Perfecting the peak period: four tips

The final third of the year is upon on us, this marks the beginning of Peak and the challenges logistics operations face at this time of year have never been more complex. In an age where digital dominates commerce, the ease of ordering and an increase in demand from customers, has meant that continuous product flow has become the status quo for many retailers. The message from consumers is clear: they don’t want to have to wait three or four days for an order – they expect it to arrive same day or next day. At a time where some of the most iconic brands have struggled – or even gone into administration - reputation and meeting expectations are everything, meaning some brands are prepared to make a loss on fulfilling next day orders with an eye on long-term gains.  

These key challenges of modern eCommerce only intensify around the peak period. Over recent years, a number of key spikes of retail activity in the run-up to Christmas have been established, where incredible demand from consumers puts a strain on even the largest and best-prepared operations. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are so ubiquitous that they’re almost as much of a fixture in the calendar as Christmas Day itself, as retailers operating in challenging business environments go to war in their efforts to attract consumers.
With all this in mind, it’s important to be going into this year’s peak  period with a clear plan of action, so here are our top tips for success:

Plan and prepare

The old adage that if you fail to plan you plan to fail, is very much the case when it comes to preparing for peak. With a shortage of candidates in the market, many retailers are recruiting earlier and earlier – with the start of Q3 the key time for increasing your employee pool. This can present a challenge as this is traditionally the end of the holiday season – and thus when many are still in holiday mode – meaning it can be easy for the start of September to quickly bleed into the start of October or beyond if you’re not careful. Of course, you can’t know exactly how many staff you’re going to need if you haven’t forecasted properly, so it’s essential this has been carried out as early as possible. Ideally, your organisation will have already carried out a full review of the previous year’s peak to work out what worked – and more importantly what didn’t. This should give you a great starting point to work from. 

Understand expectations

Although taking the learnings from your previous year’s plan is important, it’s also worth remembering that no two peak periods are ever the same. Although consumer demands are increasing, particularly around next day delivery, IT systems and automated processes are also improving in kind to keep up with demand. So don’t automatically assume that an expected increase in demand means that you need more staff. In fact, it may be that you need a smaller headcount but skills in these different areas:
  • Knowledge of e-commerce operations
  • Knowledge of multi-drop
  • Automation experience
Increasing your employee pool flexibly can be the key, along with keeping regular communication with your agency suppliers so that they are primed to provide the staff you need, when you need them. 

Hire the right talent

With widespread candidate shortages coming into play, it’s never been more important to get your talent attraction strategies right. To this end, it’s important to promote a solid brand and career development at the interview stage, then hire quickly with a strong initial offer. Otherwise, you risk a competitor getting in there first. You also need to consider what types of people you need – keeping in mind that interim employees will always have a preference for permanent work. How can you keep temporary staff incentivised to fulfil the length of their assignment? Speaking to Michael Page last year, Scott Craig, Regional General Manager at iForce, explained that agency colleague supply was a key focus. Utilising temporary management, as well as labour, was another tool iForce use to deliver a successful peak. “We use interim managers in some of our sites to support our peak volumes. This process works best if a retainer bonus is put in place to ensure that interim managers are motivated to complete the assignment in what is our busiest and most challenging period of the year,” he said. 

Arm yourself with the right information

Being aware of the right information is always going to be the key to delivering a successful peak. This goes right across the board, from understanding consumer demand and requirements to building in contingency in terms of labour and equipment. It’s also important to understand as much about your candidates as possible. In a candidate short market where competition is fierce, it’s essential to know how much you need to pay for top talent. To this end, at Michael Page, we can provide salary benchmarking information to help inform your decisions and strategies. Commenting on the importance of good information, Scott Laird, Network Operations Director at UK Mail, told us: “The single biggest critical success factor is information. The more detail we have about the requirement the more robust plans can be and so we have developed a much more joined-up approach with customers over recent years.”
If you are interested in reading more about Peak, why not read our articles on the countdown to Peak and how to deliver a successful Peak. Alternatively, why not get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants to discuss your recruitment needs. 
Anil Pattni
Manager, Michael Page Logistics
T: 0121 230 9353
Matt Simpson
Manager, Michael Page & Page Personnel Logistics
T: 0115 934 8683