spending.
As the historically busy holiday season has the ability to make (or unfortunately break) businesses, the pressure is on to meet increased supply and demand expectations while adhering to high customer-service quality standards.
For more businesses it has become increasingly difficult to find talent. Business owners and managers must take steps to ensure they are not only getting the right amount — but also the right kind of seasonal staff. Proper staffing can mean the difference between a successful year and a disaster for your business. Here are some steps to consider:
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Evaluate your workforce
While you may usually have enough employees on payroll to handle customer service needs, increased activity during Q4 could leave your team exhausted, or worse yet, unable to deliver on your promises. While you may have the right mix or number of staff to meet your needs during the rest of the year, do you have what it takes to meet increased customer demands come Black Friday? Will you potentially miss opportunities because you don’t have the right number of staff, or staff with the right skill set, on hand during the holidays? Now is the time to take a look at your employee roster and think about where opportunity exists to fill holes to meet and exceed your customer’s needs in Q4.
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Anticipate future needs
Holiday shopping spikes can mean a need for increased manpower, whether your line of business is manufacturing, marketing or storefront retail. Are you expecting increased sales during the holiday season? Are you planning on extending your hours to keep up with customer demands? Could your business benefit from the addition of bilingual customer service representatives or extra overnight shift team members to make sure deliveries get out the door in time? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it’s very likely that you need to staff up.
Here to Help
At The Business and Employment Centre we have large candidate pool of temp workers who are ready and able to start working right away. They’re pre-screened and pre-approved for your convenience. So instead of having to go through your long recruitment process that you don’t really have time for, you can get seasonal employees on site in just a few days. Contact us today for more information.
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