You’ve recently had two people on your busy teams give notice. All good things — one of them is retiring after a beautiful career with us! — but that leaves you uncertain about hiring.
With the holidays looming, you’ve really only got a few weeks left of the year to complete the hiring process and onboard someone. Is it even worth it, or should you wait until everyone’s back online in the new year?
What to Consider When Hiring Around the Holidays
While there’s never a right time to find yourself with an open position, you’re absolutely right that hiring right before the holidays is extra tough. On the one hand, most of us are busier than ever at the end of the year, so it’s a lot to ask your remaining employees to pick up the extra slack. On the other hand, if you do hire someone, will you even start training them before January?
There’s no right answer here, but there are several things to consider:
Option 1: Hire a temp!
Depending on the roles, using a staffing agency to fill these spots temporarily could buy you some time until you can dive into searching in the New Year. You could also consider a temp-to-hire position, offering a candidate the position for the weeks leading up to holiday closures, with a potential to go full-time when you’re all back in January. This should cut down on your time-to-fill and spare your employees from too much additional work.
Option 2: Talk to your team.
At Star Staffing, we’re big believers in the magic that happens when supervisors openly communicate with their employees. If you’re really not sure what to do, why not sit down with the employees who are affected by these changes?
Explain your concerns about hiring now versus later, then ask what they think. They know the work better than anyone and might surprise you with a solution you haven’t considered.
Option 3: Adjust your end-of-year goals and expectations.
Things happen, and the best goals are flexible enough to adapt.
Are there any project deadlines you can push? What about taking a few lower priority projects off current employees’ plates, so they can step in on some of the exiting employees’ higher priority projects?
It can help to actually put pen to paper (or marker to whiteboard) to map out your “must get dones,” “nice to get dones,” and “fine until next years.”
Then, talk to your team about what’s changing!
Regardless, keep the focus on open communication.
Whichever option you choose, make sure to communicate how much you value your team and that this situation is only temporary. You don’t want them to feel like you’re avoiding replacing these employees forever — just until you all come back from the holidays rested and refreshed!
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