Ramping up with seasonal warehouse workers may be even more challenging than usual in 2020. Here are some things to consider:
According to Forbes, consumers have increased their e-commerce orders a stunning 129 percent in the last year, and this pattern is expected to continue. This means that you can expect a lot more orders in your warehouse at a time when workers are scarce. To add to the issue of finding workers, Amazon is adding new fulfillment centers all over the country, further limiting the number of available workers.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Richard Wahlquist, chief executive of the trade group American Staffing Association. “It’s an employment market like no one in our industry has ever seen.” (source)
Below are a few new ways to find seasonal warehouse workers for the 2020 holiday rush.
Offer flexible schedules
You might be used to hiring the same seasonal temp worker to work five days a week for multiple consecutive weeks; however, today's workers are looking for a little more flexibility. Consider a person who has to care for their kids a couple of days of the week? Or a part-time student? If you allow more flexibility in scheduling, such as only two or three days per week, you may find a larger pool of great talent to help get your orders out on time.
At Instawork, we know that when you find someone reliable and trained, you want them to work five days a week. However, with our platform, we take the hassle of scheduling reliable and trained seasonal workers off your to-do list. We make sure that you always have the team you need working for you.
When you work with us to find your seasonal warehouse workers, you can easily offer flexibility and find all the workers you need. We offer an app where our temporary workers can find open positions and hours to provide their expertise.
You'll find it easy to fill the hours and days you need workers with our app when you provide flexible hours, shifts, and days. If your goal is to always have the staff on hand to fill and ship your order, flexibility and our app can help ensure that you do. We can help you with the best way to divide the hours and shifts to ensure that you always have coverage.
Rethink your ideal worker
You probably already have a picture in mind of your ideal worker. It's a young to middle-aged man, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, who has always done warehouse work. If that's who you have in mind, you might be missing some great workers. As you struggle to find seasonal warehouse workers this holiday season, it might be time to rethink your idea of a warehouse worker.
There are many college students, young moms, and workers in other industries. When you start working with our flexible app, it'll be easy to attract these non-traditional warehouse workers to help you get all the work done.
Many of these potential staff members are looking for temporary assignments to pick up some extra spending money, so they're willing to work seasonally. For them, it's similar to working for Uber or Instacart but for people who don't want to be in the car all day or have access to a vehicle. These potential workers enjoy working a set shift with other people, and your warehouse might be an ideal fit for both of you.
These non-traditional warehouse workers will put in as much time and effort as your current staff. At Instawork, we take the time to screen all the prospective workers we might send to your company. We have a great success record for finding hard workers and ensuring they show up on time. In fact, our staffing service has a 98 percent rate of temp workers who show up on time and ready to go to work.
Consider creative ways to motivate
With so many seasonal warehouse jobs available, you need to find a way to set your company apart. It might be beneficial to offer creative bonuses and incentives as a way to do that. You might consider offering a bonus based on the number of hours a staff member works during the holiday season or the number of orders they pull.
Incentives and bonuses don't always have to be cash. You might consider offering goods from your own product line or gift cards from other retail companies. If the incentive is good enough, you can start a little competition between your workers. You might consider an incentive for being on time or working extra hours, depending on where your needs are.
At Instawork, we're about more than helping you find warehouse workers. We offer motivated workers when you're staffing your warehouse for seasonal work. In addition to helping you decide on bonuses and incentives, you can rate each of the employees we send to you after each shift. Sometimes simple positive feedback via ratings means a lot.
Reevaluate the staffing agencies you're currently working with
Not all staffing companies are created equally, and you want to make sure that you're working with the best possible one to find the best seasonal warehouse workers. One of the first things to evaluate is how your current staffing is dealing with the COVID pandemic. You need to ensure that they have the proper safety protocols in place to keep their temporary workers and your permanent staff safe.
Do they have a mask policy? Or social distancing? Or a policy about how often workers need to wash their hands? You need to know their policy and how they're enforcing it to keep your workers safe.
The second thing to evaluate is how your staffing agency is keeping up with current trends with workers. You want to work with a staffing agency that takes the workers' needs for flexibility into account and has a program to ensure it. Another popular benefit that workers are looking for is a faster payment schedule. You need to reassure yourself that the agency is adapting to worker preferences.
At Instawork, we built our platform with the worker's needs in mind. That's why we have the education, tools, and incentives to attract and retain today's hourly workforce. We're ready and have thousands of workers looking for seasonal warehouse positions.
To learn about how Instawork can help you, schedule a quick call below. Or, create a free business account here.
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