News

The recruitment calendar used to have a reassuring predictability about it – January is about The Sales, February is all about love, Spring has Mother’s Day and Easter, Summer has Father’s Day, summer holidays and Back to School, Autumn is Halloween and Fireworks Night, and then comes The Festive Season. However, in recent years a certain level of disruption has taken place. Here we look at how a variety of factors have affected the traditional peak season in industrial and warehouse recruitment and how you can overcome the pressure this might bring.

Peak Differences

If you’ve ever tried to recruit warehousing or driving staff in the run-up to Christmas you’ll understand how difficult it can be. Many organisations have the visibility to plan well ahead, but many others have to be more reactive “as it happens”  and the result is either a lack of appropriately qualified and -experienced staff or paying over the odds for those services. 

In recent years, however, we’ve noticed client demand has flattened across peak, or the ‘Golden Quarter’ as it’s also known, towards a more plateaued demand that remains steadier, for longer.

The reasons for this are numerous and varied but include:

• Domestic and Global Events: The industry is still dealing with the fallout over COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which both pushed up prices and reduced the supply of basic commodities. Added to this, here in the UK, we are getting accustomed to having a new Government which must now do its best to relieve the cost-of-living crisis, raise employment rates and resolve increased tensions in the Middle East, all of which have the potential to affect logistics worldwide.
• Changing consumer behaviour: Customers are buying earlier, and less, for Peak season, not restricting their purchases to the weeks before Christmas, with fewer taking advantage of events like Black Friday. This behaviour impacts shipping and logistics within the supply chain, with many retailers adapting their delivery promises and incentivising longer delivery lead times. This means a less intensive labour requirement.
• The rise in online shopping: The UK, in particular, is the most sophisticated online shopping market in Europe, with around 60 million of us making e-commerce purchases in 2023. This amounts to over 26% of retail sales. The UK is the third largest market for ecommerce in the world with £77 billion worth of sales, after only China (£523 billion) and the USA (£264 billion) making it of vital importance to both the UK economy and the industries that function within it.

If you’re recruiting industrial staff, such as warehouse workers or delivery drivers, you may already have experienced the shift in Peak and might be starting to understand how important it is to adapt to changing circumstances, rapidly and responsively. If you haven’t you should prepare for its impact on your business.

The supply chain is already nimble and reactive but there are things you can do to get one step ahead of any potential fluctuations in Peak demand for staff: 

• Plan ahead: Like many industrial employers HR decision-makers must readjust their seasonal calendar to take into account this new shift in Peak. It’s important to identify if your industry is dealing with a Peak or a Plateau and adapt to what may be a new, permanent reality. Perhaps you’ll see a slight uplift in need throughout the year to accommodate new demands, and less during ‘traditional’ Peak season. By managing the dynamics of your staffing needs you’ll be able to adapt to future requirements.
• Ensure training and onboarding is available all year round: Streamlining your training and onboard processes will give you an advantage and enable you to start seasonal workers whenever you need to. This flexibility will enable seasonal workers to be ready for their roles within a short time-frame equipped with the knowledge and protocols that will help them perform their jobs effectively and safely.
• Partner with a specialist: At TaskMaster we’ve been specialising in warehouse and industrial recruitment for almost 30 years. That means that we’ve dealt with most fluctuations, disruptions and unforeseen events before and have the experience to deal with them, whether they’re in the driving, industrial or commercial sectors. The advantage we offer is that because of the wealth of skills our staff have, we can respond to time-sensitive issues and help you prepare ahead of time to enable you to build a talent pool, retain temporary workers, create compelling advertising campaigns and expand your reach.

For more information about how you can deal with post-Peak recruitment get in touch.