It is a struggle to find and retain good employees for snow." Have you as an owner or employee said something like this? In an industry that relies heavily on seasonal workers, it’s likely you have.

At the 2024 Snow & Ice Symposium, we presented a session on building and executing a seasonal staffing and training plan for this coming season and beyond. Our focus was to help you build a strong seasonal workforce to serve your customers this year and to allow people to develop careers within your company, thus building your workforce for the future.

We chose to present this session together to share the importance of collaboration between operations (field staff) and HR (office staff) during seasonal staffing planning and execution.

The need for both perspectives

It is best to have operations and office staff collaborate on building a seasonal staffing plan because individuals in these roles experience snow/ice events from different perspectives.

The operations staff is like your defensive captain in football. They are in the middle of the action during a storm and have that first-hand perspective on how the storm feels and how it affects the snow team. On the other hand, the office staff has the perspective of a coach in the press box. They can see the storm from 10,000 feet with information at their fingertips to help the operations team plan and adjust.

Operations' role in staffing plans

As operations leaders, you need to determine the site requirements and levels of service for your sites in order to inform your staffing plans. You need to be clear on whether the site is a zero-tolerance, 24/7 site (such as a hospital) or if it’s a site that is only open 8am-5pm during the weekdays (such as an office complex).

In addition to hours of operation, be aware of the site’s post-storm requirements. For example, you may service a distribution center where you are required to brush snow off of trucks and perform cleanup days after the snowfall ends. Knowing your site’s service requirements will inform your equipment and employee needs onsite.

As a best practice, you should determine the worst-case scenario, and then add a few more people to be safe. Having more than enough employees will allow you to staff long storms, such as staggering staff for 10-hour shifts with a 5-hour break in between.

HR's role in staffing plans

To recruit a strong seasonal workforce, you need to turn over many stones. Simply "spraying and praying" by posting a job ad on Indeed or other sources is only one of many steps.

The most effective recruiting pool I have found is good retention and referrals. Just like with sales, it’s much easier to keep a good employee than to find new ones. As a company, allocate part of your budget for referral bonuses, end-of season bonuses, and employee get-togethers (in-season and postseason) to build relationships that encourage retention and more referrals.

To build a candidate pool, post jobs on Indeed and job boards. You can also use boosted, targeted ads on your company’s Facebook page.

In addition to advertising for those looking for work, you need to reach out to those "passive candidates" who may not be actively looking but would be open to winter work if asked. You can reach out to passive candidates through Indeed’s Resume Database (a paid service) as well as by contacting heavy equipment operator training programs, your state’s career link office, and community organizations. Consider reaching out to your local Heavy Equipment Operators Union and negotiating a seasonal partnership where they can provide referrals from their out-of-work list (this may vary city-by-city).

As you build your candidate pool, interview candidates as close to when they apply as possible. Having multiple rounds of interviewing and training, including having heavy equipment operators run the equipment as part of an interview, is important because a big part of finding good seasonal staff is making sure they can keep showing up and proactively communicate. This process will reveal both skill and will.

Continuous communication and improvement

Seasonal recruiting is an ongoing process. In addition to all these strategies, it will take diligence, consistent follow up, and good communication throughout the season.

Part of ongoing communication throughout the season is ensuring operator availability. It is a best practice for your team to track seasonal operators’ availability and check in weekly to proactively check for any changes in availability.

It is important to let your seasonal staff members know that if they say they are available during a certain timeframe, that if you call because a storm is coming that they will report to work. Proactively and consistently clarifying and documenting this will save you headaches during a storm.

In addition to communication, you should also track metrics to see which recruiting sources are the most effective and to document the performance of seasonal staff members. Documenting performance is important so your operators know where they stand, you can address any opportunities for improvement, and you can build your storm plans around your strongest performers.

Collaboration, communication, and consistency are key when building and executing a seasonal staffing plan. As we know in snow, you cannot plan for everything and things change quickly; however, these best practices can help you move closer to a successful winter, this year and beyond.

Evan Tachoir is founder/CEO of Jack Of All People Trades Consulting. Contact him at evantachoir@gmail.com. John Mocharko is regional operations manager Acacia Facility Services. Contact him at jmocharko@trustacacia.com.