There have been a lot of exciting changes at Lifetime Creations. This blog post is part of our "Business Growth Insider" series. Read our other posts here. Our hope is that by sharing our journey and experiences, you may be able to discover something useful to apply within your own business or organization.

Like many other retailers, our busiest time of year is around the Christmas holiday season. Since we customize gifts on site and ship directly to customers, we spend a lot of time planning how to handle the increase in our production volume. While not easy to predict, we know we've been understaffed in previous years and would rather have too much help than not enough.

We started our search for seasonal production staff early in Q4 with a goal of hiring 7-8 people. Ultimately we hired 6 seasonal staff members for November and December, resulting in a 3x increase in our production staff overall.

Before interviewing, we assumed at least one or two hires inevitably wouldn't work out. We were wrong. We had a great group of people who did a fantastic job. 

I can't help but think luck plays a small part in how fortunate we were, but having thought-out processes in place for interviewing and training was essential. How we did it:

1. Treat hiring the same as you would a full-time employee

We knew our seasonal production team would be critical to our holiday season success. They needed to quickly produce and ship orders while ensuring our high quality standards consistently, making their jobs just as important as any of our other employees. Our steps for interviewing and vetting out candidates was nearly the same as what we do for full-time positions. 

2. Refine your job description

We wanted potential candidates to know this was not a typical production job and they would play a significant role in our overall customer experience. They are positions we take seriously, and by communicating this in our written job description, I think we avoided having candidates apply who would not be a good fit from the start. We tried to convey our culture and how each person truly has an impact and would play a part in the overall big picture.

3. Interview efficiently but thoroughly

Once we received online applications, we narrowed down potential candidates and set up phone interviews for no more than 15 minutes. This was important since we had numerous people to interview.

We had the same set of questions for each candidate that we adapted from the book Who, and allowed time at the end for any questions they had. If we knew at any point during the call the person was not the right fit, interviews were cut short. 

From there, we identified people for in-person interviews. We allocated a maximum 30 minutes total per candidate to meet with our Production Manager and co-owner, the two people they'd report to. We felt this was just the right amount of time to meet each person and still be able to get through all candidates.

4. Don't underestimate reference checks

Checking references is crucial, whether you're hiring a temp position or senior leader. Someone's references won't call you back? That's probably not a good sign. I'm always surprised when someone lists a reference who is less than eager to share any information and doesn't give great feedback. 

A candidate who has professional contacts who can't say enough good things about him or her and would rehire that person in a heartbeat - those are the candidates you want.

Along the same lines, ask your current employees for their referrals. Two of our seasonal employees were friends or family of our current staff, so they could vouch for their reliability and work ethic.

5. Treat training and orientation as seriously as interviewing

We scheduled everyone's first shift as orientation and training, split into two groups, so that we would walk them through the history of our company, how we got to where we are, what our values are, and explain in more detail why their roles were so important. We didn't want there to be any questions later as far as what's expected of them.

Afterward, we spent time training and walking through specific tactics on quality control and how every detail affects the customer experience.

6. Learn from them

After the season came to a close, we sent a survey to ask for their anonymous feedback. Five of the six staff responded. We received extremely valuable insights we'll be able to use the next time we hire. We just had to ask for it.

Stephanie Jensen is Co-Owner at Lifetime Creations, an online personalized gift retailer and promotional products distributor.