How to Identify Reliable Christmas Temp Staff

Autumn season is in full bloom – and soon the jolliest (for some busiest) time of the year will be upon us: Christmas! You probably hired the best  staff for your summer jobs and now it’s time to prep for the cooler months.

As a business owner or a manager, you may find it stressful whilst juggling both your business and time with your loved ones. Mate, ease your burden and hire Christmas temporary staff to lend you a hand. 

Whether you’re hiring a security guard or posting a chef job, Here are two good reasons for hiring extra temp staff during the merry season:

No Last Minute Surprises

By having temp staff already booked, trained and raring to go – you’ll avoid any disruption to the smooth flow of your business’s operations. 

During this hectic period, your current staff may choose to take time off, visit family, travel or could just fall sick due to the cold weather. Imagine that you run your a small yet cosy family guesthouse that is brimming with guests. Brilliant, right?

You’ve got a Christmas wedding booked and you’ve given them a sweet deal for room rates, meals, catering, music- the whole enchilada! You’ll need your Head Chef to be available and work through this holiday season. However, he catches the flu and calls in sick on the day of the wedding! You have no back up personnel to step in to his role. 

You’re panicking. You don’t want the bride to come after you!

This is precisely why you need to hire Christmas temp staff from now!

Avoid Employee Burn-Out

Recruiting additional help will ensure that your permanent workforce gets a chance to breathe. If they’re asked to work longer hours, put in extra shifts, sacrifice their weekends etc, they will definitely run out of steam. 

Your employees work hard throughout the year and deserve a bit of vacation time. By acknowledging that as their manager, you’ll not only be appreciated as an employer but you’ll also earn their loyalty.

So, how can you go about bringing reliable Christmas temp staff on board?

Be Upfront

It’s best to be honest with potential temp staff from the beginning about the given job role, working conditions, expectations, length of contract and their rights. This way you’ll avoid potential no-shows.

Another little tip is to put down all employee/worker agreements in writing in the form of an official offer letter, temporary contract or email. This way, both you and your prospective employee will be protected and can refer back to your penned arrangement in the case of any discrepancies. 

Be Clear on Worker Status

Another way to ensure that you hire reliable Christmas temp staff is to disclose your temp staff’s status clearly on their contract. An employee and a temporary staff member have slightly different classes of rights. A permanent employee will enjoy supplementary benefits such as holidays, perks, sick leaves etc. Temp staff work on a casual basis and owns the right to refuse to work. Hence, as an employer, you may compensate him only for the volume of work performed and grant him a limited time contract. By having such clarity, your temp staff will know that the best way to make money is to simply serve the offered shift and come in regularly. 

Check Resume for Gaps

When checking out a potential temp staff’s profile, keep an eye out for the following:

• Are there several gaps in between jobs held?
• How long did the candidate stay at a job?
• Have they had several jobs across several fields?

This will give you an insight to whether the applicant tends to be a job-hopper. You’ll need someone reliable whom you can count on during those crazy Christmas hours. 

Time to Respond

See the amount of time a candidate takes to respond to you whilst you’re setting up an interview or a chat. On mobile job boards such as JOB TODAY,you can also ping them directly via chat and view when a message has been read by the candidate.

Those applicants who tend to respond in a timely manner are the ones most eager to land a job and will do their best to earn your hiring favour. 

Optimise the Interview

Structure your interview as it will allow you to learn more about the characteristics of your temp staff. To evaluate their dependence, you can ask certain questions. Here are some examples:

Why do you want a temporary position?

The answer to this question will highlight your temp staff worker’s purpose to working for a selected period of time. Maybe he’s a college student looking to earn extra cash over Christmas break and doesn’t have a free schedule otherwise. 

What motivates you?

A temp staff worker does not have access to the same monetary/non-monetary perks as a full-time employee. Knowing what motivates them can help you identify a management style that will motivate them to maximise their productivity. 

How adaptable are you at work?

A positive indication of a reliable temp staff worker is that he’s super adaptable for working at different companies and can adapt to their internal company culture. Not only that, it demonstrates his ability to pick up skills and learn on-the-job.

These questions should help you understand how reliable or unreliable a potential Christmas temp staff employee may be. Best of luck!