Over the years our SFS Training students have overwhelmingly told me finding good employees is their greatest challenge. (And our very dialed in ‘Growing Your Business’ Facebook Group says finding ANY workers today is tougher than ever!)
RESOURCE: You’ll get 100’s of new recruiting and hiring ideas in our 3-hour, online SFS: Hiring the Very Best! LIVE seminar. Click HERE for the class curriculum, upcoming dates and/or to easily register online.
A huge challenge for most owner-operators is ‘making the jump’ from working alone to hiring that first full time employee. After all, this means a solo entrepreneur must virtually double his or her work load all at once! Or…
If you already have employees it can be tough justifying the continuing overhead (and responsibility) of hiring yet another “family to provide for”! So I strongly suggest you…
Consider recruiting at least some part time workers instead of only offering full time employment.
Part time employees bring many advantages:
1) Many great people already have a job but just need supplementary income. (Sadly, most people out of work coming in to apply for full time employment are ‘unemployed for a very good reason’!)
2) Since part time workers have another income you don’t feel the crushing ‘moral pressure’ of being the ‘sole provider’ for their family. (I mean come on- for those of you with FT employees how often have you come up with ‘busy work’ just to provide them with a pay check?)
3) When business is slow instead of finding the ‘busy work’ in #2 you just tell your part-timers to not come in! (This means since part time employees only do revenue producing work you can pay them well per hour.)
4) Part time employment is a great ‘proving ground’. If someone becomes a “rock star” in your company THEN offer them a full time position. (I tell every SFS class to stop ‘Desperation Hiring’ and testing out PT people is a great way to do this!)
5) When we were slammed my part time workers were always ‘hungry’ for more work. Full time people? Not so much!
6) With more part time employees you spread your risk and avoid having “all your eggs in one basket”.
Commercial HINT: Full time people in late night/weekend positions burn out and quit without notice and then guess what? YOU get to fill the gap by working day and night! But very well paid part time employees (no more than two 6 hour shifts per week) love their “supplementary income”. (And always want more!)
NOTE: Commercial maintenance ‘encapsulation routes’ are PERFECT for these short night-time and weekend shifts! CLICK HERE for a free manual on how to sell and price these these ‘encap routes’. Then CLICK HERE to learn how to organize and produce this work using the Cimex Cyclone or other encapsulation machines.
Restoration HINT: The inevitable ups and downs of restoration are perfect for part time, ‘on call’ employees. (Just be sure to train them on restoration “Moments of Truth”.)
Steve
Every week we share a timely, practical tip like the above. So if you’re not already signed up for these FREE weekly QuickTIPS, do so now.
Also new this week: