Seasonal workers need working devices on their first shift, which means the devices have to be ready weeks before the people are. Most peak-season device problems start with a forecast that counted heads but not handhelds.
If you’re staffing up for the holidays, back-to-school, or a harvest or construction season, the device plan is part of the hiring plan. A picker without a scanner or a driver without a handheld is paid labour that can’t work.
This post covers how to forecast extra devices, how to source them, how to stage them in time, and how to get them back when the season ends.
Why devices become the bottleneck at peak
Peak hiring is fast and concentrated, and device supply isn’t. You can post jobs in a day, but sourcing, configuring, and shipping a few hundred rugged handhelds takes planning that has to start before the hiring does.
The swing in headcount is real. Statistics Canada payroll data (unadjusted for seasonality) show employment in warehousing and storage rose by about 11% between September and December 2025, then fell back almost to its starting point by February. Couriers and messengers followed the same curve.
Demand for seasonal workers has also been moving. Indeed data reported by HRD Canada showed seasonal job postings in Canada up 12% year over year in early November 2025.
The exact numbers change every year. The pattern doesn’t, so the device plan should assume a sharp ramp up and an equally sharp ramp down.
How to forecast how many extra devices you need
Forecast devices by role and shift, not by total headcount. A seasonal hire who shares a device across shifts needs less hardware than one who carries it all day, and a driver needs a different kit than a picker.
Work through each role in turn. Take the number of seasonal workers in that role, divide by how many share a device across shifts, and add the support staff (leads, trainers, returns) who also need one. Then add a spare buffer.
Set the buffer from your own history rather than a rule of thumb. Look at last peak’s broken, lost, and unreturned devices by site.
Sites that ran out early need a bigger buffer. Sites that ended the season with spares in a drawer need a smaller one.
Don’t forget the accessories. Charging cradles, spare batteries, holsters, vehicle mounts, and printers run out before devices do, and a device without a charged battery is the same as no device.
Seasonal workers need a different device setup
A seasonal device build shouldn’t be a copy of your permanent staff build. Temporary workers need fewer apps, simpler logins, and less room to change settings, because there’s no time to train them on anything else.
Shared devices are common at peak, so plan for quick sign-in and sign-out between shifts. Locking devices to the apps the role needs (often called kiosk or single-app mode) cuts both training time and support tickets.
If you have sites in Quebec, the seasonal build needs French-language interfaces and instructions as well. Bill 96 obligations apply to the tools you give workers, and a peak-season scramble is a bad time to find out the build is English-only.
Keep the build documented and tested before the first device ships. A short pilot with a few experienced staff using the seasonal setup will surface most problems while there’s still time to fix them.
Buy, rent, subscribe, or redeploy
There are four ways to cover a seasonal device gap, and most organizations use a mix. The right answer depends on how often you’ll need the extra devices and what you’ll do with them afterward.
| Option | Fits best when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Buy outright | The peak repeats every year and devices can be stored and reused | Capital tied up in devices that sit idle most of the year, plus storage and battery care between seasons |
| Short-term rental | A one-off spike or a test of a new seasonal program | Model availability at peak, and rented devices still need staging and enrolment in your MDM |
| Device as a Service (DaaS) | You want hardware, staging, and support bundled at a monthly cost per device, with room to scale | Contract terms for scaling down, and what’s included versus billed separately |
| Redeploy from other sites | Some locations are quiet while others peak | Re-staging time, shipping, and leaving the donor sites short when their own demand rises |
If you’re weighing the subscription route, the breakdown of how DaaS delivers cost savings covers where the model saves money and where it doesn’t.
Work backward from the first shift
The staging plan starts at the first shift and counts backward. Every step has a lead time, and the earliest one (sourcing) is usually the one that gets missed.
- Confirm the forecast by role, site, and start date, including accessories and spares.
- Order hardware early enough to cover manufacturer lead times, which tighten in the months before peak.
- Stage and enrol every device against your standard build, with apps loaded and MDM enrolment verified.
- Kit and label devices by site and role so receiving staff know exactly what goes where.
- Ship and confirm receipt at each site, with charging set up before workers arrive.
- Brief the help desk on the seasonal build, sites, and escalation path.
The end-of-year crunch is the worst time to discover that step two should have happened a month earlier.
Getting devices back after the season ends
The ramp down needs as much planning as the ramp up. Devices that leave with seasonal workers, sit uncharged in lockers, or get returned without a wipe are a cost and a risk.
Here’s what actually happens in many fleets. Returns arrive in a box at each site, nobody is assigned to process them, and by the next peak a share of those devices have dead batteries, missing accessories, or old accounts still on them. The recovery plan should name who collects devices on a worker’s last day, where they go, and how they get wiped and checked before storage.
Track returns against the issue list. Every device that doesn’t come back should be locked remotely through your MDM and written off deliberately, not discovered missing next year.
Where outside help fits
You can run a seasonal ramp in-house if the volume is small and your IT team has room to stage devices in the weeks before peak. That’s often the right call for a single site or a few dozen extra devices.
It gets harder when the surge is spread across many sites and lands on the same weeks your IT team is busiest. That’s the work a staging partner is built for. We source, stage, kit, and ship devices from our own Canadian facility so they arrive at each site ready to use, through our staging and deployment service.
For organizations that peak every year, a subscription model can carry the seasonal devices as well. The Device as a Service guide explains how DaaS bundles hardware, staging, and support per device per month. Just know that it fits best when the peak is predictable and recurring, and that scaling terms matter more than the headline price.
Questions we hear about seasonal devices
How many spare devices should we keep for peak season?
Base your spare buffer on last season’s broken, lost, and unreturned devices at each site rather than a fixed percentage. Sites with rough environments, high turnover, or long distances from replacements need more. Track spare usage this peak so next year’s buffer is based on your own data.
Should we buy or rent devices for seasonal staff?
Buy if the peak repeats every year and you can store, maintain, and reuse the devices, and rent for a one-off spike or a pilot. Consider Device as a Service if you want hardware, staging, and support bundled with the ability to scale. Many organizations combine options across sites.
How early should seasonal device planning start?
Start with the hiring plan, not after it. Work backward from the first shift through shipping, staging, and ordering. Hardware lead times are usually the longest step and tend to stretch before peak, so the order often needs to go in well before recruiting starts.
Where to start
Pull last season’s device records this week. Broken, lost, and unreturned devices by site will tell you your real spare buffer and where the plan failed. Then forecast by role and shift, decide how you’ll source the gap, and set the order date by counting back from the first shift.
References
- Statistics Canada, Table 14-10-0201-01, Employment by industry, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality (accessed October 2026). Warehousing and storage, and couriers and messengers, September 2025 to February 2026.
- HRD Canada, Holiday hiring rebounds for Canada, but small businesses stay cautious (November 2025). Reports Indeed Hiring Lab data on seasonal job postings.