The naughty and nice of seasonal employment
Photo credit: Tatiana DeLorme
Michael McCain has a full white beard and says while he considers himself portly, some would call him “downright chubby.” He’s 70 and spends seven days a week working as a mall Santa every November and December, an experience he says “warms my heart all year long.”
But for many others working at the mall over the holidays, the experience can be far from heart-warming. Seasonal retail employees make up a huge part of the workforce from October to December, often sacrificing time with their families to pay off debt.
Tatiana DeLorme, a 19-year-old full-time student at the University of Ottawa, supports herself using her student loan money. To help pay for Christmas gifts, she got a job working retail at La Senza so she would have extra money for Christmas gifts.
Delorme, who has previous retail experience, said she thought seasonal employment would be easier to find than a permanent position.
She soon found out that wasn’t the case. Employers are reluctant to hire seasonal workers from out of town, the Mississuaga native said. She took four classes this semester instead of the usual five to make time for work, but didn’t get the hours she was looking for.
Click here to read more and find out what Santa has to say about working at the mall over the holidays.
“I don’t find them very lenient with school, because I am doing exams, and they want me pretty much every day that I’m free,” she said. The nature of retail scheduling also tends to be erratic and hard to predict. “The fact that it’s so up in the air really bothers me, because it screws me over for school, and I can never plan my next week.”
DeLorme was asked to provide three weeks notice if she planned on taking any days off during the holidays.
Charnell Bernard, a human resources assistant at Nordstrom, said every effort is made to give staff members their time off for the holidays, but there’s often a blackout period in December because the store does so much business in such a short amount of time.
Seasonal employment frequently comes down to hiring a large number of part-time employees around October or November, with the potential of keeping a few in January. In the case of La Senza, DeLorme said 13 new staff members were hired to supplement the existing staff of 20, and come January, only two will stay on the payroll.
Christian Vanderhoek is a longtime retail employee. He’s worked at a shoe store, an electronics store and seasonally for the Calendar Club, which usually pops up for the holidays and hires staff in the fall then lays them off in the New Year.
Vanderhoek said the shoe store he worked for would hire lots of extra staff for busy periods because they would regularly do four or five times the amount of sales in a day than they would outside of the holiday season.
The hiring and training of retail staff, however, does not match up with the work required over the holidays.
“It is always going to be the most hectic time of year to be a sales associate,” said Vanderhoek. “You’ve got to be willing to work on little food, little caffeine, and obviously with a retail environment, you’ve got to always keep that smile on your face or you’re going to crash and burn.”
Delorme adds while the holidays make it easier to up-sell customers, they aren’t always in the holiday spirit.
“People are a lot more rushed,” DeLorme said. “They just want to finish their shopping and get it over with, so they can get really impatient and sometimes rude.”
Emma Digiosia is an assistant manager at Mrs. Tiggy Winkle’s, an Ottawa toy and game store. Her store typically doubles the number of staff to cover the holiday rush. However, the store’s new location in the Rideau Centre is much smaller, so she was only able to hire three new staff, as opposed to the usual six. She said she usually hires people she or other staff members already know.
These seasonal staff members are not taught how to operate the cash, but rather circulate the store, unpack merchandise and talk to customers.
DeLorme said her recent training was not what she’s used to from previous retail experience. She said there was a fast-paced three-hour training session after mall hours and then “they just kind of dumped me into it right away on the busiest day, which is Black Friday.”
For McCain, who arranges his whole year around his job as Santa, it’s important for mall staff to feel appreciated, so he always makes a point of showing them their value by sharing a candy cane and a smile.
