As the fourth quarter picks up steam, many employers are plunging right into end-of-year hiring, bringing on seasonal, temporary and other workers to help them close out 2022 on a high note. This period can prove among the busiest for HR and recruiting professionals, as they work to funnel talent into the organization to ensure it can meet its final goals for the year. To keep up with that churn, however, hiring professionals can make some mistakes—and it’s important to circumvent them from the start in order to make the most efficient and effective hiring moves.
High-volume hiring for the holiday season and end-of-year projects may involve bringing in hundreds or even thousands of workers to your organization to get the job done. That’s a tall order in any given year, but especially so now—as trends like the “Great Resignation” and “quiet quitting” make finding and keeping talent especially challenging. As such, those tasked with hiring may jump at the chance to check their boxes and reach their hiring quotas—but just hiring for numbers, and not for skills and the right fit, may end up costing the organization more in the long run.
While having enough talent on board to meet the end-of-year demands may be the company’s prime focus, if the workers aren’t a good match—lacking in experience or skills, bringing expectations to the table that don’t mesh with company policies or culture, for instance—retention will be a big question. And with the job market as hot as it is right now, workers may not think twice about moving on from a job that doesn’t feel like the best fit on their end. And conversely, employers that invest in workers who ultimately aren’t the best for the job could be putting productivity and even safety at risk.
All of that could add up to a costly nightmare for employers. Prioritizing quantity over quality may lead to extra hiring costs, liability issues, and a downturn in both candidate and customer experience. Instead, the focus should be on the quality of hire; it’s not just how many seats you can fill, but rather who can actually accomplish the work that’s needed—when the right person is in the job, he or she might be able to handle what it previously took three workers to do. Especially given today’s focus on agility and teams in the workforce, employers should be working to find talent who can seamlessly accomplish projects—whether that be 10 workers or 100.
At Integrity Staffing Solutions, this idea is at the core of what we do: In our 25 years of focusing on high-volume hiring for our clients, we have learned just how integral it is for associates to be the right fit. That’s why we’re associate-focused: We get to know the talent and understand what they bring to the job—so that we can bring them to the right one.
More than ever, this year will be a key differentiator for companies looking to close out the year on a successful note. By investing in the right talent—instead of just the “right now” talent—employers can enter 2023 with a solid start.
