The seasonal world is a workplace unlike any other.
For 37 years, the Seasonal Human Resource Association has existed to support the people who keep it running.
However you’ve found your way here — whether from an entry-level seasonal role or a degree in HR — you find yourself responsible for the people who are both the face of the business and the engine behind its success.
Seasonal operations run on a logic all their own. Housing often fills before the staff roster does. A crew you spent all winter building can break apart in a week. You’d be hard-pressed to find another industry where teambuilding happens this fast. A crew of strangers arrives in May and has to function as a unit by June — trained, housed, and handed real responsibility for guests and revenue, stretched to capacity with heavy visitation and full occupancy. Every season, you run the same gauntlet: can you turn a crew into a team that stays together long past opening day?
Most people charged with this challenge build a playbook from scratch, one season at a time, because there’s rarely time (or a dedicated space and time to connect with others doing the same) to compare notes.
SHRA was created in 1989 to make this hard job a little less lonely and to support the shoulders that hold everybody else.
Each fall, the people who keep things together behind the scenes of some of our great places gather in the same room. They know the game—the compressed hiring windows, the housing scramble, the turnover. No one needs to explain the complexities of their industry; they just need somewhere to talk about it.
SHRA gatherings are intentionally intimate. There are no vendors and no trade show halls. SHRA’s value has never been measured in headcounts. It’s in getting on a first-name basis with everyone in the room, sharing the hard question you’ve been chewing on since June, and striving for answers alongside other people who get it.
Small on purpose. Big on value.
Space is limited — and that’s part of the magic.
Whether you’re an HR Manager, Administrative Assistant, GM, Chef, Owner, or anyone else holding the people side of a seasonal operation together, you know how big the job really is.
Spend a few days in the company of a nearly four-decade-old community built specifically for people doing this work. Learn, collaborate, and decompress with people who live the same reality. Charge your batteries and leave with a phone number you’ll use when things get hard in August. Come and be with your people.
“I like that there’s a specific organization for Seasonal HR professionals because it’s such a distinct subset of the HR field as a whole. We have rewards and challenges that are very different from other folks you might meet at a SHRM meeting, for example, so you can get a lot out of the SHRA group because of its specificity.
The retreat style annual conference is a great opportunity to take a sort of bird’s eye view of your job in a way that’s not possible at home. I find it very empowering. The opportunity to compare notes with others in the industry and learn together makes me feel more prepared to take on the day to day challenges of the job.”
-Beth M. former HR Manager, Signal Mountain Lodge, Grand Teton National Park