Seasonal Stockers

Work description

North Star Coop (North Star) is an agricultural supply cooperative selling ag products, propane, fuel, oil, operating automotive service shops, convenience stores, and hardware stores. North Star is headquartered in Cavalier, ND, a region recognized for its strong ag economy, producing corn, soybeans, sugarbeets, wheat, and potatoes. After fall harvest, regional business attention turns to prep for spring planting, including equipment preparation. North Star provides products and services essential to ag producers, businesses, and residents throughout northeastern ND. North Star has expansive retail and storage operations allowing North Star to offer extensive product lines and inventory to meet customer demand. North Star's customers commonly utilize the harsh ND winter weather months to perform essential preventative maintenance and repairs on ag equipment during its off season, in prep for the upcoming planting season. Equipment downtime in the spring, summer and fall results in economic loss. Winter preventative maintenance creates increased customer demand for maintenance-related products and replacement parts at North Star. In the summer, North Star attends industry market shows and participates in vendor purchasing programs to secure merchandise for the winter seasonal sales period. North Star purchases inventory specifically intended for winter customer demand, such as preventative maintenance-related products, snow-removal equipment and supplies, ice-control products, cold-weather work gear, winter safety products, fuel-treatment products, batteries, and engine heaters. The ordered preventative maintenance stock arrives in Nov., and must be stocked, organized, and maintained during Dec. - Mar. Winter seasonal workers are needed when winter inventory shipments arrive and are prepared for sale. The workers receive, unload, sort, label, stock, organize, display, maintain and replenish the seasonal product lines throughout the retail and storage facilities. Due to the volume and variety of inventory, the labor required to manage this seasonal inventory transition exceeds the capacity of North Star's permanent workforce, who manage the typical (non-seasonal) inventory needs. Permanent staff has less need to physically manage inventory during the spring, summer and fall when nice weather allows for pallets to stay outdoors when offloaded from delivery semis. The harsh climate makes winter outdoor storage and sales impracticable. As a result, there is temporary labor need to move related to winter inventory Nov. March each year. The need for the temp seasonal workers is directly tied to the winter inventory cycle. The winter seasonal stockers are responsible for continuously maintaining appropriate stock levels of winter products throughout the selling season. As winter merchandise is sold, depleted, or no longer needed by customers, products are removed from displays, consolidated, or rotated out. The winter temp workers assist with this seasonal inventory rotation by relocating inventory between storage and retail areas, reorganizing product categories, resetting displays, exchanging seasonal merchandise, and preparing sales areas. Because the work is driven by a recurring seasonal inventory transition, North Star's need for temp labor exists only during the winter merchandising cycle. Once the winter inventory has been sold or rotated out of stock, the additional labor demand subsides and North Star's permanent workforce is able to maintain normal operations. North Star maintains a permanent workforce that serves customer needs year-round. However the recurring winter preventative maintenance inventory cycle creates labor demand that exceeds the capacity of its permanent staff during the limited months of Dec. - Mar. The temp seasonal workers are essential to North Star's ability to efficiently manage expanded winter inventory and serve customer demand during the winter months.

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Last updated: October 9, 2026