202: Overcoming the Struggles to Hire
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
The job market has really changed in the last 6 months. Unfortunately, it corresponds to the increase in demand for pet care services.
Many of us are facing a daunting task of trying to hire staff in the middle of one of the toughest job markets in a long time. Today, we outline ways to use more than just financial incentives to attract staff.
From paid benefits to connecting to core values of your business, there are ways to compete for the staff you want and need. Then, Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I empower others?”
Topics on this episode:
What’s changed in the market place
Benefits to offer staff
Our plan
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Attracting the staff you need is more than just paying more; it’s about providing non-monetary benefits and connecting with the core values of your business.
Links:
Episode 198 on knowing whether to scale up or down
Episode 108 with Amber and Mary-Beth on hiring during Covid
Episode 174 with Bella on knowing what you want.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, clients, hire, business, pet, staff, sitters, benefits, hiring, pay, employees, work, pet sitter, scale, company, natasha, numbers, insurance, pandemic, provide
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to Episode 202. Hello, we have been putting out content for almost two years now,
Collin 00:37
that Tuesday will be two year or two year anniversary. It's been a lot.
Meghan 00:42
We're just discussing that I think on previous episodes I've been saying almost three years. So that's wrong.
Collin 00:49
Two years. 2019 is when we started just before the pandemic, and everything changed. And you know, but but through all that, we do want to thank you, our listeners and our producers who are our Patreon supporters, as well as today's sponsor, pet sitters associates.
Meghan 01:05
So today, we're talking about our thoughts on hiring, because we are looking to be doing that very soon. And it's really on our mind a lot.
Collin 01:14
Yeah, well, plus, we've recently talked about scaling back on episode 198. And we ran a poll and on Facebook and Instagram, and several people voted that they were scaling down. And interestingly, one of the people who voted that they were scaling down, we know was just recently trying to hire a few months ago. But they started saying that they couldn't find anybody, which is so different than what people were saying
Meghan 01:39
last year, it seems like the tables have really turned in our last year, there wasn't a whole lot of work. But people were really interested and being hired to be a dog walker. But now it's that there's so many clients and we are so busy, but we're having to turn people away because we can't find good help.
Collin 01:58
Yeah, back on episode 108. We actually interviewed amber vandals and Suarez and Mary Beth, about hiring and how it was going for them through the pandemic. And they basically talked about how they were awash with people applying. And they actually had to set up brand new systems to deal with the influx of applicants. So what's changed in the interim? Why is there this difference?
Meghan 02:19
There are several reasons. But here in the US, there were a lot of benefits that were rolled out over the past year because of the pandemic. And many people also decided that it was time to make a career change. And also, wages have been slow to rise as well. So now the power lies with the employees. So people are being a lot more picky, a lot more choosy of what they want. And with their specific pay that they want as well. The higher pay is a real sticking point for businesses. If you are unable to pay that rate. Most people will pass over you, unfortunately. And even if you are able to offer the fun of playing with dogs and being outside. However, some people are saying that that's great that I get to play with dogs. I love that aspect. But I'd like to earn $17 an hour
Collin 03:10
to highlight this. I looked at a recent hiring ad for a Walmart and Amazon distribution center here near Kansas City. And people are getting paid 26 bucks an hour. So sure, it's grueling work, but it's almost $30 an hour. And yeah, that's Walmart a multibillion dollar business. But unfortunately, that's who we are now competing against. That's the current job market.
Meghan 03:34
Well, the companies like ours can't compete with that small mom and pops. We can't do that. So what do you have to do? You have
Collin 03:43
to pitch the other benefits of the job, not just the pay and the fun of being with dogs. Most of us didn't get in this industry for the pay. However, the people that we are trying to hire, they are looking for pay. So what are the added benefits that we can provide to them? I think you have to pitch training and advancement opportunities, you have got to pitch that they aren't just going to stay in the same position where they are right now, forever. That's kind of a bleak outlook for many people. So outline a roadmap of learning expectations, basically showing after six months, these are the things that you'll know, after a year. These are the other things and how I'm going to get you there. And that's
Meghan 04:21
a great way for them to see and be part of the process. They'll be able to maybe attend conferences, or take behavior courses, or will they be able to get reimbursed for college courses on animal behavior or something like that. Or maybe they can attend a local business group event on marketing and communication or the Chamber of Commerce, there are so many opportunities that you can do with them. And also think about volunteer opportunities as well. Maybe as a company you want to every other Saturday you want to volunteer at the local humane society or volunteer at the farmers market, passing out dog biscuits or something like that,
Collin 05:01
yeah, the benefits of values that your company has and the core values that you maintain. That is something that not just we need to be communicating to our clients, but also the employees that we are trying to attack, attract, help them see how they can be connected with you, and help be part of a bigger vision that they can help shape and continue pushing forward. Basically, whatever you can do to plan out and think of what things that you can provide for them so that they can see that you are investing in them.
Meghan 05:29
And that's also a great reminder that when you hire no one will be totally perfect. Even you are not totally what well. But that's why having a training progression lined out is so helpful, because it allows you to see where each candidate will fit and where they are in the progression timeline and what you want for them. It's also a great way for them to know as well. So they're not left in the dark of, oh, after I've been here a year, and I am still just walking dogs or I haven't gotten any advancement opportunities,
Collin 06:04
When will you stop coming along on walks with me, let me do them by myself.
Meghan 06:09
Yeah, the more communication that you can have with them as far as their job duties, and when they're going to have independence is really going to be beneficial to them.
Collin 06:18
Right? Well, that's really important for the second part here of other benefits that you can offer is cross training. And that's something that Mike and I are really interested in pursuing for our first hire, we think it's really important to work on cross training people that you hire, because you'll be able to train them not just on the pet care, but also on the booking and the social media aspect and the accounting and making a more well rounded position. Plus, you as the business owner get more benefit out of one person, instead of having to hire someone for communication and another for the accounting and another for admin and a dog walker, you can basically hire two people cross train them, and you'll be getting a lot more productivity out of each one of them.
Meghan 07:00
A lot of us walkers and sitters don't have eight hours of full dog walking work for our staff members to do anyway. So at least in the beginning, they're able to actually get utilized, they can walk the three to four walks you have or one to two, whatever you have available for them. And then the rest of the time, they can work in Canva, creating your posts for the rest of the day or for the coming week or whatever you have outlined for them. Or they can be returning phone calls, or doing boots on the ground with flyers and community building with other businesses. And obviously, it's a lot for some people to do and remember, and very few staff will be as passionate about your business as you are. But once they see that you value them as a part of the team and that you are interesting things with them and giving them independence, it's really going to help them and their morale within your company. And then showing them every little thing that you do will really help you in the end as well.
Collin 08:02
And I know you may be hearing this and thinking, well, you may have some reservations about this idea. But don't be afraid of teaching them everything, and then have this fear of them leaving and stealing your clients inside their own company. Living with that kind of fear will limit your growth. At some point, you will need to trust others and we will have to trust others with that. And I know that is scary because this idea of cross training really makes it seem like you're showing them everything that your business does. But at the end of the day, remember when we talk about what's the secret sauce to your business, you you, that's you, you cannot be recreated you cannot be duplicated. So even though you may show them how you like to create social media posts and show them how you like to book new clients, that doesn't mean that they can recreate your entire business, from soup to nuts.
Meghan 08:53
A third benefit to consider is beyond the cross training and promotions is you may have to look into insurance for them, it's probably not going to be full health coverage, although I'm sure a lot of people would like that. But look what the cost to have a company dental plan or a company vision plan is those are much cheaper than the fall health coverage, or some other things that you come up with that are really going to entice people,
Collin 09:17
I will say that having a life insurance policy is relatively cheap. And again, it's something that you could have on there as a benefit for working for you.
Meghan 09:25
And then also workers compensation, you need to discuss that. If if that's something you want to provide to them, and then have that conversation with them and tell them how they are covered if they're injured.
Collin 09:37
And I know you may be listening right now going, but all you two are talking about is spending money, money money, but we don't have any money. We don't have any money at all. I think we have to get back to the root of this discussion, which is actually money. So what are your prices came? Can we afford all of this kind of discussion of maybe we're so busy, but can we actually afford Bringing on an employee. So we really have to look at breaking all the numbers out.
Meghan 10:06
And there's a reason why a solo sitter can charge $12 for a 30 minute walk, while the pet sitting company with staff has to charge $23 to make a profit. So for example, you have to know the price of your walk, what do I have to charge to cover all of my expenses plus the profit that I want for me, so I can pay myself. And that's a lot of work.
Collin 10:29
But knowing those numbers is where the power comes in, not just for decision making, but for knowing how you're going to structure all of this. So what are these expenses that we're talking about? Well, you've got the hourly wage for the employee, that any insurance that you're providing, you've got to pay for workers comp, taxes at these federal, state and local level. Remember, for our staff, where we're withholding money sometimes for them. And don't forget about any benefits that you're providing. So those opportunities that you have for first aid trading for your free certification, which they again, just as a reminder, they have a new pet sitter fear free certification program that's available, those paying for those has to come from somewhere. So we have to price that into what we charge
Meghan 11:10
and obviously the workers comp the insurance, the hourly wage for the employee are going to go under the umbrella of the employee. If you have independent contractors, you will likely still want to provide them with a minimum first aid training. It's also important to think about if you're going to cover mileage, or gas, I don't think you can do both. It's one or the other. If you are looking to hire insurance is a must. And as pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters associates is here to help. For over 20 years, pet sitters associates has provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. If you work in the pet care industry or want to make your passion for pets into a profession. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today at pets at LLC comm you can get a discount when joining by clicking membership petsitter confessional and use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at petsfit llc.com. So
Collin 12:16
how do we set our prices to cover everything that we've discussed? Do you raise them before or after you bring on your staff number because you will have more expenses with them. I think you should raise your prices beforehand, and then higher. So you can prove there's a market for the price that you need for the person that you're bringing on. You want to prove the profitability of something like $25 instead of charging $19 hiring someone and then having to raise to $25. And losing clients are finding out that there's no market or appetite for that. Because again, you still have to meet the minimum wage, X number of dollars for workers comp depending on where you are. And everything else on top of the that we've discussed, like taxes and insurance, basically figure between 12 and 15% above the minimum wage, so that you know what you need to charge to cover all those expenses for that staff member. So if you bring somebody on at $10 an hour, that's your base, many of us are looking to pay more than that. But let's just say $10 an hour because that makes our math easy. And yes, for many of us, it's easier to communicate a per hour rate versus a per service pay. And most people looking for jobs understand the per hour base rate. So you will have to decide what the minimum number of hours for the week will be and see if they're okay with that. So back to our $10 an hour if we're if we're paying $10 an hour, and we're adding a maximum 15% here. So now we're looking around $13, let's just say to give a little bit of leeway. But you still need to make a profit of what 40 50% so we're adding an additional seven bucks. So right now we're already at 20 bucks for that walk to pay for that staff member with plenty of margin in there for changes, errors or whatever. And I might add this is very important, have some headroom for pay raises in the future. Because that's something else is going to help you keep and retain staff and attract ones for new hires is that you do have a way to give raises throughout the year and allow for cost of living adjustments periodically.
Meghan 14:19
And that's why annual small price increases are good for your company, whether even if you're solo, or have staff either way, because it allows for pay raises for your staff if you have them. And if you're so low, it just allows you a little more cushion to live off of. So basically get out your calculator and break down if you want to hire if this is a road you want to go down, you need to know your numbers. And so get out the calculator and figure out what you need to be making to for you to live off of but also to hire staff
Collin 14:53
and don't check the math that I did off the top of my head with your calculator earlier because it's probably all wrong, but it's basically just we're trying to do ballpark numbers here on the fly, to get an understanding of what some of these things look like and exactly how big of an increase we're talking about. Because when we think about bringing on staff, we do think, okay, there's going to be an increase in expenditure. But what is that? Is that something you can absorb? Is that something that you feel comfortable raising the rates on. And again, that Megan said, this is why small incremental price increases every year are critical to helping the survival of your company and to provide those pay increases for your staff,
Meghan 15:30
not to add on top of this, but if you have employees, now you have payroll. So where is that pay coming from for your payroll? Well, it's coming from your services, you have to break it out port per service, how much new guy need to earn to pay for payroll to account for the new employee.
Collin 15:49
And all of this sounds like so much, we're basically again, we've only talked about spending money and spending money and spending money. But if you're staring down a barrel look saying I cannot meet all my current obligations, and I've got a flood of new people coming in the door,
Meghan 16:03
and I want to meet those people.
Collin 16:06
That's the key part here, you want to be able to meet them. Bringing on staff is really one of our only options that we have to do that other than referring out to other people in our area. So these are, these are the things that we are considering that we do have to look at and weigh the pros and cons Is this something that we're up for or, or not, because it's more than just the numbers, it's also the managing interpersonal relationships as well. All of those can be managed, all of those can be accounted for. It's whether it really, really deciding if we are the ones that are going to be up for that. And that's up to you. And that's perfectly fine. We've seen and heard many people who have decided and looked down this road and gone, you know, that's not for me, right? Now. I can maintain what I'm doing. Or I can adjust things a little bit, I can continue to scale down. For those of us who are looking at ways to scale up, these are the considerations that we do have to take into account if that's where we want to go.
Meghan 17:00
And in Episode 174, Bella vasta actually talked about this, it was talking about what do you want out of your business. So when it comes to hiring, knowing the How is usually a lot easier than the what so she talked about how to understand who you are, and how to have strong leadership role before you think about hiring. But she
17:18
probably said everything that I said, but just 10 times better.
Meghan 17:23
And all of this does sound like a lot to take in. And that's why I said before, you know this past year has been full of ups and downs. And it's really kind of favored the Petcare businesses that were established, and already had a bunch of employees where, you know, maybe not all of the employees returned after last year, but they didn't have to start from zero. So this whole year is not favoring people that are solopreneurs, like us that want to scale up and hire people. Because we are having to start from zero and not have a team already in place
Collin 17:56
exactly in this is a really tough conversation for us to have. Scale begets scale. Money begets money in business, it's easier to scale when you were already at scale. Because part of this is that you can have all of the best systems in the world. But if you don't have the scale, rapidly scaling is harder. And you need infrastructure and infrastructure does include the people to be put into your systems.
Meghan 18:23
Yeah, they say the first hire is the hardest.
Collin 18:25
You can have the best processes, you'd have the best programs in place, the best everything. But if you don't have people filling those positions, none of that's doing you any good. So people who prior to the pandemic had a couple people on staff or maybe a very large staff, whether full time or part time, they were able to meet the new demand much faster than people who were starting from zero.
Meghan 18:47
Yeah, if you have 30 people on your payroll already, you could reach out to those people immediately when you needed them again, when services started to pick back up and people were taking vacations again. And you could say, okay, we're ready to hire again, ready to bring you back on? Do you want to come back on? and probably most of them said yes. If half of them came back on. Okay, great. Well, you were already starting out with a team of 15 people ready to meet the new demand and grow from there. While people who didn't have anybody on staff like us, we couldn't just reach out to them because there's nobody to reach out to exist, right? They didn't have a pre existing relationship or an understanding or a history with them. And now we're having to turn clients away, left and right are being bombarded by people going away. And we're kind of trying to scramble to bring on new sitters.
Collin 19:36
Yeah, I mean, if we just personally for our business, if we had had just two sitters to cover the outer area of our service radius right now, we would never have to turn anybody away. Instead, we're having to refer to them and send them to other centers because we just can't handle that capacity. And this is why we are in this process of hiring and why all these thoughts are running through our head. And yeah, I'm sitting here going, Oh my gosh, if we had just started this entire process and had somebody six months ago, maybe just four months ago, we would be in a much different position of being able to handle these things. But that's where we are right now. And that's where many of us are finding ourselves. And that's not bad, right? We can't sit here and think about the what if or what could have bins in business and in life, because that doesn't get you anywhere, there's no benefit of that. What's important is recognizing where we are right now, and how that compares to where we want to go and what we want to be doing.
Meghan 20:30
And I think that's why you should always be hiring, always have an ad out, so that you can be looking at people who are coming in and have conversations with them instead of going, Oh, crud, I'm 200 at 248% capacity, what do I do now? How do I get all this training done? And the manuals and how do I hire somebody? And that's advice that we need to take to?
Collin 20:54
We're not saying this because we've got this locked, figured out. We're saying this as people who are on the backfoot right now and saying, Oh, we didn't quite do this, right, we need to change something about our processes and about our business.
Meghan 21:08
Yeah, so that we are able to meet the demand, because there is a big demand right now. And we didn't really prepare for that. So do you think that in a few weeks, and when we start to put our ad out for business, that it's going to be tough?
Collin 21:20
Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be tough, I genuinely believe that it is going to take a while to hire somebody, our whole idea was to have somebody hired by September. But I don't think that on top of everything that we've discussed that there with the interview, and the onboarding process, that we're going to be able to meet that. So the kind of ad that we're thinking about putting out here is going to say something like, funky bunch, pet care is growing and needs your skills, we are seeking a pet sitter, or dog walker, to join our team to get the highest level of care, get trained on social media, ad copy administration and pet care while you work flexible hours, with all of the cutest pets, additional training opportunities and benefits available. Once we put that out there, it's probably going to take a few weeks to collect everything sort through, see who bubbles to the top?
Meghan 22:11
Well, that's assuming we even have people that apply.
Collin 22:14
Oh, that's kind of my worst nightmare is that we put this out there. And so let's assume that at least two people have applied, then we've got to do the interviews, then the onboarding, and then the additional training, the person might actually might actually not start doing services until October. Now my hope against hope is that it doesn't, and it actually is able to find the right person quickly. Again, this is going to take some fine tuning of the ad copy that we put out there for the job posting and listing and see what kind of connections we have in the area to see if we can fast track this process. But I think kind of putting this out worst case scenario, we're saying, okay, someone's in the field actively doing things in October that way when we exceed that, which again, I hope we do, it's going to beat our expectations, and we can move faster than we expected.
Meghan 23:01
Okay, so what are we looking for in a hire
Collin 23:03
somebody available part time to start with probably only 10 to 15 hours a week to begin someone with local connections, who understands our core values, someone who's a good communicator, and willing to learn, since we're planning on using this person, for more than just pet care, they will have to be very well rounded and be adaptive. This is our first hire ever. So we're all in this together. And adaptive is going to be the name of the game. And I know a question that we have struggled and wrestled with is, do we have the clients first and then bring on the staff? Or do we hire and then go and get the clients. And since our goal is to hire somebody and to be cross trained, the first couple things that they're actually going to be doing is working a lot probably in Canva, so we can get ahead of our social media posts, and, and doing just a lot of writing and possibly moving into blog posts and other things along those lines. They're going to be helping us with marketing and new areas and doing recon and new places as well.
Meghan 24:04
Basically presenting it as, hey, this is a dog walker slash administration position, where you're going to be involved with helping us lay the foundation for where we grow. So obviously, we're still thinking about this in real time. And we'll keep you posted on how it goes. So we'd love to know your thoughts on hiring, how it's gone for you if it's been a positive process, a negative process, any advice you have for us, and what did the path process for you been like lately versus last year or previously, when you've tried to hire any and all advice we'd love to give? We'd love to share? Let us know.
Collin 24:38
This week pet business coach Natasha obeya answers the question, how do we empower others? you've you've said a word several times, over the course of answering many of these questions in one word has been in power and we empower through education, but how do we how else can we empower those around us and can do we empower our employees, or can we empower others in our community totally.
Natasha 25:04
So you definitely empower your staff, you empower your clients, and you empower the community. So you empower your clients by showing them how the business actually operates, what they can do, listen, we have an app designed for you, we've taken in your feedback, and we're continuing to improve to provide excellence. Now you can go here and here and here and do this. And this and this, we naturally benefit because we've showed the client as a leader, how they can best survive in this culture with us, and they love it and you love it. Once you outline things for the client, then you outline them for the staff lesson. This is the way that our clients do it. And then this is where you pick up. Okay, so now everybody knows what's going on. And now when the client is happy, and the staff knows how to support them, it naturally streams to the community. I love this company. This is what they do for me. They make it so easy. Their process is amazing. like looking at your reviews online. Look at the details that they give you. I love how when I call they say this, I love looking at the photos. I love reading the reports. I mean, you should use this company because the way they treat me I know they'll treat you the same. So you see how sales happen without even happening. I think excellence is an experience. So people ask me, oh, I don't want to feel salesy. Well, if you put sales as an experience and not a price, you provide that amazing experience. The price always come from behind it because the value is what you rolled out. And clients will speak for you and your staff will speak for you. So that's why I was saying power. Nobody wants to be like, Hey, datia what's next or hated Asha? Can you book my appointment for me? hated Asha. I'm going out of town in April. Hey, can you book Hey, Tasha, my dog does eat food anymore. Can you go ahead and update those notes for me? Hey, Joshua, um, we change our lockbox code. Do you think Can you put in the app for me? painted Asha. I met this client's house and looks like things have changed. Do you know what they want? Do you know what they're doing? Can you contact the client from CompTIA? Right? nobody really wants that. You don't want it and they don't want it. You see how I kind of send that back to you guys how it sounds very naggy one in customer client retention experience. It goes down just like that. It's very naggy for all parties. Right?
Collin 27:28
Well, then they feel like they have to be waiting on you waiting on these things to happen. And when then you start educating them again, that leadership comes in, you're educating them, you're giving them the tools to succeed. You're giving them the tools to do things on their own, so that it's a much more equal relationship and not so one way, then you're building these tighter connections with them to
Natasha 27:51
and you're showing them that you're listening. Say Hey, Collin, I noticed that you text me at seven and we were close. I now have offered you an option to wear when you need something, you can go ahead and take care of it. So you don't have to wait on me. How does that sound? Hey, Natasha, I noticed that when you get to client's homes, you have an issue looking for their garage code. You know what I've done? I put a process in place for you. So when the client books, we put it in dislocations, you can find it every single time. How does that work for you? Hey, Natasha, when clients update their notes, I've actually made them put it in the app now versus writing a home grown note at home. So now if you come or Susie comes or Jeff comes, we actually all have the same notes and making a full transparency now no matter who's in their house. Does that work out for you? Right? And clients are like cool. I like it. And walkers and sitters are like thank you for putting it in. For me. You saw my pain points you saw when I was having an issue. You saw that I contact you about the same thing over and over and over. And you know what? You did something? Wow. Leadership. You know, you got to listen and then if you're going to listen, do something after you listen.
Collin 29:09
If you'd like Natasha to be your personal pet business coach, head on over to start scale sale and use the promo code PSC 20 for 15% offer coaching services. Thank you so much to our sponsor for today's episode, pet sitters associates and for our Patreon members for supporting us every month for the price of a cup of coffee. If you're interested in learning more about that you can go to pet sitter confessional comm forward slash support.
Meghan 29:32
We also thank you for taking your most valuable asset your time and listening to us today. We appreciate it more than you know. And thank you so much for sharing and for always listening. We appreciate it.
Collin 29:43
Thank you so much.
