For many businesses and workers, the approaching holidays are like a jigsaw puzzle of seasonal staffing. Striking the right "balance of busyness" for both parties has been a historical struggle — it doesn't always work well. With inflation rates and a looming recession in the mix, it seems like more caution than usual is warranted. Leaders likely don't want to hire people just to lay them off, and ominously on the worker side of the equation, "What will happen to me when my seasonal work disappears in January?"
The future of work presents pathways previously unheard of for people involved in industries where seasonal staffing is the norm.
While we can't predict exactly what this season will have in store, there may be an alternative to the seasonal staffing model: flexible work.
Seasonal Staffing Is Ripe for Disruption
Flexible staffing allows businesses to maintain a large network of qualified workers to tap into if demand spikes unexpectedly. It helps eliminate the issue of post-holiday layoffs and allows workers to easily work for more than one business during and after the holidays, which provides them with more income stability. These staffing opportunities can continue long after the holiday spike has subsided, and can be leveraged by businesses throughout the entire year, whenever staffing needs arise.
Allowing Businesses To Plan With Cheer
Hiring seasonal workers requires massive pre-planning — crafting a job listing, recruiting candidates, conducting interviews and scheduling training shifts. All of this takes time and energy away from their business — time and energy that could be redirected to other priorities such as customer experience or new products.
Flexible work can help solve the puzzle while assisting in streamlining businesses' hiring processes, allowing them to dial up or down their needs when demand increases or decreases. Suppose a business experiences a surge in demand that it didn't expect. In that case, they can easily tap into the networks provided by flexible work apps to quickly fill the necessary positions — sometimes within hours. Last-minute panicked moments with job listings that state "starting TODAY" can be eliminated. Businesses can breathe a little, knowing they won't have to be Grinchy about sudden layoffs or, on the contrary, be stuck with an important event they can't staff.
The introduction of flexible work apps is one tool, but businesses can also start allowing workers to choose their own shifts instead of assigning their employees to specific shifts. Showing some holiday spirit may mean understanding that their employees have many responsibilities that require flexibility, especially now. It's an ideal time for grace when an employee needs to call out or needs to switch their shifts around.
Giving Workers Control Amid the Holiday Hustle
The holidays get busy. There are gatherings with friends, cookies to bake, gifts to wrap. The unpredictable seasonal schedules hourly workers face do not always allow for all the "extra" life throws at us. Seasonal workers were once entirely at the whim of the company willing to hire them during the holidays: once the season was over and they were no longer needed, the income they had grown to count on was over too.
Flexible work can allow seasonal workers to sustain their income year-round without the touch-and-go nature of seasonal labor. When workers are in charge of where, when and how much they work, they can plan for the future and set income goals knowing that the rug will not be pulled out from under them after the holidays.
As inflation causes families to feel the pinch, flexible work allows workers to take on a side hustle to offset the higher costs of family visits and holiday gift-giving. When the holidays are over, they can choose to keep working or take the time to stop and relax. Regardless of what they decide, flexible work gives workers the freedom to choose and the ability to create a schedule that aligns with their needs.
Businesses and Workers Deserve Stability Year-round
The holidays are a time of year filled with love, laughter and happiness. And yet, those who work outside the traditional 9-5 are often faced with such an increase in demand that it can create additional stress heading into a traditionally expensive time of year for most families. What's more, those with a typical 9-5 may feel financially burdened this year due to inflation and are approaching the holiday season with trepidation.
The holidays are stressful enough: why add to it by sticking to old norms of seasonal work? Flexible work cannot take away all of the stress of the holidays — you may still run into traffic on your way to Aunt Margaret's, and Uncle Jamie may still have one too many glasses of eggnog — but it can relieve some of the burdens on businesses and workers by helping provide a more stable source of staffing or income that extends beyond when the ball drops on New Year's. Businesses and workers deserve stability year-round, and I believe it is time to move beyond seasonal work and into the future of flexible work.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
