Hiring for Peak: Strategies to Ensure You Have the Talent Needed to Tackle Demand

While technology continues to transform supply chain operations, the foundational component vital to keeping product moving is still people. Unfortunately, demand for supply chain talent continues to be a serious challenge, with companies struggling to identify, attract and retain qualified candidates.

Peak periods add further complexity and difficulty to an already daunting task, with many positions going unfilled during a time when extra resources are needed most. During the 2021 peak season, the lack of workers was a contributing factor in many supply chain delays and disruptions. And the issue is not expected to dissipate any time soon.

At DHL Supply Chain, we work closely with customers to prepare for peak periods, putting our planning, analytics and operations excellence in place to enable them to succeed. We have found that the answer to hiring for peak periods is to adopt a more proactive and ongoing planning approach.

Based on this experience, and the insight we have gained, here are four tips to help you ensure you have the team you need to meet peak demand.

1. Develop a long-term strategy

If you start thinking about peak demand hiring a few months out, it’s already too late. Hiring for peak needs to be a vital part of your peak planning, which is a year-round task. While higher wages are important, your success is dependent on having a long-term hiring strategy based on a multi-faceted approach and a year-round recruiting program.

At DHL Supply Chain, we have transformed our recruiting efforts to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the process – from online applications to pre-hire testing to onboarding. This has allowed us to increase the quantity and quality of applicants, simplify the application process and offer a consistent and world-class hiring experience.

It is not simply about meeting hiring quotas and headcount. Rather, it is about having streamlined and efficient recruiting and onboarding processes that make it possible to match the right talent for the job and easily ramp up additional skilled workers when and where they are needed. Rather than trying to implement a hiring initiative a couple months out from peak, we simply enhance our year-round program with marketing around open positions and determine where and when we need to reallocate assets and scale up.

2. Promote Your Use of Technology

It’s not uncommon for potential candidates to pick one employer over the other, partly based on one offering the opportunity to work closely with advanced technology. Many find it exciting and interesting to work with technology such as robotics. You can also utilize innovative technologies to enhance the well-being of employees and create a more comfortable, inviting work environment that is attractive to seasonal hires.

At DHL Supply Chain, we take great pride in the culture of continuous innovation we have created. As part of our commitment to accelerating digitalization across the entire supply chain, we are focused on 12 technology categories from the collaborative robotics and software-based automation space.

Our use of assisted picking robots has created an efficient, comfortable work environment for our associates.

3. Focus on Career Development

Along with having a comfortable work environment, you also need to offer opportunity for career growth. It is important that skilled prospects see a clear path for advancement. They need to understand that if they work hard, develop the needed skillsets and perform to the needed standards, there is a defined path to moving up and transforming the job into a career.

For instance, DHL Supply Chain has a Dock-to-Driver program that has shown great success. Through the program, we identify warehouse forklift drivers who have shown the ability and commitment to advance in their careers and invest in them to allow them to transition from the warehouse to the truck. We pay for their school and provide a four-week finishing program to prepare them for the road. It’s a win for us, our customers and our associates.

Through our DHL Start-Up Lab, we also show our associates that we value the new ideas and new ways of thinking that they bring to the company. The program is designed to support associates in testing and scaling new ideas and technologies. The program, through a series of stages, offers funding, coaching, lean processes and a network of experts for the ideas. Applicants who make it to the core incubation program are given a budget and limited timeframe (six months) to test their riskiest assumptions and develop a first working prototype.

4. Have a “Plan B”

Inevitably, no matter how great your recruiting program or how inviting your work environment is, you will most likely still struggle to hire the number of applicants you need to meet peak demand. You will have positions that go unfilled. It is unfortunately the nature of today’s fluid job market.

Your Plan B needs to include using scalable and flexible technology to offset labor shortages and eliminate some of the uncertainty around peak hiring. Utilizing a strategic blend of innovative technology can also enhance the productivity of your existing workforce, potentially even reducing the number of short-term positions you need to fill during peak periods in a tight labor market.

The assisted picking robots we have deployed at many of our DHL Supply Chain facilities allow us to enhance picking productivity during times of high volume, adjusting implementation as needed to meet peak demand. We can swiftly bring in more robots, sometimes transferring them from one facility to another, with minimal onboarding effort. At the end of a peak period, we can once again reduce the number of robots as needed.

In normal times, it can be a major challenge identifying and hiring qualified talent. Peak periods and the current labor shortage makes it even more difficult. To ensure you have the workers you need to meet peak demand, it is important you take a multi-faceted, proactive approach with your peak hiring. One that is supported by a year-round focus on talent recruitment and retention.

To learn more, visit www.dhl.com/supplychain/ecommerce.