Author: Ryan Flanders
In the inflatable business, minor staffing problems don’t stay minor problems for long. They turn into late routes, sloppy setups, stressed-out managers, customer complaints, and sometimes safety issues. And because this is such a seasonal business, those problems usually show up at the worst possible time, when the calendar is full and there’s no room for error.
Across our four businesses and two locations, we may have as many as 50 employees during peak season and then shrink back down to around a dozen in the offseason. That kind of swing forces you to get serious about hiring, training, and retention. People are always going to come and go to some degree in a seasonal business, so if you don’t have a system for bringing people in, getting them trained, and keeping standards in place, peak season will expose it fast.
Even with the seasonality, our turnover is probably under 25%, which I think is pretty good for this type of operation. But that doesn’t happen by accident. You have to recruit ahead of your busy seasons, hire from the right places, and train in a way that doesn’t depend on one manager trying to explain everything on the fly.
Recruit Before You Need People
One of the easiest mistakes in this business is waiting until you’re already short staffed to start hiring. By then your calendar is full, your team is already stretched, and you’re much more likely to make rushed hires just because you need bodies.
We’ve learned to build hiring pushes around the times of year we know staffing will get tight. For us, that usually means a push in the spring and another in late summer as we prepare for fall. Knowing your busiest months and even your busiest weekends from prior years is a huge advantage. If you know when the pressure is coming, you can recruit, interview, and train ahead of it instead of scrambling once you’re already behind.
Spring and fall are often the hardest times to staff. Those are the seasons when business can get busy, but your summer labor pool may not be fully available yet. College students may still be away. High school help may not be available yet. If you don’t prepare ahead of those windows, you can end up in a tough spot.
Jump Around Bounce House Rentals has a page on their site dedicated to Hiring Staff year round. It is easy to direct potential candidates to the page and their effort in completing the process allows them to show serious interest. Links on the page provide accurate job descriptions and an easy application link
Start With Your Own Network First
The best place we’ve found to hire from is usually our own network. Before I spend money on job boards, I want to know if we’ve fully used our own contact list, social media, employee referrals, and local relationships.
If you have 500 or 1,000 friends on Facebook and you post that you’re looking for seasonal help, you’re not just reaching those people. We often have personal contacts who see the post and then tell their family or friends about the opportunity. One post can spread a lot farther than you think. The same goes for employees. Good people often know other good people, and strong employee referrals have been one of our best hiring sources.
We’ll usually frame those posts around the season. Before summer, it may be extra money for a vacation. Before fall, it may be extra money for Christmas or weekend income during a busy season. Those kinds of messages tend to connect with the people who are often a good fit for this work.
We’ve also used Indeed and have found good people there from time to time, especially once we’ve exhausted our own personal contacts and referrals. I’m not against Indeed at all. It has its place. But if I had to choose where to start, I would start with referrals, personal contacts, and our own network every time.
The types of people we’ve had the most success with
Every market is different, but there are a few groups we’ve generally had good success with.
Mature high school and college students can be a great fit during peak season. If they have a good attitude, are dependable, and don’t mind physical work, they often bring energy and are usually very coachable. Some of them grow into larger roles over time.
We’ve also done well with young adults who want to work, want extra money, and are open to growing. Some people just need a clear opportunity and clear expectations. If they’re dependable and willing to learn, they can turn into very strong team members.
Another group that has been valuable is recently retired or semi-retired adults, especially people in their 50s and 60s who still want to work and stay active. They often bring maturity, professionalism, excellent customer service, and strong driving habits. They can be very steady and very good in customer-facing situations.
Where they may struggle more sometimes is on the most physical side of the job. Long hot days, repeated heavy lifting, loading, unloading, and large setups can be more of a challenge depending on the person. They can be a great fit, but usually in the right role. In many cases they can be excellent in driving roles, staffed events, support roles, or other positions where their maturity and professionalism really help.
What we’re actually hiring for
The longer we do this, the less interested I am in just filling a shift and the more interested I am in finding people who fit the work.
In our business, we’re looking for people who are dependable, coachable, physically capable of the role, respectful with customers, and able to communicate well. We need people who can show up on time, work hard, follow safety standards, and represent the company well in front of customers. Weekend reliability matters. Attention to detail matters. A good attitude matters.
Skills can be taught. Setup speed can improve. But if someone is unreliable, careless, or difficult to manage, that usually shows up quickly and creates problems for the rest of the team.
Slow the process down enough to observe people
We’ve learned not to rush the interview process if we can help it. A decent process tells you a lot before somebody ever works their first shift.
For us, that usually starts with a virtual interview followed by two in-person interviews. Part of that is making sure both sides understand the role, but part of it is observation. Can they show up on time? Can they do it consistently? How do they present themselves? How do they communicate? Do they seem respectful and coachable? Is there anything that feels off once you meet them in person?
Sometimes it’s little things that matter. Do they seem to have reliable transportation? Are they dressed appropriately? Do they communicate clearly and respectfully? Is there anything that gives you pause in a customer-facing role? None of those things by themselves automatically disqualify someone, but they do matter, especially in a business where employees are representing your company in front of customers every day.
Training has to be a system
If your workforce grows and shrinks throughout the year, training can’t just live in one manager’s head. It has to be a system.
When you can go from around a dozen people in the offseason to 40 or 50 during peak season, people are going to come and go. That’s just part of it. So the answer can’t be hoping everyone picks things up on the fly.
You need clear onboarding, clear expectations, and repeatable training. Setup standards, anchoring, loading, unloading, customer interaction, appearance, communication, route expectations, and safety procedures all need to be taught clearly and consistently. Otherwise every busy season feels like starting over.
This is also where I think IOA training can be a real help. If you can have a few key team members complete IOA training or certification, they can come back and help reinforce those standards internally. They may not handle every part of onboarding, but they can be a big help in teaching the basics, reinforcing safety expectations, and making sure new team members are learning the right habits from the start.
Training matters because bad habits spread quickly. If people aren’t trained well, they cut corners. If they cut corners, your setups suffer, your customer experience suffers, and safety suffers.
Have backup staffing options for surge weekends
There are always going to be weekends where you need more people than normal. Big events, school functions, festivals, staffed events, and unusually heavy weekends can all stretch your normal staffing model.
For those situations, it helps to have backup options already lined up. That might be former employees you trust, a short list of people who can help on an as-needed basis, or even a temp agency relationship if you need it.
Another option we’ve used or considered for certain events is working with nonprofits that want fundraising opportunities. If they can provide volunteers to help staff an event, that can sometimes work better than bringing in random temp labor. Depending on the event and the organization, those volunteers may already be used to serving people, may already be background checked through the organization, and may care more about doing a good job than a temp worker with no connection to the event. You still have to supervise well and be smart about what roles they’re filling, but it can be a useful option for the right situation.
Pay attention to red flags
One mistake that’s easy to make in a seasonal business is getting desperate and hiring somebody just because you need a body for the weekend.
We’ve learned to watch for patterns. If somebody has bounced around from job to job repeatedly without a clear reason, if they communicate poorly from the beginning, if they’re already hard to pin down before they’re hired, or if they don’t present themselves well for a customer-facing role, those are warning signs.
That doesn’t mean you write someone off over one thing. But if you see a pattern of instability, unreliability, poor communication, call-outs, no-shows, or a lack of professionalism, there’s a good chance those issues are going to show up once they’re on your team too.
Be careful who you keep year-round
One of the biggest mistakes a seasonal business can make is carrying too much payroll in the offseason.
It’s easy to build a larger team during peak season and then keep too many people on full-time after the rush is over. But for many inflatable companies, one of the biggest offseason expenses is labor. You have to be careful about who you commit to year-round.
That doesn’t mean you avoid building a strong core team. You absolutely need key people. But those year-round people need to be people who truly strengthen the business. They should be able to help train others, protect standards, solve problems, and contribute value even when you’re not in peak season.
Final thoughts
There’s no perfect staffing formula in a seasonal business, and every market is a little different. But for us, a few things have made a big difference.
Recruit before you need people. Start with your own network before defaulting to job boards. Keep asking for referrals. Know which types of people tend to fit your business well. Slow the process down enough to observe people before you hire them. Build training systems because people are always going to come and go. Keep backup staffing options for big weekends. And be careful about who you commit to year-round.
In this business, staffing is not a side issue. It affects safety, customer experience, team morale, and profitability. When the trucks are loaded, the route is full, and customers are waiting, the quality of your team shows up fast.
Peak season has a way of exposing weak hiring and weak training. The better your systems are before the rush hits, the better your operation will hold up when it does.