Christmas is here; good news for everyone but not so good for your business as they may experience a staff shortage. This is because most of your employees would like to take some time to spend with their families while others want to use up the large amount of annual leave they have left. Regardless of the reason, the festive season sees a lot of your employees taking some time off which means that labour shortage will be a real issue.

For some companies, business is generally slow during this time of the year so a few absent employees might not have that big an impact. For businesses that operate at optimum capacities or have their workload increase during this time of the year, the effects of a few absent staff could be detrimental. It would mean a decrease in production, overworking of the remaining employees, and a significant dip in quality of the merchandise produced or services offered. The result of which is unsatisfied customers – something no business wants.

The cost of hiring temporary employees

To avoid the inconveniences caused by labour shortages, temporary staff need to be hired to fill the vacant positions and keep the business running at its optimum. Hiring temporary employees, on the other hand, brings with it its own set of problem. This is because recruiting new employees (no matter the terms of employment) requires the same procedures to be followed to ensure that the quality of labour hired is up to standard. These procedures include advertising the position, evaluating CVs, interviewing employees and onboarding.

For a permanent employee, these costs can be justified as the employee will remain with the company for a long time. For temporary employees on the hand, these costs might not be recovered as the employee will not be around long enough. This makes hiring temporary employees quite an expensive endeavour. So how do you get temporary workers to bridge the labour gap during the Christmas period without spending a lot on recruitment? Well, it’s very easy, use labour hire.

Labour hire is the solution to your Christmas staff shortage problem

By using labour hire to fill vacant positions during the festive season, you will reap the benefits of the extra hands without the hustle and costs of having to recruit the employees yourself. Some of the benefits you will get from using labour hire for temporary staffing include:

  1. Quick cover. Recruiting a new employee takes time. If you hadn’t planned in advance, sudden labour shortages, such as those caused by increased work, can be hard to cope with. Not with labour hire. Your labour hire agency has a large number of qualified pre-vetted employees on standby ready to report for duty at a moment’s notice. This will ensure that your business does not suffer the consequences of a labour shortage during this period.
  2. Reduced recruitment costs. With labour hire, your company will not be involved in the recruitment process, the labour hire agency will do that. And because these agencies are highly specialised in providing staff for various industries, their recruitment processes are very robust meaning that every candidate they provide will have a high chance of succeeding
  3. Large Skill Pools. Labour hire firms have access to large skill pools which makes them capable of filling labour gaps regardless of the skill set required. What’s more is that because of the large workforce they have on standby, they can provide a large number of employees with varying skills quickly and efficiently.

Staff taking their annual leave and increased workloads during the festive season can leave your business with a serious labour shortage problem. Labour hire can fix this at minimum cost and downtime.

At Blue Collar People, we provide quality labour for your business to ensure that you make the most of the peak season.