Hiring System to Find All-Stars - Ep.23

Hello, everyone. This is Mike Andes and you're listening to landscapebusinesscourse.com podcast. Today we're going to be talking about hiring systems and how to get the right people on the bus in your business working hard, and that will stay with you long term. Now, I do want to say thank you to a few people who have emailed me this past week. We changed the format of the webinar on landscapebusinesscourse.com so no longer do you have to wait for a live session. We just had so many people that weren't able to make those because scheduling and I get it, we're small business owners and we have demanding schedules. So what I've made it now is I'm gonna record a webinar each Saturday and then load it up there, and then you guys can watch it anytime you want. So right now, if you go to landscapebusinesscourse.com you can sign up for the webinar and instantly listen to it and you can still ask questions in the sidebar. So we have five people actually are on their live and they ask questions, but then you can also ask questions as if you were live on the webinar as well. So that's a lot of fun. Check it out. Landscapebusinesscourse.com now, today, I want to talk about hiring systems. Now, a lot of people recognize the power and value of having good people on your team. And especially for landscaping and lawn care, we sell service, we sell time, and we have to have that time. That time is provided by our employees. Essentially, you pay your employees a rate, and that markup, between what you pay them and what you charge as a customer has to cover all of your expenses, all of your overhead, and then hopefully you have a profit on top of that. And so that'd be a profit margin. But when we're talking about having these people that are going to be doing the service and are going to be the ones actually doing the labor part of your business, and then as you grow, you're going to need admin staff, office staff, drivers, things like that. They're more overhead expense. But when we talk about finding the right people, it's so, so important. And a lot of people realize that. However, in our industry, so many people are using what I call the like essentially, essentially, they're crossing their fingers and hoping that people work out when it comes to hiring. Essentially, what is so, so, so popular in our industry is try them out. You see if they work good, see if they can, if they're able to Endure the hard labor aspect of the business, especially if they're a labor and you kind of throw them out there with maybe your manager and just see after a day or two if they're gonna work out. And this is really just like crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. And I've tried that in the past, I really have. And the reason is this, the reason I've tried that in the past is I always believed that in our industry when there's hard work involved and laborious kind of jobs, that either someone is going to fulfill the position or they're not. And I'm gonna know that really fast after one or two days of working with them or having my manager work with them, them. And to some degree that's still true because labor's positions are like that. Like some people just are not cut out for being outside 8, 10, 12 hours a day and they can't handle, you know, they're not very good with equipment and fixing things. And there's a lot of equipment involved with lawn care and landscaping and stuff. So that's part of it. And I get it. Like I understand and that's what my philosophy has been for a long time now. This past year, if you've been listening to the podcast, you've heard this before. We kind of got burnt and one of these people in October, we hired them and you take the resume, you call some of their references, you do a short interview and then you're kind of like, okay, well we're gonna test you out for a week and then after a week we will either A, fire you or B, we'll offer you a full time position. And really this is trial and error. This is kind of like cross your fingers and hope it works out. And so that's what we did. And it did not work out. He pretended like he got hurt. It was a pre existing condition. Said he had like all sorts of bulging discs in his back and stuff and he was on pain meds during time he wasn't around me and I didn't know that until afterwards. And so like two days into the job he goes to L I, makes a big claim and it was an absolute disaster. And so we had to pay for his time loss and for his medical bills and all sorts of craziness. So that was no fun. And so I guess it kind of, it kind of woke me up to the fact that we're doing something wrong in our hiring system and we're changing that in 2017. So I'm going to be reporting to you all. I'll be reporting to you guys as to how it works out for those of course, members. I'm going to be videoing this entire process and in a month I will upload a video of exactly what I'm going to be talking about today and what the whole theses behind what I'm talking about today is that you have to have a process for your hiring. And the reason you have to have a process for it is it's not fair to the new hire and it's not fair to your current employees if you don't have a system in place and you're not vetting these people and training them correctly when they enter into the field or estimate or whatever position you're putting them into. Number one, it's not fair to the new hire because especially if you're running a good business, like with systems and procedures and you have software systems that run stuff, like if you have all that. But then when you hire them, it just seemed like they walked into your business, like did a quick interview, you threw them out there, didn't have a whole lot of systems in place, and you're just kind of just doing this trial and error thing with hiring. And then all of a sudden they get hired. Great. They're a great person. They're gonna work out. Yahoo. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, now we have a system for our scheduling and we have a system for time tracking and we have a system for job costing and for, for keeping track of your receipts and we have all system for all of this. All of a sudden it's like they're like, this is an absolute reversal from this person who just slipshod, hired them on the spot, so to speak. And then all of a sudden you're expecting them to do all sorts of procedures and have a schedule and punch in and out for time tracking and keep a very regimented schedule for lawn care and keeping track of everything for expenses and receipts. And like all of a sudden, like, where in the world is this? Like, it's not fair to the employee. It really is not. Because they didn't come into it with their eyes really wide open and not being educated on the position they were getting into. So that's an issue number two. It's not fair for your existing employees who have to deal with all the carnage of your bad decision making and poor system that you have for hiring. Because guess who's going to have to deal with the lousy hires? You. The guys you have currently Your current employees, your current manager who has to go through all these lousy employees. And that's not good for morale. And it's showing your people that you have now that you don't care about them enough, you don't care about your team enough, you don't care about your business enough to take the time, to take the thought, to create the systems that are gonna get the right people attracted to your business. And when you have these systems, you're gonna have less turnover. People are gonna stay with you longer because they know where the company's going, they know where is going, what they're going to be doing within the business, what they're responsible for. And that is so important. Like, we talk. We talk about the employee contract and all of that, but I think your onboarding process is really the best form of marketing. Because we talk about marketing and getting leads and all of that, but what about getting great leads for your new hires? Getting great people to show up for what we're going to talk about today, like your job fair and to submit applications, like, how do you get good people? And so I'm gonna talk to you today what I'm changing in 2017, and especially over the course of next month, because we're getting a few more people on board and what we're doing to systematize our hiring process. So let me walk you through what we're gonna do. I hope you use it yourself. I will be reporting back in a month how this is doing. And like I said, for the course members, I'm gonna video and give you an example, like visually, of our application, our job fair, our tutorial, introduction, like the whole bit. And so, so let's go through it right now. So instead of advertising on Craigslist and all that, and asking for people to send their resumes and all of that, and you get all sorts of people. The problem that I don't like about Craigslist, and if you're a course member, you've heard me talk about this before, the thing I don't like about Craigslist is it's easy for someone to go out there and send 25, 30 applications to a whole bunch of random companies. And not even applications, just resumes. Because a lot of people just ask for a resume, and so they just print out. They just make up their resume. And if they're unemployed, they'll send 20, 30 applications out or resumes out in a day, and you're just one of many. And so what you want to do is really get their Attention and get their commitment and weed out the people that are just trying to skim the surface of the employment world and get, you know, have 10 jobs every year and just kind of bounce along. You don't want those people. And so how do you do that? You still use Craigslist, still use those other ways of. But instead of asking for a resume or a video or whatever, like ask like all you should do is briefly describe the positions that you're going to be offering and then have a link to your website. This is just a very much more professional way of doing things. And instead of having them, you know, email your, their resume to your personal email address, like it's just. And then you send from their, your iPhone or your mobile device response. And so it's just so much better if you send them to your website. On the website you should have a standardized application process. And so that application will include everything from their references to past employment history. And then you can change things like your questions. Like we have a smoke free work environment, they got to have a clean driving record, like all the things that we want that they need to have. And they have to answer all of those things. Like one of the biggest questions for me on the application is, are you currently employed? If the answer to that is no, and it's been several weeks that they haven't been employed, sometimes that can indicate a problem. Not all the time, but if they are unemployed, it's a good chance they're going around trying to find all sorts of places to work and you're just one of many. Again, however, if they're employed, it shows that they're committed and they're gonna keep working every day of their life. That's commitment. And yes, I get that people unemployed and they're just bad circumstances, so I don't write everyone off. But a lot of times if people are employed and they're handing out applic, it might mean that they want to move up or change career paths or they want to get more money and so they're looking for a new position. And if they are having problems with their current employer, at least they stay on board and continue to work. And they're not just one of the people that throw in the towel, quit, don't show up to work one day and start looking for another job. And so that shows a lot to me. And I'm not saying that a surefire way of finding a good person. I'm just saying that that's one of the things we look for and is one of the questions we have on our application. So step number finding people through any medium, word of mouth, Facebook, your webpage, whatever it is driving them to this application. So step number one is getting people to fill out this application. Number two is our office will then send to that, like as soon as that form gets delivered to us from our website, as soon as we get it, the office will then forward them an invitation to an employee orientation evening. So for us, I think it's February 7th. We're going to have an evening where all of the people that submit applications are invited to for the three different positions that we're offering. Lawn care, landscaping, and then delivery driver. And so those are the positions we're offering right now. And so what they're going to do is they're going to show up and at that employee orientation meeting, I'm going to have like, you know, a nice event, like an hour or so. We'll have some food and appetizers. We'll have the managers that we currently have on staff, they'll be there in uniform and they'll be able to kind of see around the shop, around the office and things. And then I'll do a presentation. So the presentation might be 30 minutes or so and I'll introduce the different positions and then I'll talk about our company, how we started, what our kind of business ethos is, how we do our work, our management style, what a typical day will look like. I'll talk about those sort of things, kind of make them feel like they understand where the business is coming from, what our goals are, where we're trying to go to. And then before I end the presentation, I will give the realities of the job. I'll kind of try to scare away the people who are surface feeding or are just showing up for the food. And so what I'll do is I will talk about some of the realities of the job. Things like, hey, we're gonna work out in the rain. You're just gonna have rain gear on, you're gonna work out in 90 plus weather. Sometimes it's gonna be early days, late night. Sometimes you might work 12 hours plus in a day. Sometimes some of those things that people don't think about, or if they get glamorized by our higher pay scale or how they can move up or the company is growing and all this. But then I kind of bring in the realities and want to try to filter out the people that aren't going to be good long term and are only going to stick around for a few months. Or a year, because I want people at least two years. That's my kind of like, I get that people are going to move on and I don't expect people to stay with us a lifetime. I do want people to stay more than one year if possible. Like if they can stay two. Because that first year they're learning everything. They really kind of master the field. In year two, I can really begin to work with them on management. And then I feel like after year two, why would they leave? Because now they're managing, now their pay is better, now they have a lot of room to grow. And so my goal is to try to keep people for more than that first year. And so to do that. This is why this hiring process is so effective, I believe. And as I try this out, I'm gonna report back to you guys. And so that's. I'm gonna have that presentation. After the presentation, they're going to be able to sign up for specific time slots. So I think February 7th is like a Tuesday. On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we'll have interview slots to which they can sign their name to and sign up to come for a 15 minute interview. And so at those interviews, of course, I'll ask them all sorts of questions, kind of go over their application and dig a little deeper, probably call some of their references those evenings. And then over the weekend I will make my decision as to who we're going to be hiring. And so now they have a certain level of commitment that they've shown throughout this process. Number one, they took the time to fill out the application. It's not a copy paste. It's not just attach your resume. Like they got to fill out information. That was a commitment. Then they committed to an entire evening of showing up at the office, being orientated to what they're going to be doing. They're very clear as to what their goals and responsibilities within the organization are going to be. And then they made a further commitment to come again to the office and have an interview. So now these are qualified people, like qualified leads, like we talk about marketing leads that are hot or warm. But these people now have become qualified leads as far as employment because they have shown their commitment to getting this job. And I promise you, it's a whole lot more commitment than most small businesses are requiring, especially in our industry. And so just this level of commitment that they've been showing to you is powerful. So now that when you call them, you say, hey, you're hired. Show up next week and we're gonna have an entire Day of watching video tutorials and then an entire week of being with a manager on the crew and actually seeing jobs in person and being out in the field. And so that's our hiring process. And obviously like that first day they show up, they're gonna have their employee contract, they got assigned, they're going to watch the tutor, they're gonna have to hand in their tax information, get set up for time clock, like all of that good stuff. And that's also part of the process too. But I really feel like this way we're gonna get much more qualified leads and people are gonna stick around with us longer and we're gonna weed out the people that are surface feeding, as I like to call it. So that's gonna be our process. I'm gonna report back to you guys in a month, see how it goes. But I encourage you, if you don't already, you want to create systems within your business and hiring is one of the most important things within our business. But so often it's the hardest thing to systematize. Like it's easy to systematize your estimating and your invoicing and keeping track of your customer information and expenses. Like that's pretty simple. You can get a software package to do that for you. But to create a hiring system takes some thought. You've got tailor it to exactly to how your going to work your business and how it's going to transition into the culture of your company. So that's it for today everyone. Landscapebusinesscourse.com today was episode 23. It's been a lot of fun and thank you so much for all your support. If you haven't already watched the webinar, it's over. At landscapebusinesscourse.com we talk all things marketing small business for what I've been doing over the course the past three years with my company. So check it out if you're interested to see what our application looks like for for employment, you can check out our my landscaping company's websites. AugustaLawCareServices.com careers that's Augusta. Augusta is August with an A at the end. Augustalawncareservices.com careers thank you so much everyone. We'll see you next time. Landscapebusinesscourse.com.