It’s that time of year again… the start of POOL SEASON! Along with that usually comes hiring and training new staff to prep for the season ahead. My question to you is what do you do for hiring and training employees??
The video above is a cliff notes version of my successes and failures with hiring new staff. There’s been a lot of growing pains with this topic to figure out what we are looking for as a company and how to find them. The team I have now is the best I’ve ever had. Some luck is involved, some is “knowing” someone and the rest is just sifting through hundreds of applications to find the right fit. I’ve hired a lot of bad eggs along the way before I found the solid team I have now. So it’s not all unicorns and rainbows when wanting to grow. Believe me on that one!
- Hiring: We’re to the point now where we keep an Indeed listing open 24/7 to keep applications coming in to build up a list of applicants you'd like to hire when the time comes. Hopefully, this will create a quick hiring process because you’ll have a list of pre-qualified applicants. In the beginning, it was family, then friends, then friends of friends, and now it’s essentially Indeed. Make sure you ask a lot of qualifying questions and do a thorough process to better your chances of hiring a quality employee!
- Training: With my company, there is zero pressure to get up and ready to run pools on your own. I prefer hiring “green” people, or people who have not worked in the industry before. Because of this it typically takes longer to get them out on their own and I’m complete fine with that! I’ve had some trainees take up to six months before they are ready to go out on their own. That way you are not fixing things like professionalism or cutting corners that you find when hiring people who worked for previous companies that have low standards. I have them run with existing techs to get a feel of the job and also pick up pieces of knowledge from everyone on the team.
- When it’s time to hire: I get asked this question a lot and here’s my answer. If you all of a sudden had five pools added to your schedule and there is no way you could get them done, it’s time to hire. Start someone out as a helper and groom/train them while they are will you to convert to an employee. That way you can start giving pools to them to fill them up and you rinse and repeat. That is how I’ve grown my business!
- Other important nuggets: Your employees are the heart of the company. Treat them well! If you don’t have employees you don’t have a company. It’s out of the ordinary but I run the company as employees come first, then the company. I know it sounds weird but it’s been pretty successful thus far. Don’t look at the employee as a number, but instead, a person you care about in and out of the office. They will appreciate you and return the appreciation through their work.
A tip that has worked really well for me is trying to always keep a floater on staff in case someone is out sick, quits, or whatever. That way you’re covered!
Questions for you:
- How do you hire your employees?
- Do you have a strict training schedule to get them out as soon as possible or is there no pressure when training?
- Do you prefer hiring people with or without experience?
- When do you like to hire new staff?
