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How To Engage And Motivate Your Seasonal Workers

Kevin Kruse

How can you motivate and engage your seasonal workers, when their job may only last for a number of months?

Whether it’s department stores hiring extra cashiers for the holiday season, or amusement parks hiring for the summer crowds, the employee engagement of high performing seasonal workers is one of talent management’s greatest challenges. And even when team members start out as engaged, it’s not uncommon for long, hot summer days and demanding customers to begin to take a toll on engagement mid-season.

Yet, the engagement of seasonal workers is critical. Engaged workers—those who are emotionally committed to their employers—are more productive, provide better customer service, have few accidents and will be more likely to return the following year.

I recently had the pleasure to interview Matt Heller, a consultant who learned real-world lessons when he led seasonal workers in the amusement park industry. He is the author of the book, The Myth of Employee Burnout: What It Is. Why It Happens. What To Do About It.

Gallup has reported that over 70 percent of the variance in engagement is tied to the manager, and Heller’s own experience confirms this. He writes that theme park managers routinely blame “burnout” on the heat, long hours and demanding guests. Yet the root cause of employees feeling stressed and overworked has to do with their manager, and the influence the manager has on the environment.

My own research and experience as a Best Place to Work winner suggests that Growth is one of the top drivers of engagement. I asked Heller how we can activate the Growth driver given the limited time we have with a seasonal employee.

One of the things that stunts the growth in many seasonal workers is the practice of front-loading all of their training. There are a number of pitfalls with this technique. First, it gives employees very little to look forward to. Second, rarely do employees truly learn and absorb all of the material covered in a few days or hours of orientation. A better system is to provide training in small nuggets. This way the material sticks better, and they have a chance to actually put it into practice.

A number of years ago, an amusement park in Santa Claus, Indiana, called Holiday World, decided to separate their task training and hospitality training. Instead of inundating new employees with everything all at once, they first spend time making sure they have the competence and confidence to perform their assigned tasks. Then, once proficiency has been demonstrated, they bring them back to go over specific hospitality expectations and strategies. With this approach, Holiday World earned the Golden Ticket award for the Friendliest Employees in the industry 13 out of the 17 years the award has been given.

Heller is in agreement with my views that signs of appreciation are huge when it comes to engaging seasonal workers. He said:

I often hear leaders saying thank you to their entire team at a meeting or at the end of long day, thinking that this counts as recognition. It’s a step, but for that thank you to really mean something to the individual, the comment needs to be sincere, timely, and specific to the person and the situation. That way, they know specifically what they are being thanked for and know that the behavior is desired again. The blanket ‘thank you’ could actually send a message to a non-performer that what they did that day was okay and worth repeating. And unfortunately, poor performance is what they will repeat!

It’s also important to realize how recognition, in its most basic form, can have an impact. Specifically, in calling someone by name or remembering something about them. Recognizing them as a person and as a human being with thoughts, feelings, aspirations and fears allows you to make a connection with that person that builds trust and respect.

When it comes to bringing employees back for the next season, Heller has some contrarian advice. “Don’t bring everyone back,” he said. “If you bring everyone back, regardless of performance the previous year, you are telling your star performers that their over-and-above effort was wasted. They would have been asked back as long as they just showed up for work, regardless of their performance.”

Heller mentions that many summer seasonal jobs are filled with young people—either high school or college students looking to make money and get job experience in between school years. A big reason these workers return each summer is because their friends are coming back, too. Heller suggests:

Maintaining a strong alumni network will help keep people excited and engaged and want to continue to be a part of your organization. This can be done through events, social media, or an online forum on your website. Whatever method you choose, if you keep large groups of friends engaged with your company, they will be back.

To succeed with the recruiting, retention and engagement of seasonal workers, leaders need to appropriately value this segment of their team and realize how critical they are to the success of the entire business. When valued appropriately, the resources and attention can be applied to make seasonal workers a competitive advantage.


Check out Matt Heller’s book, The Myth of Employee Burnout.


Check out Kevin Kruse’s new book, Employee Engagement 2.0.

