What should I ask about a moving company’s seasonal crew hiring pattern?
Ask how many movers return each season, where new crews come from, how they are trained and who supervises them. A company that rehires its own people each spring is steadier than one that rebuilds the crew from scratch every year, and the answer affects service quality and claims.
Moving is a seasonal trade, so the hiring pattern is the business. Ask the owner to walk you through a full year: when the first extra crew members start, when the peak arrives, and when hours drop. Request payroll records for the busy and slow periods and ask which workers are employees and which are engaged another way. Your lawyer should review that question carefully.
Then ask about retention. How many of last season’s people came back? Are there crew leads who return every year, and do they have any written commitment to stay after a sale? Those leads often carry the company’s reputation with customers and the training of newer staff. Losing them in the first season would hurt more than losing a truck.
Ask about training, safety habits and how new hires learn to pack and carry. Look at injury records and time off work. Finally, think about your plan after closing. If you will keep the same hiring approach, ask the owner for recruiter contacts, schools or referral sources. If you will change it, think about the first summer, when the sale and the peak overlap. Ask what the busiest week looked like last summer, and how many shifts were short-staffed, so you can see the pressure points first-hand.
Key takeaways
- Walk the full year of hiring with payroll records.
- Find out which crew leads return each season.
- Ask for training and injury records.
Related reading
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Sources
This answer is checked against primary sources. Links were last confirmed on the dates shown.
- 01Canadian Association of MoversIndustryCanadian Association of Movers
- 02Business Development Bank of CanadaGovernmentHow to conduct due diligence when buying a business
- 03Business Development Bank of CanadaGovernmentHow to reduce employee turnover
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