Hire for the Season, or Handle the Spike Differently?

Every khareef, every Eid, every back-to-school week, someone on your operations team asks the same question: hire more people for this, or handle it differently? Get it wrong and you either pay salaries for a rush that lasted three weeks, or your lines stay busy through the ten weeks that actually mattered. There is a way to answer this with your own numbers instead of a guess, starting with what a temporary hire really costs before that person answers a single call.

The Same Question, Every Season

Hotels in Salalah watch enquiries triple through khareef. Polyclinics field a two-week surge of parents calling before school starts. Dealerships get flooded around Eid and National Day promotions. Insurers face renewal season, real estate firms face viewing season. In every case, a team sized for an average day meets a stretch that is nothing like average.

• Khareef in Dhofar: roughly ten weeks, tripled enquiries, many after dark and in more than one language
• Back-to-school: about two weeks in late August, uniform, transport and clinic calls from working parents
• Eid and National Day weekends: two to four days, a short and sharp burst around a fixed date
• Tourist high season, October to March: daily enquiries in English, German and French, often outside office hours

What a Temporary Hire Actually Costs

Take a composite three-property hotel group in Salalah that decides to add two call handlers for eight weeks of khareef. The maths looks simple until every line gets added up.

That OMR 1,570 assumes local hires who need no work permit. Bring someone in from abroad for a two-month spike and the government fee for the recruitment licence alone can run from about OMR 200 to OMR 300 depending on the role, before salary, visa and medical costs, and the paperwork usually takes longer than the spike lasts.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Puts in the Budget

The invoice is only half the story. A new hire needs three or four days before they stop asking a supervisor every third question, and calls still come in during that time. A caller who cannot get through while someone is still learning the booking system is still a missed call, and a missed call already carries a cost of its own.

Mistakes made by someone still learning your room types or appointment slots travel fast, especially when the caller is deciding whether to extend a stay during khareef. Once the season ends, the person who finally knew the answers walks out the door, taking that knowledge along, ready to repeat the whole cycle when the season comes around again.

A temporary hire who needs three weeks to learn your booking system has already missed the spike you hired them for.

When Hiring More People Is Still Right

None of this argues against hiring, ever. If a spike is really the first sign of permanent growth, a hotel adding rooms, a clinic opening a branch, hire properly and keep the people. And nothing here touches work that has to happen in person: housekeeping, valet, a nurse at the front desk. This is about who picks up the phone and answers the message, not who does the physical work on site.

Match the Fix to the Spike

Two things decide the right fix: how long the spike lasts, and how far ahead you can see it coming.

How Overflow Actually Closes the Gap

For the six-to-ten week spikes and the sudden ones, the honest fix is the same: let something else answer what the desk cannot. That means picking up when every line is busy, answering after the front office team has gone home, and following a caller who mixes Omani Arabic with English mid-sentence.

Tools built for this, CustomerCare.OM among them, plug into the desk's existing phone number, turn every call into a note the operations lead can read the next morning, and bill for conversations handled rather than a headcount that has to be recruited, trained and let go again.

The bill for automation shrinks the day the surge ends. The bill for a temporary hire does not.

What this means for you

Pull up last year's calendar before this year's spike catches you again. Mark every rush, khareef, Eid, National Day, back-to-school, tourist season, and note how long each one actually lasted. Anything under two weeks: reassign your own team and add overflow handling for the hours you are closed. Anything six weeks or longer: a small temporary team for the daytime desk, paired with automation for the hours and languages that stretch it thin. Anything you cannot predict: automation has to be your first move, because hiring cannot move fast enough.

The Bottom Line

The right fix depends on two numbers you already have: how long the spike lasts and how early you can see it coming. Short and predictable means reassign your team. Long and predictable means a few temporary hires plus overflow help. Sudden means automation first, because nothing else can move that fast. Work it out before the next khareef, or the next National Day weekend, does it for you.