Size the bench from hours, not headcount. Take the extra hours the peak needs, subtract what the core team can legally absorb in overtime, and convert what is left into workers at the site's own shift pattern. That gives a number, a start date that allows for enrolment lead time, and an end date that closes without a compliance tail. The rest of this post is the arithmetic and the three instruments it runs on.
Start with the demand curve, not last year's headcount
The peak is a curve of hours per week, and the plan should be drawn against it rather than against the number of people hired last October. For the logistics and warehousing sector the shape is well documented: a staffing-industry estimate put seasonal roles for the second half of 2025 at about 2.16 lakh, 15 to 20 per cent more than the year before, with more than half in logistics and last-mile delivery and a further 25 to 30 per cent in warehousing [VERIFY: Adecco festive-season report 2025, as reported in trade press; methodology not examined]. Underneath the seasonal swing sits a structural one: contract workers were 42 per cent of the organised manufacturing workforce in 2023-24, the highest share since 1997-98 [VERIFY: ASI 2023-24, MoSPI, via Business Standard].
For a single site the inputs are simpler than the national picture. How many weeks does the peak last, how many extra hours per week does it need at the top, and how quickly does it fall away afterwards. A ten-week peak that needs 30 per cent more hours at its height is a different problem from a three-week spike that needs 60 per cent, even if the total extra hours are similar, because overtime can carry a short spike and cannot carry a long one.
Three ways to cover a peak, and what each is allowed to do
Overtime on the core team, a contingent bench through a contractor, or fixed-term hires on the site's own rolls. Each has a ceiling, a cost shape and a different way of ending.
| Overtime on the core | Contingent bench via contractor | Fixed-term employees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instrument | OSH Code 2020, s.27; OSH (Central) Rules 2026 [VERIFY: section and rule] | OSH Code 2020, Chapter XI (contract labour) | Industrial Relations Code 2020, s.2(o) [VERIFY: clause] |
| Ceiling | 8 hours a day, 48 a week; overtime capped at 125 hours a quarter [VERIFY: cap under the 2026 Rules]; twice the ordinary rate | No statutory ceiling on numbers; the contractor needs a licence where 50 or more contract labour are engaged (Ministry FAQ Q2) | No statutory ceiling; wages, hours and benefits must match a permanent worker doing the same work [VERIFY: parity provision] |
| Lead time | Immediate | Enrolment before the first shift: Aadhaar-seeded UAN, ESIC registration within ten days of joining, induction | Same enrolment, on the site's own rolls, plus appointment letters |
| Cost shape | Every extra hour at 2x | Contractor's rate for the hours worked, plus statutory contributions | Wages at parity, plus statutory contributions and pro-rata benefits |
| How it ends | Stops the day the peak does | With the contract; the workers return to the contractor's bench | At the end of the written term; expiry is not retrenchment under s.2(zh), so no retrenchment compensation [VERIFY: clause] |
| Tail | None, apart from the cost | Contributions and welfare for the period; principal employer liable if the contractor defaults | Gratuity if the term reaches one year (Ministry FAQ, 16 March 2026); statutory benefits pro-rata |
Overtime is the cheapest to arrange and the most expensive to run, which is why it suits a spike and not a season. The Code also treats it as voluntary: the Ministry's FAQ describes daily hours extended with the consent of workers, on payment of overtime at twice the rate, so a plan cannot assume every core worker will take every hour offered [VERIFY: consent requirement under s.27 and the Rules]. Fixed-term employment is the right instrument when the site wants the workers on its own rolls and expects the term to run past a year, because gratuity then attaches. For a peak measured in weeks, a bench through a contractor is usually the fit, and the arithmetic below is for that case.
The arithmetic, on a hundred-worker site
A site runs 100 core workers on eight-hour shifts, 26 working days a month. The festive peak needs 30 per cent more hours for ten weeks.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Base hours per month | 100 workers x 8 hours x 26 days | 20,800 |
| Extra hours the peak needs | 30% of 20,800 | 6,240 a month |
| Overtime ceiling per worker | 125 hours a quarter, so about 41 a month [VERIFY: cap] | 41 |
| Overtime available at the ceiling | 100 x 41 | 4,100 a month |
| Overtime the plan can rely on | 60% uptake, since it is voluntary and people have lives | 2,460 a month |
| Hours the bench must cover | 6,240 minus 2,460 | 3,780 a month |
| Hours one bench worker supplies | 8 x 26 | 208 a month |
| Bench size | 3,780 divided by 208, rounded up | 19 workers |
| Bench with absence buffer | 19 plus 10%, rounded up | 21 workers |
Two things in that table are judgements, not statute, and both should be the site's own numbers. The 60 per cent overtime uptake is a planning assumption; a site with a young workforce and a long commute pattern will see a different figure, and last year's overtime register is the best guide. The 10 per cent buffer covers absence and early leavers; a bench with no buffer runs the peak one sick day short. The overtime cap, by contrast, is a legal limit, and a plan that needs more than 41 hours a month from each core worker is a plan that needs a bigger bench.
Lead time, and the wind-down
The bench cannot start the week the peak does. Every worker needs an Aadhaar-seeded UAN before the first provident fund return that includes them, ESIC registration within ten days of joining, an appointment letter from the contractor, and a recorded safety induction. In our own deployments that means the screening stage begins three to four weeks before the first peak shift, and the bench is on site a week early for induction and a shadow shift [VERIFY: Velura practice; not a statutory figure]. A site that asks for twenty workers on a Monday for a Wednesday start gets twenty people, not twenty enrolled, inducted workers, and the gap surfaces in the filings a month later.
Two numbers decide whether the bench changes the site's own compliance position. The first is 50: where 50 or more contract labour are engaged on any day in the preceding twelve months, the Code's licensing chapter applies to the contractor, and the principal employer must engage only a licensed one. A site running a permanent contract workforce of 35 that adds a bench of 21 has crossed that line for the year, and should know it before the first shift, not after. The second is 10: the Code's health, safety and welfare duties apply to any establishment with 10 or more employees regardless, so the bench is inside those from day one (Ministry FAQ Q1, Q2 and Q6).
The wind-down is where a contractor bench earns its keep. The engagement ends with the season; the workers return to the contractor's bench rather than to a retrenchment process; the last wage period's provident fund and ESI contributions are filed and the file closes. Two habits make next year cheaper. Ask the contractor to issue each worker an experience certificate, which the Code entitles them to request (Ministry FAQ Q19), and keep the induction records: a bench that comes back knows the site, and a site that treated the bench properly gets it back.
A planning calendar
- Eight weeks out. Draw the hours curve from last year's order book and this year's forecast. Decide the peak weeks and the top-of-peak percentage.
- Six weeks out. Run the arithmetic above with the site's own overtime uptake and absence figures. Fix the bench size and the start date. Check the 50-worker position for the establishment as a whole.
- Four weeks out. Contractor confirms the licence and security deposit, and begins screening against the role list. Existing UANs collected; new ones generated.
- Two weeks out. ESIC registrations filed, appointment letters issued, induction dates set. The site's HR head has the per-worker file index.
- One week out. Bench on site for induction and a shadow shift. Overtime consent recorded for the core team so the uptake figure is real, not assumed.
- Peak. Weekly reconciliation of the gate register against the contractor's headcount; the monthly evidence pack continues as normal.
- Close. Final wage period filed, experience certificates issued, induction records archived for the next season.
Whether a particular bench crosses the licensing threshold for the establishment, and what the site's obligations are once it does, depend on how the twelve-month count is made for that site, and that is a question for the reader's own counsel.
Sources
- Ministry of Labour and Employment, FAQs on the OSH Code, 2020 (January 2026) — Q1, Q2, Q6 (10-employee applicability and the 20-to-50 licensing threshold), Q3 (8 hours a day, 48 a week, overtime at twice the rate with worker consent), Q19 (experience certificate). Opened and read.
- Ministry of Labour and Employment, Additional FAQs on Labour Codes, as on 16 March 2026 — fixed-term employees eligible for gratuity after one year under the contract (items 14 and 19). Opened and read.
- Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (Act 37 of 2020), s.27 and Chapter XI; Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules, 2026, overtime cap of 125 hours a quarter [VERIFY: section, rule number and cap from secondary summaries]
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020 (Act 35 of 2020), s.2(o) (fixed term employment) and s.2(zh) (retrenchment excludes expiry of a fixed term) [VERIFY: clause letters and the parity provision, from secondary summaries]
- Annual Survey of Industries 2023-24, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, as reported by Business Standard, 8 September 2025 [VERIFY against the MoSPI release]
- Adecco India festive-season hiring outlook, second half of 2025, as reported by HRKatha [VERIFY: the report itself and its methodology were not examined; figures are from trade-press reporting]