Do you run a business in the hospitality industry, retail, events, farming or any other sector that employs a lot of casual workers during different times of year?
With permanent staff, you’ll likely be able to go through the onboarding process quite slowly. They could reasonably spend over a week doing a handover with another staff member, undertaking training and just generally getting their bearings in a new role. For this kind of onboarding, the Ultimate Onboarding Guide is perfect for you.
However, we know that industries that hire a lot of casual or temp staff generally have different requirements for getting their new hires up and running.
For casual staff members, you’ll be bypassing a lot of those formal meetings and introductions. Casual staff usually come in with a degree of skill that suits the role and need to get started with their role quickly. Their roles are more about hitting those early wins, as they are generally brought on to meet growing demands.
That’s why your onboarding program for casual staff should be adapted to be quick, scalable, and motivating. We have the perfect guide to meet your team member’s needs.
For managing freelance and temporary employees more effectively, you can check out how to use an HRIS platform like Employment Hero in their Managing freelance & temporary employees with Employment Hero guide.
In this guide, we’ll unpack the best practices when it comes to hiring your casual staff to help you stay compliant, welcome your new hires, get your team motivated from the word go and keep the admin levels low while you do it all.
What’s included in this onboarding guide for casual employees?
- Why an efficient employee onboarding process is important
- Onboarding and induction checklist for casual employees
- Motivating casual employees with induction
- Common onboarding and induction mistakes
- How to reduce casual onboarding admin with an onboarding software
Disclaimer: While due care has been taken in preparing the document, no responsibility is accepted by the author for the accuracy or suitability of the information contained. All liability is expressly disclaimed for any loss or damage which may arise from any person relying on, using or acting on any information contained therein.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is so much more than paperwork. It’s the process of helping new hires adjust to their new jobs quickly and smoothly by managing the early stages of their employment. Onboarding full-timers or permanent staff is a very different story from onboarding casual staff.
What’s the difference between onboarding permanent and casual staff?
With permanent staff, you’ll likely be able to go through the onboarding process quite slowly. They could reasonably spend over a week doing a handover with another staff member, undertaking training and just generally getting their bearings in a new role.
Permanent staff can be onboarded with a more detailed program, such as the one outlined in our comprehensive guide to employee onboarding.
For casual staff members, you’ll be bypassing a lot of those formalities. Casual staff usually come in with a degree of skill that suits the role, and need to get started with their role quickly.
They normally will be required to hit the ground running, as they are generally brought on to meet growing demand.
That’s why your onboarding program for casual staff should be adapted to be quick, scalable, and motivating.
Best practices for seasonal casual employee onboarding
If you run a business that peaks in the summer festive season, you’ll know it’s a hectic time of year. Many businesses will be bringing in new casual staff to meet demand and cover leave.
Of course, once you’ve got a new casual employee, it can be all too easy to throw them in the deep end. There’s plenty of work to do after all. What’s often missed is that a casual employee’s early experience of a company really does matter, and it sets the tone for their time in the role, however long that may be.
Luckily, onboarding can be a great experience for everyone with Employment Hero. Our HR software completely streamlines the process, making it easier for new employees to get stuck into the important stuff.
If you’re looking for tips on hiring casual employees quickly and effectively, be sure to check out our guide to hiring Christmas casuals to get your business well-prepared for the Christmas rush.
Here’s eight ways that you can make onboarding effortless with Employment Hero.
1. Digitise the whole process
There’s nothing more unreliable than the office printer. By using Employment Hero you can ditch it altogether, making the entire onboarding process completely digital.
How does it work? First you create an account for the new casual employee, and then provide them with access details. From employment agreements to policies, all the important documentation can be signed and approved digitally, and is kept safe in the cloud. We’ve also got an extensive library of HR policies that you can borrow from and personalise.
2. Use onboarding checklists
There’s always a lot to remember when you bring in a new team member. Employment Hero ensures that nothing is forgotten with our range of onboarding checklists. You can borrow our templates or customise your own, and then use them in all future onboarding. This is particularly handy if you’re bringing in a casual employee whose onboarding steps might be a little different from a permanent member of staff.
Many of the steps in the onboarding checklist can be completed in Employment Hero before your new employee’s first day, so they have more time to spend meeting the team and learning the ropes.
3. Empower through Employee Self-Service
Whenever you bring on a new employee, there’s always a lot of information to be collected, whether that’s banking details, emergency contacts or super contributions. Rather than having the employer or HR manager in charge of adding information, employees are in charge of their own data in Employment Hero.
This is super helpful further down the line too. If the employee moves house, changes banks or has any other changes to make to their details, they can log in and do it themselves. Much easier than emailing requests though!
4. Use the organisation chart
This is a particularly useful tip for those medium-sized businesses, where meeting the entire team can take a while for a new employee. Employment Hero has an ‘organisation chart’ feature, where all company employees are shown according to their team and their level in the organisation. It’s a great resource for a new team member, as they can get an idea of who everyone is at a glance.
Plus, who hasn’t had that terrible moment where you’ve been introduced to someone and then ten minutes later, that person’s name has completely left your brain? This organisation chart is a lifesaver for rechecking their name on the sly.
5. Assign policies for reviewing
HR policies are essential for compliance and safeguarding. As a result, reviewing policies is a usual part of the onboarding process for new employees. Ensuring that all those policies have been read and signed off can be time consuming for those in charge though.
Make it easy for everyone by assigning policies through Employment Hero. Employees are notified that they have policies to read and digitally agree to, and employers can check whether there are any still outstanding.
6. Treat them to a welcome bonus
This is by no means an essential part of onboarding, but giving a small gift to your new casual employee can be a nice way to welcome them to the business. On Employment Hero, employers can reward employees with a chosen amount of Hero Points, which employees can spend on real-world treats on our Swag app. The Swag store has a great range of things on offer, from Uber Eats and gift cards to cinema vouchers. 
7. Make shift management easy
For many businesses with casual employees, correct shift rostering is crucial. It’s also really important for the employee to have visibility over what shifts they’ve got coming up, and to accept or decline any additional work.
Using Employment Hero, employers can generate rosters in a flash, and notify employees through the desktop and mobile app. They then have the option to accept, swap, decline or start shift bidding in real time. Couple that with easy time-tracking software that generates timesheets, and Employment Hero can streamline the whole process from rostering through to payroll.
8. Ask for feedback
Ok, so your new casual employee has all their documentation done, they’ve met the team and they know what shifts they’ve got coming up. There’s just one thing left to do to complete a great onboarding process – ask them about their experience so far.
No process can improve without feedback, and if you want to ensure yours is a great one, make sure you’re hearing from the right people at the right time. On Employment Hero, you can customise short surveys and automate when they’re sent out to employees on the platform. It’s super easy to set up a short feedback loop as the last task of onboarding.
Prepare for casual employee onboarding ahead of time
Since it could take a couple of weeks to get prepared for the busy season, we strongly recommend taking some time before your seasonal ramp-up to review your onboarding process against this guide.
Here’s an onboarding template you can use to get things up and running quickly.
This is only a fraction of what you can get from our casual employee onboarding guide.
Download the guide now.
For a more comprehensive remote onboarding approach, you might find our Remote onboarding checklist helpful. This checklist covers essential areas such as welcome packs, sending welcome emails, and digital onboarding. Download it now!
