3 ways Dayforce can help improve your seasonal hiring

Here’s a scenario we’ve all heard before. Imagine an HR manager for a large department store – let’s call her Emily. She thought she had her holiday hires locked in – until half her new hires dropped out before their first shift. With more people going shopping for holiday presents and a skeleton crew scrambling to keep up, Emily realised what many HR professionals know too well: holiday hiring can be unpredictable and challenging for even the most experienced HR teams.

While Emily is made up, her problems sure aren’t. Whether you're staffing up for holiday retail surges, busy travel season, or outdoor events, finding and retaining seasonal talent involves strategy, speed, and a little creativity. It also demands the right technology.

And that’s where Dayforce comes in. Let’s look at three ways Dayforce can help improve and support your seasonal hiring initiatives.

Recruiting smarter, not harder

With the fast and furious pace of seasonal hiring, recruiters need every time-saving hack they can get to source the best talent fast. Here’s how you can make that process faster with Dayforce.

First, Dayforce integrates with over 600 job boards. You can post to them directly from within the platform, saving time compared to manually entering job posts into multiple job boards. Job descriptions got you stuck? Dayforce can help generate job descriptions in just a few clicks with the help of AI based on skills, profiles, keywords, or previous postings.

Also, candidates won’t apply if there’s too much friction in the hiring process. Our technology can help you make more efficient hiring decisions, which is crucial at a time when you and your competitors are vying for the same (potentially small) pool of candidates. And let’s not forget how important it is to streamline the applicant experience so they don’t walk away in frustration.

Nobody wants to spend time sifting through hundreds or thousands of resumes. Dayforce Recruiting helps you easily surface top candidates and streamline your recruiting process with AI-assisted screening and matching tools. And with a data-driven recruiter insights dashboard, you can simplify hiring at scale, by focusing on the high-priority actions that need to be taken – whether that’s scheduling an interview, sending an offer letter, or following up on a pending offer.

Support accurate labour planning

When your regular staff is overwhelmed by seasonal demands, it can be tempting to see it as a numbers game. If you hire lots of seasonal workers, everything will be fine, right? Well, not necessarily. Even small staffing miscalculations can affect your business.

Dayforce Workforce Management makes it easy to align labour planning with business demands by empowering data-driven staffing decisions. With real-time workforce intelligence, our technology can surface coverage challenges before they lead to employee burnout and poor customer experience. And it can help you identify whether you need to hire two people or 200.

With a single platform to deliver this data, it helps reduce delays or inaccuracies due to multiple siloed systems. Instead, Dayforce helps you increase operational agility and make quick, informed decisions about labour planning. This helps you save money in your seasonal recruitment by limiting over-hiring, and saves time by not under-hiring.

Deliver a modern, engaging employee experience

If you’re trying to recruit seasonal employees, chances are you aren’t alone. Competitors are ready to snatch up the same people you need for your business during a high-demand time. So, how can you stand out from the competition?

First impressions matter. With Dayforce Talent, you can engage your new hires even before day one with a warm, welcoming onboarding experience. Connect new hires with their team, a mentor, and other key employees to help them get a head start on their role.

New hires aren’t the only ones to benefit - with efficient data transfer from Recruiting, along with streamlined right-to-work checks, Dayforce helps reduce the admin workload and support compliance so managers can focus on welcoming new team members, not paperwork. Employees can get up to speed quickly with on-the-go training, equipping them with the skills to succeed from day one.

Once they’re settled in, employees want work to feel simple and seamless. Instead of juggling multiple logins just to check payslips, swap shifts, or request time off, Dayforce brings it all together in one app. This modern, mobile-first experience helps surprise and delight employees by making everyday tasks easy, no matter where they’re working.

And when questions come up mid-shift? The Dayforce AI Assistant is able to provide guidance to common HR queries, helping retail and hospitality workers get the support they need without slowing down. HR teams also save time, freeing them up to focus on strategic priorities, such as keeping stores staffed during peak season. The result: a streamlined, engaging experience that keeps your workforce focused on delivering standout customer service.

In today's fast-paced hiring landscape, the right technology can make all the difference in securing and retaining seasonal talent. With Dayforce, you can turn seasonal hiring from a stressful scramble into a smooth, efficient process – helping your business to be ready for whatever the busy season brings.

This blog was originally published on 3 April 2025 and has been updated with new regional information.