Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure; Staffing; Human Factors
This flight landed ZZZ with a planned gate of XX. The gate was available at the time that the aircraft landed. The aircraft received instructions to enter the alley and approached the gate. However; due to manpower issues with ramp service; there were no ramp employees immediately available to marshal the aircraft into Gate XX. This apparently caused a pushback conflict with [another] aircraft on the concourse. Station Operations personnel and Ramp Leadership were working together to find available ramp employees to marshal the aircraft in; when we noticed that contract personnel who were employed to ground handle Company Y; had decided to come over to XX and marshal the aircraft into the gate. Not only did they use improper marshaling signals; they stopped the aircraft very abruptly short of the stop mark.
Air carrier Ramp Personnel reported being short staffed and unable to marshal an aircraft into the gate; resulting in a third-party ramp service improperly marshalling the aircraft in.