Hiring in the Age of COVID

Have you had challenges in hiring during "The Great Resignation"? Has this had a negative impact on your cleaning business?

Fast Company Magazine says two-thirds left due to a lack of engagement and a lack of overall well-being. HRM cites that it costs $4129/employee on average to train and hire them.

Hire before you need to hire.

Our job ad sources are mentioned below, along with others like FB, LinkedIn, local FB community groups, your own website, and even local colleges.

What goes in our ad?
1) Write based on emotion. Figure out your ideal employee.
2) Focus on a winning headline
3) Your first paragraph should have a company summary.
4) Talk about what the applicant will gain through their experience working with you.
5) Describe your company's benefits (e.g. "Enjoy holiday weekends with 6 paid holidays per year").
6) Cover the requirements in 4 areas: experience, education, skill, and personal characteristics.
7) Place a clear Call to Action (CTA). What do you want them to do next?

Hire before you need to hire. Place ads before you need to. Continuously collect applications and follow up regularly. We have no less than 50 qualified candidates at the ready at any given time. If someone quits tomorrow, we am ready.

Lastly, interview. We do a 3-step interview: a) 5 minutes to prequalify them, b) a 10-20 minute interview going over details, and c) a 3rd interview to tie up loose ends and to make an offer.

Resources mentioned:

Canva.com
Question Behind The Question, by John G Miller
Fast Company - on well-being and engagement
Human Resource Management - $4129 to hire on average
Indeed.com
Ziprecruiter
Craigslist
Google For Jobs
PostJobFree
Mike Michalowicz's Job Ad from Clockwork
Universal Janitorial Services, Inc. has been serving the DC area for the last 44 years by providing janitorial, porter, disinfecting, and specialty floor work for schools, places of worship, office buildings, banks, and so many more. We utilize a 3-step quality control process to make sure your facility is clean, thereby improving your productivity and your ROI. Give us a call at 703-385-1232 today.

I teamed up with SpeakPipe. If you have any questions and would like to be featured on the show, go to https://www.speakpipe.com/BeyondTheMop and click "Start Recording". Record up to a 90-second question and you'll be featured on the podcast along with the answer(s) to your question(s). I'll put all of these together and will release them at a later date.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Have you had challenges in hiring during the Great resignation? Has this had a negative impact on your cleaning business? If so, check this episode out hiring in the age of COVID. Hey, I'm Mark Lineberry. With beyond the mop. And with each episode, I give a pro tip a guide or resource, something that really helps your business move forward. Let me ask you this. Are you looking for a DIY and budget friendly way to create graphics for your business? Would it be cool to have an online platform to create your own logos, Facebook posts, graphics, Instagram posts, cleaning proposal templates, and many others. Guys, if so, check out canva.com Canva is a really cool resource, especially if you're creative minded are so many tools you could use to create Word Art graphics, pictures for your business, and so forth. And if you're not the creative type, like yours truly, they'll offer many free and paid templates that you can use to up your marketing game. I've use Canva to create social media post, I've used Canva to create podcast art for past and future projects. I've even use Canva to write a couple different ebooks, shameless plug here, one of which is on my clean pivot.com. And I've used it for a couple of different business card designs as well. They offer a free version, which will cover many of your needs, and even a paid version for a low fee. This is a great alternative to subscribing to Adobe Illustrator or even paying for a freelancer through sites like Fiverr or Upwork. Go check out canva.com Well back to hiring in the age of COVID. I'm gonna cover different topics here, I'm gonna cover some statistics. I'm gonna talk about resources or sources, I should say where we put our ads into. I'm gonna talk about what goes into an ad, how we collect our job applications and how we do our interviews. Well, first, some stats Fast Company Magazine says that even though money is a big factor, two thirds of the employees out there left due to a lack of engagement and lack of overall wellbeing. Guys, it's not about the money. Always take the time to invest into your employees, ask them how they're doing, how they're feeling, how their family is, what resource? How can you help them? What guides can you provide for them, and so forth, figure out what makes them tick, what hurts them what bothers them and see how you could solve that pain point for them. Even if it's outside of cleaning, even if it's not even money related. always invest in your fellow human. And if they do ask for money, figure out why they want the money. Every time an employee asked for a raise. I asked them well, why do you want a raise? Now? I'll mean that in a condescending way. But sometimes question behind the question. Great book, by the way, you could dive in and figure out what makes them tick. And why are they looking for the money in the first place. For example, we had someone recently asked for a raise. And it turned out their budget just wasn't meeting their needs, meaning the income for that budget just wasn't meeting their family needs. And so a raise made sense, right? Either I lose them, too, because they might go somewhere else where I give them a raise, which the contract could technically support or at least pull in from other areas. Another example I had an employee asked for a raise, and he wouldn't tell me how much of a raise he needed. And I kept asking questions kept asking, Well, it turned out he had a legal bill that's coming up to is due the following month, and about $6,000 for him. Now. If he's asking for a raise, there's no way I could give him a raise to provide a $6,000 month increase to pay for that pay for that legal bill. And I explained to him that a raise will not help him in the situation here. He needs something else. He needs something better. So I worked with him and talked to him. And it's illegal bill not for any sort of criminal or nefarious reasons. It was just an immigration is a legal immigrant to this country. And you gotta reapply and submit new paperwork and do all this due diligence stuff in terms of researching the employee, what he had to go through all that again, is up for renewal. And he needed that money to cover those legal fees for that process. And so just by talking to him, I learned that was the source and I said, Hey, and silver raise, what if we gave you $2,000 To pay towards this legal fee? And what if you went back to the attorney and worked out some sort of payment plan for the remainder of the balance. And he did that and it worked. He is really happy he got the money and made the attorney happy. It made a very happy employee on my end, and it solved their pain point. And so it gave them a chance to chip away at a much lower price point than what he could have otherwise. So think about fulfilling their needs. Fulfill In their engagement, taking care of their overall well being. Again, it's not always about the money, there's always something there, there's an underlying reason that sometimes he could fix for cost of hiring. According to Human Resource Management, it cost $4,129, on average, to hire and train a brand new employee. Now we're in the cleaning business, I don't think it costs us $4,000 to hire and train a brand new employee, right? Now, it might cost hundreds or even low 1000s, right. For example, if you were to put an ad into indeed, or wherever that's getting cost money, you're now spending time interviewing people. So time is money, right? So now you're spending more money, they have to do the interviews, you have to do the training, you have to do the due diligence, the background checks, and you have to spend time holding their hand for next week or two while they figure out this new account that they're working at. So all that costs time and money because you're pulling from other resources to cover it. So it's not ideal to hire new employee whatsoever, you really want to focus on alternatives. Here's another step. It takes 42 days to hire a brand new employee. So once he put the ad in, on average, nationwide, it takes 42 days to fulfill that job role. When you think about in the cleaning industry, you can't go back to your client and say, Hey, can you wait 42 days because on average, it takes 42 days to hire a new employee. Now, they'll fire you in a heartbeat. You don't have 42 days, you might have one day if you're lucky. So you need to figure out how can I prevent employees from hiring? How can I treat and improve their overall well being? How can I improve their engagement, so that way, they don't leave, and there is no great resignation within your own company. And if you do need to hire, well consider hiring internally. So make some part time employees full time employees, if you need to add hours, take the time to interview each and every one of your employees. Ask them hey, if we were to give you more hours, would you want that? And if you do, what type of schedule would you want? And figure that out? I always ask our employees on a quarterly basis, I rotate through Hey, where else would you like to work out? How much? How many more hours? Would you like to work out? What do you need for your for your own needs? And then we address that. So when jobs do open up? I think oh, are you got someone to mine, I'm gonna bring in such and such employee from another location easy that way. But if you do need to hire outside of your company hire before you need to hire. I know that doesn't make sense whatsoever. But let me say it again, hire before you need to hire. And I'm going to talk about the process of what we do to hire before we need to hire people. But first, here's some of the sources we advertise in. We advertise in indeed zip recruiter, our own newspaper, The Washington Post, Facebook, LinkedIn. I haven't done this yet. But you could post it in local Facebook community groups, you could post in your local community college Iike, posting Craigslist, we've done now a lot of times, you could post in Google for jobs, he could post them post job free and even post on your own website have low link up there, click it fill out an application, and you're off to the races, right? Well, what goes into an ad. This is really important. In Episode One, we talked about creating the client avatar, right? Crane, that ideal client figuring out who you want to go after? Well, you need to do the same thing for your job applicants, you need to figure out, this is the ideal employee I would like to have and create the job ad around that ideal employee covering their pain points covering their needs, and so forth. Let me explain further. When employees go too high, when they get to fill out a new job, they're making a life changing decision, right? It's a probably emotional decision. They're going well, is this the right fit for me? Should I be making this move? Should I be sacrificing time from my family to focus on a new job or what have you? They're making a very big emotional decision. So when you write out that job ad, you need to have that avatar candidate in mind that avatar employee in mind and right based on motion towards that candidate. Number two, you need to focus on winning headlines filled with keywords that your avatar could search for. Here's the opposite. Don't type in as a headline help one right everyone does that. skip that? Don't do that. Here's another one. Daytime employee needed. Everyone needs a daytime employee. Don't Don't put that in there. Right. Write headlines that would connect back to your avatar who you are going after? Maybe ideal job for a single mom or what have you figured out something that would make them tick or why they would want to apply to you in the first place. Make sure that's including your headline. Your first paragraph should have a company summary in three to four sentences. Don't make a whole essay don't, it's not about you, it's about them, but have three to four sentences in there to describe a company that they can rally behind. Now, we don't always post our company name in there. So I'm not recommending that. But go ahead and post in there three to four sentences about your history about what you do your mission, who you serve, and so forth. So that way they can latch on to that and run as well. Outside of that first paragraph, you want to talk about the benefits of working this new job? In other words, what will they gain by working for you? So I'm not and I'm not meaning benefits by this but figure out what winning sells points can you convey into the ad again, the ads just like a client ad you got have copy? Good copy into it. You need to figure out what are their hot points? And how can you address those hot points within the ad very important. For example, if I find it, I'm gonna post in the show notes. But Michael McCalla wits, he wrote Profit First Pumpkin Plan. So for clockwork, he had in one of his books, I forget which book he had a sample job ad talking about some sore position, I think it's like a receptionist position or something like that. is so basic, it's non glorious, right? receptionist, but he had in there promoting, hey, you get to join our company. Yeah, the hours are sucky. The pay is sucky He even put that in there. But now it's like having a free gym. Because now you get to go here and here and here and run around here and there and there. Think about all the free exercise you get, you can cancel your gym membership and actually save money by working for us. He had that copy in there. If I find that ad, I'll go ahead and post it in the show notes. So take a look. And then describe your awesomeness of your company's benefits back to the candidate. So for example, a few offer paid holidays, don't just say paid holidays. In the job add in in your benefit section. Talk about enjoy holiday weekends with six paid holidays per year. Does that sound low, more enticing than just paid holidays. Also, briefly discover briefly cover I should say discover to the candidate, your job requirements in four key areas number one experience, education, skills and personal characteristics. So with experience, we require as an organization, three years of experience before working with us, right. So we don't want someone off the street, we don't want to take time to train peoples in essence, so we hire for experience only. So make sure you're clear and succinct with that, if that's your your requirement, put that in there. If your job doesn't require any experience, be clear with that say, Hey, this job doesn't require experience, you'll have paid training you can use for your future, or something like that. Education is another one. Now. Again, cleaning business, he'll need education, we don't require it so much. We do ask for minimum of you know, high school level or so. So that way you can understand math, you can understand written directions, clear directions, and so forth. And even write back and communicate as needed. But be clear in that within your ad skills, very important. Figure out what skills do they need to possess. I can't tell you how many times I've seen ads out there or people have applied for ads where we put down skills and we list it line by line Hey, these are the skills that you need. We go to hire them they said interact within the resume and application that they had those skills, but they didn't have the skills you need to stress that that's important if that's an important value for you and your organization stress those skills. And lastly, personal characteristics. Right if you have Mr. Grumpy Pants, you want hire Mr. Grumpy Pants if you need energetic, happy team members working for you, because they're the face of your brand or the face of your company. So it's really important. Are they dressed nice? Are they dressed like a bum? Are they using swear words every three sentences? Or are they nice and learn demeanor? Because they're going to reflect your company back to the client, you need to have a good representative or ambassador and therefore that and like with any ad you create, whether it be for a client or for an employee, you need to have a clear call to action. What do you want them to do next after reading this ad? Is it to call you is it to send a resume is it to fill out appointment scheduler is it you know whatever you need to email, you need to figure out what you want them to do next Next, and be clear in the ad be very clear and concise. Well, here's what we do within our organization, we collect job applications I said a minute ago that we hire before we need to hire. So we put in ads before we need to hire someone, we put in ads in all these different places, we mostly focus on Craigslist. And indeed, so what we'll do, we'll create the ad will hire, we won't hire I should say, but we collect those resumes we collect as applications. Once they come in, I'll pick up the phone, I'll call them, I'll check interests, I'll see if they'll, if they're looking for a job, if that's something they want to work for, if that's the doc type they're looking for in their career, or life, or so forth. And I'm very clear in the ad, hey, we're not hiring at the moment, but we're hiring in the future. So when they do apply, I tell them that I talked to them that or tell them all that I'm very transparent. In other words, but once I have their application, what I'll do, I'll put into a database, a CRM, basically, I have set up for these employees are future employees, I should say. So I'll pick up the phone, I'll call them. And if we're not hiring at the moment, I'll check up with them every, every other month or so. So I'll pick up the phone, I'll call them, I'll say, Hey, how's things going? Have you found new job yet? How's that working out for you whether or not they found the new job or not, I still keep the communication going that dialogue going if and only if I liked them, right. So I'll keep that going. I talked to him, I communicate with them. Every other month or so I'll give him a call. And once a job opens up, now I have a stack of resumes. I've already talked to them, I've probably done preliminary interview at some point in time, I have a list of people I could draw from on day one, if someone were to quit today, very easy. So it's a lot better alternative than having someone quit. Now taking the time to write that ad, place it in the paper, then it takes two or three days before applicants start rolling in. And now you're behind on the eight ball and you could lose a client as a result of it. But if you start doing is interviews now start talking to people now. So once these jobs do open up because of some situation, you can hire immediately. And so I'll call them over and over again, just to check up with them. As I interview them, I take notes, and then we always interview them, even if we don't need to hire. And again, as jobs open up, we'll always have people to call. Finally, here's our interview process, we do a three step interview. Number one. And by the way, all this is either through zoom or through phone call, I stopped doing the office stuff, I don't have time to be at the office and wait for him. So I'll do a three step interview. Number one, I'll talk to them for about five minutes, I want to make sure they're applying for the job they're looking to apply for. Because I can't tell you how many times someone's applied for a job. They just do a mass application that every single job out there. And then I start talking to them, they go Wait, this is cleaning. It's like yeah, that's what the Job said. So I just do a five minute, I just want to make sure they're applying for the job they want to apply for. If I liked them, then I moved to the second step. And that's a 10 to 20 minute interview going over their full history. And we ask probing questions. So I won't go over every single little detail. If there's a gap in employment, I asked him about that. So if they miss three years and three year history is not in there, I say, well, well, what did you do in those three years? You know, maybe they're covering up that they got fired because of some situation? Well, I want to know about that situation before I hire them. So that way, it doesn't happen within my company. Or maybe they went on maternity leave or paternity. They just want to focus on their family. There's no wrong answer. Maybe it's COVID. There's no wrong answer with that. But I want to know, before I make that decision to move forward, while I'll do that 10 To 20 minute interview, I'm asking those probing questions. Why do you want to work for us? What's your expectation? Why did you leave such and such company? What are they doing that maybe your future employer could do better? or what have you, I'll ask all these different questions. And I'll get all these different answers. And if I like what I hear, and we have a good interview, then offer a third interview. And usually this third interview is where I'm calling them, I'm talking to them. By the end the phone call five. I usually don't do don't do more than five minutes, but at the end of the phone call, I'm usually offering them the job right there on point. And I'll do this whole three step interview process over the course of two days. That's it. Saw I'll do a five minute maybe later in the day, do the 10 to 20 minute one, and then by the next Stay, I'm hiring them. And so that's our process. That's what we do. Hope this makes sense to you. I enjoyed putting this together. Man, I know hiring is hard. It's not easy. But if you keep doing this again and again and hire before you need hire, you'll never have applicants, you'll never have a lack of applicants within your own company. So this episode has been brought to you by Universal janitorial services. If you have a building here in the Washington, DC area and you need servicing, hey, where are your guys? We've been around 44 years serving churches, schools, banks, country clubs, car dealerships, and so many more providing janitorial porta disinfecting, and specialty for work throughout the Washington DC area. We'd love to help you guys out. And if you felt this episode was of value too. I would appreciate a review and five star rating if I deserve it. I truly appreciate you guys. And you could check us out and review through Apple podcast, Spotify, Google or wherever you happen to listen to this podcast. Thanks, guys. Enjoy. Have fun, have a great day. Keep your employees treat them well make them happy and go conquer the world.