Seasonal hiring is the most stressful recruiting period, survey says

Dive Brief:

A long, manual onboarding process for holiday seasonal workers is stressful for both HR and new hires, according to a new survey by Adobe. The poll of 250 HR professionals and 1,000 U.S. consumers cited holiday seasonal hiring as the most stressful of all recruiting periods.
Nearly 80% of HR respondents reported that the time taken to onboard new staff challenges them, while 72% said handling onboarding paperwork is a struggle.
The survey found that onboarding seasonal workers can take employers more than a day, and that the inputting of paperwork online can take up to an hour. Eighty-six percent of seasonal hires said that switching from a paper-based process to online signatures would make the onboarding process faster and more efficient, with 93% of HR respondents agreeing.

Dive Insight:

Onboarding remains a pain point for many, as Adobe's findings confirmed. Nearly 40% of employees in a recent Accountemps survey said their technology wasn't properly set up on their first day of work. And although the respondents called the onboarding process "somewhat effective" overall, employers will need to do more to improve the process. Employers need to pay attention to the most minute details in their onboarding plans, Michael Steinitz, senior executive director for Accountemps, said of the research. "In today's market, where employees are in the driver's seat, it's especially important for companies to make a good first impression," he added.

That's why some experts have said the onboarding process should start before a new hire's first day; employers should make the recruiting experience positive for all applicants and assure selected candidates that working for them would be the right choice. Marc Solow, managing director of human capital at Deloitte Consulting, previously told HR Dive that employers risk losing valuable talent to competitors by failing to communicate regularly with and engage the chosen candidate.

Loni Freeman, vice president of HR for SSPR, previously told HR Dive that new hires should be given a thorough introduction to their role, fellow workers, and the company's culture and policies as a part of onboarding. At SSPR, candidates are assigned a mentor in their first week, and ,after meeting the CEO, they meet with all their colleagues for an informal breakfast and lunch.