It’s that time of the year again. Whether it be the weather getting warmer and preparing for the summer season or the winter cold creeping in and the sound of holiday music becoming evermore present, your business is likely preparing for another busy season. Of course, with an influx of people coming to your business, you’ll also need an influx of staff to account for the increase. Here comes the dilemma, however: You know you’ll need a larger staff for the busier season, but once things begin to die down again, you’ll have too many people on staff. How do you go about ensuring your business is staffed enough to handle the busy season while also ensuring you’re not just putting all of that money earned during the busier time of the year toward your labor cost once things inevitably slow down again?
Considering how long the seasons, businesses, and people hiring other people to work for them have been around, this is a question that has certainly been asked a lot over the years. We here at Payday have heard this question asked by both potential and current clients alike. Most B2C businesses have slow seasons and they have busy seasons—being able to operate effectively, both from a cost standpoint and a service standpoint, is a technique these businesses have to master. Luckily, over the years, one popular method has become one of the go-to tools for businesses in this situation. In fact, it’s pretty likely you’ve heard of it (or maybe you’ve even worked under this model): seasonal employment. Even with that said, you still may have lingering questions about how seasonal employment operates and what kinds of regulations you have to keep in mind when hiring a seasonal workforce.
That’s why, in this article, we’ll be going over what seasonal employment is and how it works. We’ll start by laying a general foundation of what seasonal employment is, including things like how it differs from regular full-time or part-time employment. Then, we’ll go into some common questions businesses and individuals have regarding seasonal employees, as well as the different laws or regulations that employers should keep in mind when it comes to hiring a seasonal workforce. By the end of this article, you’ll have all the information you need to hire top talent with confidence.
In this article, you will learn:
- What Are Seasonal Employees?
- Common Questions About Seasonal Employees
- Seasonal Employment Laws And Regulations
What Are Seasonal Employees?
First things first: What are seasonal employees? Let’s break down what seasonal employment is and how it works.
How Does Seasonal Employment Work?
When you’re first thinking about hiring for a position, one of the first questions you’ll ask either yourself or your team is whether the position will be full-time or part-time. Seasonal employment, then, is kind of like the secret third option that perhaps isn’t a good choice year-round but in specific circumstances can work really well for certain businesses.
Seasonal employment generally happens during a business’s “busy season” and can last over a period of many weeks or months, as determined by the employer, typically less than six months. These employees can work full-time or part-time hours, but their length of employment will be predetermined by the employer.
How Do You Hire Seasonal Employees?
Generally speaking, the hiring process for seasonal employees doesn’t look any different than it might for a regular full- or part-time position. The biggest difference would be that both the employee and employer are agreeing to a temporary employment contract.
There are, however, good things to keep in mind when hiring seasonal employees. Firstly, it can be difficult to recruit a seasonal workforce. There aren’t a lot of people out there who are willing to take on seasonal employment due to the temporary nature of this type of employment. Although seasonal positions can lead to a permanent position, but that would depend on the needs of your company.
Secondly, a lot of businesses look to hire a seasonal workforce, so getting out ahead early is key. Third, a seasonal employee can function like either a full-time or part-time employee. While calling it seasonal employment, it might feel like you’re looking for a part-time worker, but seasonal employees can work full-time hours. What’s limited here is their length of employment.
Common Questions About Seasonal Employees
When it comes to seasonal employment and seasonal employees, there are some common questions that both employers and job seekers have regarding this model.
How Long Can You Keep A Seasonal Employee? How Many Hours Can A Seasonal Employee Work?
Both the hours and length of employment are things that would be determined by the company that is hiring the seasonal employee. As stated above, a seasonal employee isn’t necessarily its own classification alongside full- or part-time employees—seasonal employees can be either full- or part-time employees.
So, with that said, seasonal employees can work however many hours as determined by their status as full- or part-time, their availability, and the business’s needs (and what’s legal, but we’ll get into that later). How long they work for a company is also determined by the business hiring them—typically, a seasonal employee will work for a business for or less than six months.
Do Seasonal Employees Get Benefits?
This is one of the most common questions asked about seasonal employment. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more complicated ones to answer. The best way to think about this question is more in terms of how many hours a seasonal employee is working, whether they are full-time or part-time.
For a small business under the Affordable Care Act’s applicable large employer threshold, you’ll want to refer to whatever your company’s benefits policy is. If you typically offer benefits to hourly employees, either full-time or part-time, then seasonal employees should be eligible for these benefits. If you don’t, then they won’t.
For employers who are an applicable large employer as defined by the ACA, things get slightly more tricky. We break down seasonal employees and how they are affected by the ACA a little further on in the article.
Can Seasonal Employees Collect Unemployment?
Like the question of seasonal employees receiving benefits, whether or not seasonal employees can collect unemployment is also a slightly complicated question. To answer it, it’s important to understand unemployment eligibility as it applies to the base period of eligibility determination.
Generally, unemployment eligibility depends on two things: whether you meet the requirement of wages earned or hours worked in the given “base period” and whether you became unemployed by no fault of your own. Each state may have its own base period and additional set of rules to determine eligibility—generally, the base period will be the first four out of the last five completed calendar quarters.
So, if a seasonal employee meets all of these eligibility requirements, they would qualify for unemployment. The base period eligibility requirement can be satisfied even if an employee worked for multiple employers during that time.
Seasonal Employment Laws And Regulations
Next, we’ll dive into the different laws and regulations that affect seasonal employment, including the FLSA and the ACA.
Seasonal Employment And The Fair Labor Standards Act
In short, any worker in the U.S. is protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act—this includes seasonal employees. This means that seasonal employees will be subject to the overtime and minimum wage laws as outlined in the FLSA.
There is, however, one notable exception for a very specific type of seasonal employee—namely, ones who work at an "amusement or recreational establishment,” aka an amusement park. So, if you’re employed at an amusement park that does not operate for more than seven months in a calendar year, you are not covered by the FLSA’s overtime and minimum wage rules.
Seasonal Employees And The Affordable Care Act
Remember that Affordable Care Act we mentioned earlier? Well, there’s a few things at play here that affect whether seasonal employees will qualify for benefits as defined by the ACA. This only applies to applicable large employers—businesses who had 50 or more employees during the previous year—so non ALEs need not apply.
So, you’re an ALE with seasonal employees—what’s the deal, then? Well, broadly speaking, a seasonal employee working full-time hours (at least 30 hours for the ACA) would qualify for benefits.
However, if a seasonal employee is working in a seasonal format (so somewhere in the six-month ballpark), it’s possible that you might not have to offer them benefits even if they work more than 30 hours a week. If you use the look-back measurement period for determining eligibility, you could use an initial measurement period of anywhere from three to 12 months to determine an employee’s eligibility for benefits.
During this period, you are not required to offer benefits. So, if a seasonal employee’s contract falls within the initial measurement period, you theoretically wouldn’t have to offer them benefits. However, if the seasonal employee is full-time and you’re using this method, there is the possibility of being penalized for misclassification under this framework.
Become A Seasoned Expert On Seasonal Employment
While the busy season may come as a welcome change for businesses that have been deep in the throes of their slow season, it also comes with its own set of challenges. One of the biggest ones is figuring out just how to staff your company so that you are adequately prepared for the expected influx of customers. It’s a tricky situation that comes with a lot of questions: How many people should we hire? How long will we need to train them? How long will they be employed with us? These are important questions and with the knowledge of how seasonal employment works, it becomes just a bit easier to answer them.
Whether you’re hiring seasonal, part-time, or full-time employees, you’ll want to be sure you can find the best candidates quickly and efficiently. To do this, you’ll need a robust and easy-to-use applicant tracking system. Check out our article for the best applicant tracking systems for your business.
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