The Festival Season

Festival seasons are now a significant part of any industry. It affects almost every industry as well as the amount of business a company does. It affects productivity as well as how organizations look at hiring workers during a potentially stressful time of the year.

Festival seasons also see a massive upsurge in consumer demand. The holiday season is also an opportunity for companies to push marketing and sales and market more aggressively during this time. Many companies face a huge challenge of being unable to handle the festival rush due to understaffing. For instances like these, temporary staffing is the way ahead.

Temporary and Contract Staffing

Temporary staffing and contract staffing are strategies that many companies use during the festival season as a means of bolstering their workforce. Contract and temporary staffing usually happen when there are unforeseen circumstances, and companies are unable to handle consumer demand.

Temporary Staffing: Temporary staffing is when employees are hired by a company with the help of staffing agencies. These employees are not usually part of the company payroll. During the festival season, many employees might want to go on leave ad the company may be unable to cope with customer demands. Temporary staffing agencies can help boost manpower by finding workers for a set time period.

Contract Staffing: The critical difference between contract staffing and temporary staffing is that contract staffers are hired for specific positions for a set period. This can help companies fill in positions that require specific skillsets or requirements.

The Indian Scenario

Festivals and holidays are ingrained in the Indian mindset. It has become such an integral part of our culture that businesses find effective ways to market and profit from them. Naturally, consumer behavior tends to reach an all-time peak during these occasions.

According to reports from various staffing firms and the president of the Indian staffing federation, there is an expected increase of 10-15% in temporary staffing for the coming festival season.

The demand for temp staffing sees a spike during the time of the Onam festival, the quintessential Kerala festival. A lot of the festivals and national holidays lead into long weekends. This leads into New Year’s Eve. This could mean that various sectors would have to deal with heavy consumer demand over a limited period.

Staffing Insights- the Festival Season

According to the same reports, the primary sectors that are on the lookout for temporary staffing for the coming festival season are:

• Banking, financial service and insurance sector (BFSI)
• E-commerce
• Consumer durables and retail

Last Diwali saw the creation of 1.2-1.4 lakh jobs by Flipkart and Amazon for temporary staffing owing to their massive holiday sales. 

Major staffing organization heads have spoken about what has been the key factor leading to the upsurge in temporary hiring. Millennials happen to factor into their business plan. According to Lohit Bhatia, president of workforce management, Quess corp, millennials are always looking out for attractive EMI options. The festival season happens to be the best time to aggressively those products.

Alok Kumar of Manpower India spoke about how lifestyle products, durables, mobile devices and the like usually see an upsurge during this time. He also added that finance companies look to initiate new schemes or loans as part of a festival season to push customers towards them.

This report comes in the face of an economic slowdown which has admittedly affected temporary hiring in the case of sectors such as manufacturing and automobiles.

As the festival season nears, contact TalentPro for the most efficient and competitive range of staffing solutions, today.