Seasonal Environment???

sandra29

This is my first year working with a seasonal company. It is normal for the company to lay off the majority of our workers. I am curious to know if any one works or have worked in a seasonal workforce who has layoffs and if so do you have a form in place which your employees will fill out during the time of layoff and does your form inform them on when they are expected to be available for call backs? Which leads to another question? How does this effect unemployment? If we have a form which indicates that the employee is to be back on such date and fails to come back or we can not get a hold of that person can we use this to help are unemployment. Any type of advice is welcome. Thanks so much!

San Francisco

Sandra, we are retail and do not call back laid-off workers. But, I would think it would make sense to want to retain experienced workers and you are more likely to be able to do that if you do call them back. Perhaps, others know how companys accomplish that. Regarding unemployment, when you receive notice of the claim filed, respond back stating that they were to return to work and didn't. That should let you off the hook.

Elizabeth

ritaanz

I worked for a direct mail marketing firm. We were the ones that sent out all the "junk mail" you got in your mail boxes. It was also seasonal. The majority of our production employees were female. (Not planned, just worked out that way.) Our busy season was always around the holidays, i.e. Christmas, Easter, Labor Day, etc. Those were also the times when families needed extra money. I found that the employees did not mind being laid off and recalled later. At the time of the lay off, they were told to keep us posted if they moved or changed telephone numbers. Worked well for us.

Cindy Hanna

Hi Sandra,

I also work for a seasonal company. What I do is send out a sign up sheet in regards to lay-off with everyones name on it. The employees will sign up for the lay off the date they would like to be laid off and the date they would like to return. I also send out insurance info. If the employee would like to keep there insurance through the winter or not. We pay 50% of the insurance cost up til 16 weeks. If the employee is laid off longer than 16 weeks then the employee is 100% responsible for paying the insurance.

We pretty much know the lay-off will be from November or December - March or April. It really depends on the weather and how busy we are.

Employees do collect unemployment while on lay-off. I would have to say about 99% of the employees come back when called back. If they do not come back it is usually because they found another job.

I hope this helps. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Have a great day

Cindy