Pranab Shenoy
Finding the skilled workers you need in order to conquer peak season can be difficult, especially if counterparts across human resources and operations aren’t fully aligned.
To maximize productivity and revenue throughout peak season, internal teams need to build an efficient and effective system that enables HR and Operations functions to proactively work together when it comes to sourcing the skilled workers needed to meet peak season demand.
Here are three ways HR and Operations professionals can work together to succeed during peak season:
-
Align Cross-Functionally
Seasonality is a collaborative effort and there isn’t any one team that should be responsible for forecasting demand, budgeting labor spend, sourcing workers, and managing labor strategy. Rather, HR and Ops professionals need to start collaborating early when it comes to seasonal planning.
The best place to start is simply with an initial cross-functional pre-season planning meeting. This is the time to align on swimlanes and to determine which department will own various aspects of the worker sourcing process. This is also the ideal time to begin collecting historical data from prior peak seasons in order to put a forecast together. It’s also important to incorporate your key stakeholders within the business to hold everyone accountable and provide additional support where needed. The earlier your internal teams can align, the more success you’ll have throughout peak season.
-
Collaborate on Job Postings
Coordination and collaboration between Ops and HR teams are essential when it comes to crafting the most effective job postings. Job descriptions need to be accurate and clear, or else you run the risk of getting workers unable to perform the job according to its specifications, or worse, no workers interested in the job.
This can be an area of contention between Operations and HR. Operations may point the finger at HR because workers unable to perform the job are showing up at the job site while HR may point the finger at Operations because they weren’t given enough details about what the job entailed. That’s why close collaboration on an accurate job posting is so important.
-
Leverage A Flexible Staffing Solution
Sifting through resumes and conducting interviews can be very time-consuming. There are many steps to the process, including posting the job listing, filtering through applications, reaching out to workers, scheduling interviews, gathering feedback from internal teams, and then making an offer. That is a lot to handle, especially if you’re in a pinch to get workers in the door before seasonal demand picks up.
Instead, rely on a solution that allows you to effortlessly scale contingent workers up or down depending on your level of demand. On-demand staffing solutions can be a great way for you to tap into local communities of workers who have been vetted and are ready to work.
Wonolo is a New Way to Find the Workers You Need
If you’re in need of skilled workers ahead of peak season, it may be time to partner with a new kind of staffing solution. Wonolo offers an all-in-one platform that enables you to tap into a community of 1M+ local workers.
Your HR and Operations teams can easily post jobs on the Wonolo platform with the exact specifications they are looking for, and within minutes local workers can view the posting and accept it based on their availability, interests, and experience. This takes the pressure off of both teams and allows them to spend time on other, more pressing activities. Check out our website to learn more.
