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Transcript for "jeff kuzmich - Migrate_Seasonal_Hiring_Surge_03192025_4844661": Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's event, Seasonal Hiring Surge Tips to Staff Up Fast and Smart. My name is Rob Parsons, and I manage Brand and Content here at Paychex. I'll be moderating this webinar. So before we get going, I just wanted to touch on a few housekeeping notes. First of all, sound is gonna be coming from your computer, so make sure you check those sound settings to get that set up correctly. Also, sometimes you may need to refresh your browser for the session just to make everything works well, we have key plans here you can use for that. Also, you can click the help icon if you have any questions. We have a team, behind the scenes who can answer those questions and help you out. Also, you can customize your view. You can move windows around and reduce the side of the slides. So play with it to make sure you get the best possible experience. So a couple more things. I wanted to touch on the fact that you can download and print a copy of today's content for future reference. You can access additional resources in the files and resources tab. And if you have any questions, you can just enter them in the ask us a question window. There's also a widget at the bottom of the screen. Just type in your question, hit submit. I'm hoping we have time to get to them. I know it's a very interesting topic and a lot of special issues around it. So please, if you have any questions, throw them in there, we'll do our very best to get to them at the end of the event. Also, please note this presentation does not constitute legal advice, it's for informational purposes only. And now I'd like to introduce our speakers. So we have Kathy Flyinga, who is a Senior Regional HR Consultant with Paychex, and Jessica Vitois, who works in our HR Center of Excellence. Kathy is a Senior Regional HR Consultant HCM Solutions at Paychex. She has more than twenty years experience in HR and is SHRM SCP and SHRM HCM QA certified. Currently, Kathy serves as a strategic HR subject matter expert and partner to multiple HCM sales managers and reps, providing expert guidance, insights and strategies to business owners to enhance their HR initiatives. Jessica is a Talent Enablement Partner, HR Services COE. She has worked in HR and various leadership positions over the past sixteen years and is PHR certified. So welcome to you both. I appreciate your expertise here. And Jessica, why don't you kick us off by sharing what we'll be covering today? Thank you, Rob. Okay. So seasonal hiring doesn't have to be a scramble. With today's webinar, we will equip you with the tips and tools to stay ahead of the rush and attract great people with ease. Seasonal hiring is not just about filling positions. It's about building a winning seasonal team. Through today's seminar, we will discuss attracting talent with strategies for finding the best candidates and harnessing AI to simplify your recruitment process. We'll talk through gaining a clear understanding of compliance requirements, streamline onboarding and offboarding to create an exceptional employee experience, ensuring that your top seasonal workers are eager to return. And then we'll touch on the timeline for when you should start, which will allow for maximum success. So let's start by understanding what's at stake and some common pitfalls that we see with seasonal hiring time and time again. Based on my experience, some of the most common pitfalls with seasonal hiring include, it's not always a rush when, in fact, now is the perfect time to start for the summer season, some three months out, not complying with essential requirements and thereby putting your business at risk of fines and penalties, treating seasonal hires differently from other employees, and forgetting about offboarding, which can be an essential step to create a positive experience and help them wanna return again next season. So before I move to the next slide, I just wanna share my experience with this. So when I was in house HR before this, I moved to a location during November, which was my busiest time of year. By the time I got in, I realized that there was not a focus on seasonal hiring. So needless to say, that season was a bit of a scramble. We found the leaders just onboarding candidates because they needed a warm body at the at this point rather than taking the time to search for quality talent. Trust me. You don't want that. You wanna plan out your business needs, plan out their onboarding and offboarding process to drive compliance, consistency, and attracting returning talent for the upcoming year. So this is a sample of some of the types of businesses that commonly hire seasonal workers. Each one of these businesses need different skill sets for specific jobs that they need to be successful and scale up during their busier times. Kathy, now I'm gonna turn it over to you so that you can talk us through some tips. Awesome. Thank you, Jess. So now that we understand some ideas of what we see can go wrong, let's equip you with some tips and tools you need to do it right. We will be kicking off with where to find your seasonal hires, but we would first like to start by asking you all a polling question. Rob, can you help us with the poll? Sure thing, Kathy. Thank you so much. So this is a question I just want to get a feel for where people are finding your seasonal hires. So you'll see a poll question come up on your screen here. There we go. And just go ahead and click on whatever works. If you have more than one, I think you should be able to click that, but I wanna get a feeling for what is the main way you find your seasonal hires. Recommendations from previous employees, help wanted ads, job boards, job fairs, or do you not really even know where to start? Is this something that's new to you and you really want to get a handle on where you're at with seasonal hiring? So I'll give you just a few minutes left. We've only got a few submitted so far, so go ahead and please enter. And here we go, now we've got some answers coming in. We'll just give it a little longer. And you know what, I suspect there's probably an answer or two, Kathy, on here that we didn't even think of, that people do use. But we're coming up now, we've got about, okay, almost half of attendees have submitted. So let's go ahead and see what we get for an answer here. So previous employees and job boards are both tied for number one. So right there, we've got almost 70% of what's happening, Kathy. What you make of that? Absolutely, those are all great responses and those, but let's set the foundation first, right? So before you go searching for those workers in all those areas, there's some important groundwork you should put in place. First, a compelling job description can make you a successful hire. Transparency is vital when compiling information about the role you are hiring for. The job posting shouldn't be more than just throwing your job description up on a website. The job posting should set your company apart from your competition. One thing that I've done with my clients is to show them how to first become and then market themselves as an employer of choice for those passive and active candidates that are looking for work. A few things to keep in mind for your job postings: use some keywords. The word seasonal or temporary should be in the job title, and potentially the employment start and end dates should be highlighted to help ensure job seekers are fully aware of the position's nature. It's most important to know your needs. Detail the exact positions you have available and the skills required. Keep in mind, with a shorter training window, you need seasonal employees with key skills who can hit the ground running. And then next, to make your job stand out, be upfront about the benefits and compensation your seasonal employees receive. Quick note, in some states, this transparency in wages and benefits is actually a requirement in the job postings. You could face stiff competition for seasonal talent, especially if in your area there's other seasonally driven businesses, such as resort areas. So to attract the candidates who fit your needs, start your hiring process as early as possible, and be sure to have a smooth onboarding process. Start as early as possible. That gives you more time to search and review as many applications as possible. Seasonal employees often submit applications to numerous companies, so don't lose out on candidates by being late to that party. When you are interviewing, ask specific questions, potentially seasonal workers, and be sure that you're consistent in this process to help minimize the risk of being seen as discriminatory. This could cause you compliance issues later on. Ask about any time commitments or restrictions that may affect scheduling right from the beginning to avoid any conflicts or misunderstanding during those busiest times. Now let's look where you can find these folks. If you know where to look, you can find a wealth of seasonal talent to add to your team. Don't lose sight of those who may be looking to return. When you find employees who want seasonal work and they perform well, encourage them to come back to your company every year or season and potentially bring their friends, family, and neighbors. But we can only do this if we onboard and treat our seasonal workers with the respect they deserve and not fall into those pitfalls that Jess was talking about earlier. These former employees may already know the job and can hit the ground running, plus they might even help you train some new hires. Also, leverage your current team. Ask your year round employees, easy for me to say, for referrals. Offer referral bonuses to motivate them to bring in strong candidates who match your work ethic. Hosting open houses might sound like a ton of work, but reward might be well worth your efforts. This is such a great way to invite job seekers to experience your business firsthand, put a process in place, be prepared and ready to interview, and make offers on the spot. Career fairs, booths at colleges are also great for reaching potential seasonal hires. You might also utilize job boards and recruiting technology. Platforms like Indeed, Glassdoor, and ZipRecruiter are excellent for posting openings. Have you also considered looking at industry specific job boards? What about the association that you're a member of? Do they have job boards that you might be able to post your job openings? Whether we like it or not, technology and social media are not going away, and they're being used by the newer generations coming into the workforce. Social media might help you in both marketing your jobs and finding those seasonal talent. Post job opportunities on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and even Facebook. These platforms are all used differently by different generations and can help you reach a broader group of seasonal job seekers and build relationships with those potential hires, highlight the perks of seasonal work, and attract larger, talented talent pool. Here's a tip. I know it's impossible to think, but not everyone is interested in seasonal work. Focus your recruiting efforts on groups of people who are more likely to want to work seasonally, which could net you better results. I have personally hired seasonal workers who are veterans, retirees, military spouses, and those with disabilities who may not be looking for full time or year round work, but would be excellent workers for them. Jess, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Kathy. That was great. So just like Kathy said, technology is not going away. As you know, AI is the focus of the future as well. Right? If you haven't been testing out AI, I highly encourage you to do so. AI can streamline seasonal hiring by automating repetitive tasks and optimizing processes. It can assist with writing compelling job descriptions, targeting the right candidates through smart algorithms, screening resumes efficiently, and even scheduling interviews. AI tools can also analyze data to predict the best times and platforms to post jobs, ensuring that you attract top talent quickly and efficiently. One so one of our recent studies identified that fifty seven percent of business owners struggle to find qualified candidates, and then 55% say that AI speeds up recruitment and screening. So I just wanna share a tip with you. Always screen AI generated content to make sure that it's relevant and specific to your business needs and aligned with your culture and brand. So there are several factors to keep in mind to make sure that your seasonal hiring efforts stay in compliance with applicable employment laws and regulations. This is really important to help you avoid fines and penalties. For instance, seasonal lifeguards have specific laws applicable to hires who are 18. This is important information to know. So also consider the FLSA regulations that apply to seasonal employees include minimum wage, overtime pay, record keeping, and child labor laws. The FLSA requires employers to pay nonexempt employees at least minimum wage for all hours worked, and then any hours over forty hours per work week must be compensated at an overtime rate of one and a half times the employee's regular rate of pay. Next, we'll talk about the Affordable Care Act, also known as ACA. So when determining whether a company is an applicable large employer, ALE, subject to the Affordable Care Act's employer shared responsibilities, ESR, don't let me lose you here, provisions for health care benefits. There is a stipulation that points specifically towards seasonal hires or seasonal workers. As the IRS states, if an employer's workforce exceeds 50 full time employees for one hundred and twenty days or fewer during a calendar year, and the employees in excess of 50 who were employed during that period of no more than a hundred days a hundred and twenty days for seasonal workers, the employer is not considered an applicable large employer. If it's determined that an employer is an ALE, seasonal workers still need to be assessed to decide whether or not they are full time for the purposes of ESR. However, they may use an initial measurement even if they are reasonably expected to work full time if the employer is using a look back measurement period. This is not true of non seasonal workers who are reasonably expected to work full time. So creating a great seamless employee experience is fundamental to retaining employees and keeping them coming back for the next season. Here are some things that we want you to think about. Employee engagement and retention, so creating that positive experience for these employees. Training and support, so this includes aligning a mentor to each new hire accompanied by a training program. So having a training plan for each seasonal employee is important because it may ensure safety, efficiency, and engagement. Proper training tips proper training helps prevent challenges and increases the likelihood of returning employees. Imagine starting a new job and you're not assigned a mentor. This step is key. The next one that I wanna talk about is recognition programs. So rewards and recognition improve employee engagement, and employees who feel valued are more productive. So work recognition enforces a business' core values, and the best employee recognition programs promotes fairness and improve company morale. Onboarding. So our onboarding services is a great way to streamline the onboarding process for your business. This process drives consistency and gives your new hires a great streamlined process right from the beginning. During their offboarding, let them know that you'd love to see them return, and then schedule and conduct exit interviews with your employees at the end of each season. That way, you can continuously improve your experience for these employees. Kathy, I'm gonna turn it back over to you. Thanks, Dress. That was all great information. Getting hiring right for seasonal employees can be stress free and efficient if you're prepared. And, you know, I don't think we've said it enough, but starting the process two to three months before you need employees to start work will be a game changer for you, and the or for those that you delegate to do the hiring for your company. Coming from someone who is responsible for hiring an additional 120 more workers for a three month period to get a box retail store ready for the holiday season, getting a jump on seasonal hiring reduces anxiety, if a little bit, when your customers start rolling in. Some of my clients have also found our hiring calendar for essential deadlines and a check full and a checklist useful, which is also available to you all within the webinar console. Using an AI tool like Paychex Recruiting Copilot in partnership with Findem analyzes millions of potential candidates through a natural language search engine to quickly produce a short list of qualified candidates, and then it unlocks their contact information so you can swiftly engage with them about your open positions. Paychex also has Engage, which is a great tool for businesses to streamline your one on one process, celebrate key milestones, and drive some of that employee engagement. We also have new hires and turnover report. This is a great report to run-in Flex so that you, clients, can review reports to see what their headcount was, and a full list of employees that were hired seasonally so you can reach out to them again. And finally, to sum it all up, not sure, you know, again, don't wait till you need those seasonal hires. Start today. Be transparent and identify the keywords for your job postings and job descriptions. These are all an important part of any hiring process. Know where you're going to source your candidates, and find the AI tools that can best help you. Know the federal, state, and local laws and regulations that apply to your business. These are ever changing and evolving, so lean on your HR partners to help you minimize risk or exposure to potential fines and penalties down the road. It is our final tip, but it should be at the top of your seasonal hiring checklist. Plan for how many seasonal workers you're going to need. This is critical because if you don't know exactly how many you need and for what roles you're hiring, you'll never really know when your hiring goals are met, and then when to focus your recruiting efforts off of recruiting and onto your new hire onboarding process. Remember, this is so important if you want them to come back and want them to bring referrals next season. Well, with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to you, Rob. Thank you, Kathy, and thank you, Jessica. We've got quite a few questions have come in. And the first one actually is a point you just touched on Kathy, it was from Sherry who's talking about, is there a suggested process for rehires? Like how do we want to handle that? And maybe Kathy, you could even elaborate on how to create this, I guess, a cycle or a factory of people that come back every season. I touched on it a little bit in slide 16, which I thought was great, talking about all the things you can do to make them feel valued. But how do I really formalize that? How do I make sure these people know that this isn't just a one off situation? Jessica, if you wanna take this one as well, that's a good idea, that's good as well. Yeah, I can jump in for sure. So we kinda touched on it earlier, making sure that they feel valued, make sure they have a trainer, Even if you feel like they feel comfortable in the process, you know, they've been here before, we still just wanna make sure that they feel nice and trained, ready for the season, they have that assigned mentor, They understand how much you value them there. Have them still complete their onboarding paperwork. You may have updated your handbook, things like that. So just like any other hire, make sure they feel welcomed and prepared so that you could have a successful season. I like that. Maybe you could elaborate too on how you'd like to conduct that off boarding process. I think that's something we never think about. We always think about seasonal hiring, but how do you do you like to think about the off boarding and and do you like to have that conversation with people right there about next season? I do, I'd recommend it. Kathy talked earlier about transparency and you want those employees ready for the next season. You don't want them leaving feeling unsure like, did I do a good job? Do they want me back? You know, you want them to have a full expectation. Should I apply? When should I apply? You know, in that way, you're really ramped up earlier the next season because you already have employees ready to come back. You've already had the conversations with them. And then, of course, you can reach out before you start that seasonal process again. You can say, hey, just so you know, we're looking to start our seasonal hiring up. And then that way they know you remember them, you know, they're more likely to come back that way. That's great. That's excellent. I have one from Suzanne here. I'm not sure if we can answer it exactly. It's starting to get specific about actually what she needs to do to staff to support the staff she's bringing on. But what was also interesting is she's got to hire like a 100 people in four weeks. So how do you source that many people within super tight timelines like that? Yeah, I can jump in on this one. I would say, you know, and we obviously, you know, you have four weeks now, but we probably should have started it, right, a long time ago to get those 100 sourced. But finding all the resources, finding all the sources, post to as many places as you can to get those candidates. Reach out to those, you know, that you've hired in the past, and I can't stress enough, reach out to your current workforce as well, right, for referrals. So any sources you can to bring those folks in. Rob, I think the first part of your question was around how do you get current employees to help you with recruiting? That also the first part of the question? Yeah, it was part of helping with recruiting, but even how do I staff up that support staff? The question specifically was like, how many payroll specialists will I need to handle all that onboarding and handle all of this staff? And I imagine there's some math that goes into that that we might not be able to uncover without a little more information. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it starts with having some sort of understanding of your org structure, right? Who do you have in place today that can help and maybe add a little bit more to their plan, or if you need to hire additional bodies to help you through this transition, finding some temporary workers, right? They may not be seasonal, but temporary workers. I would also say integrate as much technology to help you through a lot of those manual paperwork processes that we've had in the past. Having been in house HR, I know it used to all be paper, which took a lot longer. If you can get your recruiting into an ATS system, if you can get your onboarding electronically and seamlessly integrated into your payroll process, your timekeeping, all of those things, if you can get as many things into technology to help you, you may not need actual bodies to do some of those functions. Does that make sense? That makes complete sense. That's a very good answer. And then I actually wanted to touch on technology just a little bit later, but did have a question. It's a similar question from Kevin who wanted some additional confirmation on HCA requirements. It started to get a little detailed from me. I know, Jessica, you covered up covered off on a lot of, like, regulations that I have to pay attention to even with seasonal employees. How can I help ensure that I stay in compliance with all these different regulations and I'm managing my seasonal workers as effectively as I'm managing my full time workers? Yeah. That's a good question. I I saw that question come in as well. I know this slide got a little bit dicey and there are specifics per your industry and per your business. So I'm really working with a dedicated HR professional. They can help go through that process with you. They can make sure that you're in compliance with your health insurance, with anything that you need to follow for these employees. And not just the ACA, but I really wanna tie it into there may be specific onboarding and offboarding paperwork as well that's required. So staying in compliant with anything having to do with your regular hires, but also your seasonal hires as well. A dedicated HR professional can help you through all of these little details that may vary depending on your size. Excellent. Thank you very much for that one. You touched on it just a little bit, Kathy, but we did have a question about streamlining the onboarding. This was from Cheryl, and she's asking a very specific question about Paychex Flex. I'm not sure if we can answer that, but do we know enough? How do we streamline onboarding and our technology to really make maximum productivity? You touched on the paper aspect before. How do we go about making that easier, as we move into the future here? Yeah, and I know some of the questions was around rehires as well, I think if I saw that correctly, or maybe it was a different question now, but, what I would say is our technology, whether you start from the applicant tracking piece or you just start with the onboarding. For us, it's as simple as you adding in some basic information about your new hires, you know, their name, their email address, and then some basic information about the physician. And then we're going to send them an email to do all that electronic onboarding, their data, their personal data, their tax forms, their I-nine form, the Section one of the I-nine form, and then we can customize the onboarding for our clients as well if you wanted to upload a handbook for acknowledgment and all those papers that you need them to sign potentially before they start work. And then once they're done with all of theirs, our system notifies the hiring manager that their information is done, and then the manager would complete Section two of the I-nine form, right, with the documentation, and then once the hiring is done, all of that information moves over to the piece of Paychex Flex, for the payroll information. So, you know, a client would just add salaries, some of those information that's specific to that new hire, and then we're ready to run payroll, time and attendance, whatever you need to from that point. I'd also like to touch on the rehire, because I know that sometimes is a question that comes up, and I know Jess can chime in as well. Best practice always says for it to have rehires complete the new hire paperwork, at least the basic information with taxes, things like that, direct deposit every season, because as you can imagine, tax information can change, their address can change, their banking information can change. So best practice always says to have them complete that new hire process, that onboarding process, every season. You want them to acknowledge handbook because maybe there's, some things that you've changed in the handbook or policies that you've updated since the last time. So again, treat them as a new hire as much as you can from the onboarding perspective, and that will help with the employee life cycle as well. Didn't know if Jess wanted to chime in as well. Kathy, that was great. I do have another one that's slightly related here. This is from Nancy and this probably isn't surprising to the both of you, but she says that she hires a lot of older employees who aren't that tech savvy. I know we use a lot of flex and a lot of the solutions around flex to streamline our jobs, make our jobs easier, but it isn't always easier for the employees. And I think, Kathy, it was you that touched on maybe reaching out to retirees, reaching out to veterans, reaching out maybe to some different types of audiences. How do I handle maybe some of our more old school, employee candidates? And I fall in that description for sure, so I totally understand. If my, young adult kids wouldn't tell me how to use technology, I probably wouldn't either. So, I think it's a matter of working, so as a HR business partner, I'm working with my clients to understand what demographics or what generations they're going to have, and then how do we incorporate both the technology for the newer folks and then have some ways and some systems in place for those folks that may not use their phone as much for onboarding, or set up a computer, right, at your worksite for them to go through the paperwork electronically on a computer or laptop that you might have there in the office. We also have other ways, but we can definitely work with our clients to have multiple ways to onboard, but still make it streamlined and integrated for our clients, for our customers. That's perfect. I have another technology related question. This is from me, and this is for Jessica. You touched on this briefly on AI, and and we've been using AI a lot, I love your caution about always check it to make sure it is working correctly. But you we also touched very briefly on the Paychex Recruiting Copilot in partnership with Findem. I was wondering if we could talk a little bit more about that tool and how we use AI powered technology to find potential candidates more quickly instead of just hoping that they're the ones who are out there looking for a job. Yeah, that's a good question. So I'm recruiting Copilot. It's a recruiting tool that's available in Paychex Flex. It uses the AI powered technology, and it will analyze the data and find potential quality candidates quickly for you. So it also helps with saving on hiring costs by eliminating those inefficiencies and redundancies when filling those hard to find positions. It keeps that talent engaged as well. There's different outreach tools that help you proactively contact potential candidates to start up that interview process. You know, we talked we were listening to some clients earlier that said, I need a ramp up now. So the recruiting copilot tool may be helpful to your business as well. It also secures that top talent by gaining access to a pool of millions of up to date profiles and move straight to contacting potential candidates that best meet your your needs. So the recruiting copilot is awesome, and there's so much functionality, especially for seasonal hiring. I think it can be really, really efficient for these clients that have this need. Tremendous. So we're coming up on time and coming up on the end of questions here, but I really appreciate, Jessica and Kathy, all the information you gave. I did wanna just recap this idea of finding those people who want to work seasonally. Those are the greatest candidates for this type of challenge that you have. And then building processes to keep them. Evelyn had asked, what happens if I'm not able to bring them back next year? I think, the discussion around transparency and let them know, hey, can't guarantee the future, but I want them back is is very important. Finally, leverage all the technology available to you. So if you would like to talk with a paycheck sales representative about improving your company's ability to attract and hire seasonal workers, just click yes on this poll question, somebody will follow-up with you. Paychex has a variety of technology solutions, things that work with Flex, solutions that can be added on, and of course, we have our exceptional HRBPs who can help you out with really direct advice related to your specific business and your specific challenges. So I encourage you to reach out and have that conversation, if you have time at all. And thank you again, for joining us today. As a reminder, you can get a printable version of the deck in the files and resources. We're also going to be sending you a follow-up email that you can watch on demand at your leisure and share with whoever you think might find it useful. As we close today's session, a little short survey is going to pop up. We invite you to contribute feedback, help us ensure our resources continue to meet your needs. So if you could spare a few extra moments, please let us know what you think. Thanks again, and I hope everybody has a great rest of your day.