As businesses experience an influx of seasonal hires, enterprise quality communication software proves its worth.
With the holiday season creeping up quickly, retailers all over the country are beginning to ramp up for their busiest months of the year. To cope with the inevitable annual influx of business, many retailers will hire hundreds – sometimes even thousands – of seasonal employees.
The problem with hiring all these new employees is that communication can be tough. These companies already have standard procedures when it comes to communicating with their employees. Phasing in a new, often largely temporary workforce, takes a lot of effort and a lot of planning.
Whether it’s a new procedure, that week’s sale items, or the most up to date marketing information, seasonal hires need the same access to communication from the top levels of management as any of the more full time employees. Communicating with these seasonal hires is tough largely due to the fact that they don’t have corporate email addresses.
When businesses swell from an administrative staff of 200 to more than 2000 employees at peak times, it can be a logistical nightmare to stay in touch with each new employee. That’s why software that is capable of seamlessly on / off boarding seasonal employees, training them, connecting them with their bosses and with each other – all in real time with no infrastructure to buy, deploy or manage – is absolutely invaluable.
Enterprise communications networks for the non-desk workforce are valuable because they create workflow efficiencies while supporting remote locations. It improves the communication flow without requiring employers to default to personal email addresses or text messages; allowing field and frontline workers – often related to merchandising, promotion, pricing, delivery and distribution – to stay in the loop.
When real time engagement with frontline workers is achieved, it naturally results in a more uniform, and thus better customer experience, which strengthens “same-store” sales revenue.
Another advantage is the increase in operational support efficiencies, accomplished by connecting location and field based management while bypassing busy email inboxes. This also strengthens coordination through the entire company and makes corporate compliance easier than ever – a very good thing over the holiday season especially, when so many new employees who may not be familiar with compliance standards are working and learning on the job.
The holiday season often requires an increase in overtime allotment. Good enterprise software designed around bringing non desk workers into the fold can reduce overtime while increasing service levels through improved team member engagement – with scheduling, coaching, product roll out and promotion, general announcements and coordination.
Another advantage of this type of software during holiday season is that the human resources department now has a private and secure voice channeled directly to team members. This reduces U.S. Mail expenses, strengthens ERISA compliance, and allows for the delivery of critical information related to payroll and benefits.
For all these reasons and more, it is crucial that companies expecting an influx of seasonal employees are prepared with the correct enterprise quality communication software designed to make the transition to the busy season as drama free as possible.
Jonathan Erwin
Founder and CEO
