Seasonal Human Resources Association
Does your operation employ seasonal staff and/or volunteers? Are you responsible for recruiting, hiring, training, onboarding, coaching, supporting, and motivating these employees? Perhaps you juggle all of these things, in addition to employee housing, recreation, transportation, communication and more? You’re not alone!
CoolWorks.com has been a long time ally, and now is the official host and sponsor of the Seasonal Human Resources Association conference. If you are unfamiliar with SHRA, it is THE conference for seasonal HR and Recruiting Managers to gather after a challenging summer season or before their winter operating season kicks off to learn, gather, swap and cook up the strategies and tactics that make their property’s HR efforts successful. Everything from recruiting, retention, and recreation to employment law updates, creative solutions to the growing housing crunch, and invaluable networking.
It is a vibrant collection of HR folk like yourself who may come from a different company or industry, but understand the challenges you face. The conference is jam-packed with education, inspiration, networking, and empowerment.
I personally became acquainted with SHRA at the end of my first season as the Human Resources Assistant for a concession operation in Grand Teton National Park. I had just accepted a promotion and was to be moving into the HR Manager role on January 1st. Like so many people that start out with a seasonal job and subsequently grow into management and leadership positions, I had no formal HR education and no idea how to be an HR Manager. Several of my predecessors had been SHRA attendees, and I was fortunate to be sent to the conference the autumn before moving into my new position.
Four days and one SHRA conference gave me the education, confidence, and support network that I needed to not only fill big shoes within my orginization but also the courage to bound into my new role with a spring in my step.
Years passed, and along with the experience I gained as I grew in my role, came the fatigue intertwined with seasonal staffing. Resetting the board and starting from scratch to hire, nurture, and mentor a seasonal staff year after year after year is incredibly challenging. SHRA was my seasonal HR Manager tourniquet and therapy for all the years that followed that first attendance. No matter the season I had, I knew I’d have the opportunity to recharge in the fall. Attending the SHRA conference became the fountain of youth that I so desperately required to meet the recurring obstacle course of seasonal HR with passion. I’d come back each fall with notebooks full of new ideas and recruiting strategies to implement, legal updates, and industry trends to be aware of. And also, with new friends that I knew I could close my door and pick up the phone to call when I had a tough day. Being connected to folks that did the same difficlt job as I did (even if they were in a different company, industry, state) was the balm of community that I believe Human Resources professionals are often starved for. The gift to sit in a room with a bunch of other people that get it, to let your guard down to laugh, learn, connect. To be vulnerable and imaginative – these are interactions that could make us all better and more passionate about our jobs, whatever they might be. I still count myself so lucky that I got to be part of such a collective.
This small gathering of fellow seasonal HR professionals became the ruby slippers that I credit with being largely instrumental in my success. It refilled my spirit with pixie dust to give the gauntlet of seasonal staffing my best, season after season.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Seasonal Human Resources Association, I urge you to become familiar with it. Ask any of us here at CoolWorks to tell you more about it. Better yet, come join us and discover it’s incredible value first hand. There is an amazing magic that is kindled at SHRA, and attendees go home with buckets of new ideas and fresh initiatives to revolutionize their HR departments. Equally valuable, it offers a deep recharge and revitalization to the HR manager’s batteries before or after a season full of challenges.
Share with others who understand, who have the same challenges and the same questions. Participate in educational sessions, professional growth opportunities, best practices, and roundtable/networking opportunities. Laugh, learn, listen, share, reflect and refresh.