Our Hiring Process, Step by Step

Let's turn the clock back to the peak of COVID. We niched in churches and schools and we know what happened to them, and other niches, during COVID. We took a 70% hit in business, though it was only temporary. We doubled down our marketing efforts, increased our spend, and shifted to some new niches until our clients got back on line. 

That increase in marketing led to many new opportunities. Calls came in daily if felt like and we shifted our out-of-work employees to these new gigs. And before we knew it, we were on a hiring spree.

My then-business partner was in charge of hiring. He had been doing it forever and a day and he was good at finding someone on a pinch. But with the weirdness in new hires during COVID and many wanting to stay out of the workforce, it became a drag on him. Gaps were exposed in our processes and we found ourselves with new clients but nobody to serve them. 

I then took over that role and I had my failings too. I realized what we did for the previous couple of decades no longer worked. There was a revolving door of staff and we were losing business that we couldn't staff. We had to pivot. It was time for Plan B.

We implemented a new plan, more described below. We made a major shift in how we worked with existing employees, how we hired, how we led them, and these changes came out of pure desperation. Sometimes being forced to change IS the best change.

Here's what we did for decades before Plan B:

1) Call existing employees and subs and ask, "who do you know who wants a job and has a pulse?"

2) Call that candidate over the phone and ask if they want to work.

3) Tell them to meet us at the job site and we'll have them fill out necessary paperwork, or come to the office beforehand.

4) Do on-the-job training for a week and HOPE they work out.

That worked for a while. Our average length of employment was over a decade. But COVID changed things. It no longer worked for us. We hired people that didn't work out. Our quality declined. In fact our Number One complaint was Quality Control and that began with our hiring process (hence, that became our focus on our Unique Selling Propositions). 

Introducing Plan B

What Do We Need Before Hiring

1) We needed clientele nearly ready to be served. It's much easier to hire an employee than it is to find a client. Clients come before Employees in the pecking order.

2) You need a payroll service. Plenty of examples out there like QB Payroll, ADP, Paychex, Paycor, Gusto, and more.

3) You need tax accounts set up (ie EFTPS, state unemployment, state withholding, etc....your payroll service can help with this).

4) You need a clear goal on what you want the person to do and the hours served. Hard to put in an ad if you don't know how or where to put them.

5) Once defined, place a Help Wanted Ad. We use Indeed, Craigslist, and our website.

6) An interview and hiring process

7) Documents for the new hire like an I9, W4, state withholding, employment manual, etc. There are links here and your payroll service can help too. The state withholding varies by state so google around for that. And your employment manual or agreement is something you should come up with on your own though some payroll services will help with that. Your state or locality may require other documentation.

8 ) A training process and an onboarding process (these and hiring are more described below).

What we did for Successful Hiring, Step by Step:

1) Identify hiring need or pull from my SOPs for the role I need to fill.

2) Go into sources like Indeed and BLS to figure out average wages for the role I am hiring for while factoring in the shift, hours, and location. I'll also factor in the economy, CPI-W, and pending legislation that can impact wages (ie a min wage increase). I create an average wage from my competitors. I then add $1-2 more to that average. This process is more explained here. 

3) I write up the ad. It's not a memo. It's supposed to be an advertisement. An applicant is making a life-changing decision so I don't treat the ad like a memo.

4) I place the ad on Indeed, sometimes on Craigslist, and also on our website. The task I ask is to provide a resume. I learned this from a fellow BSC, but in future ads I plan to ask them to write out a few sentences or do a video describing what they'd do if they cleaned ____ [niche].

5) At the same time I track those applicants (track them on a CRM I have set up for applicants. Hint: that CRM is merely a spreadsheet...easily searchable and indexable), I pull from my Stack of 100. These are people who applied and were interviewed for a future generic position. They were made aware of it and that initial interview was short over the phone. I let these people know we have a position open and track interest. I give them priority in hiring since they were pre-vetted.

In my vetting, I place a priority to cleaning experience. I don't hire people who bounced around from job to job in a short window of time. I hire on loyalty. I don't hire some of them if they worked for certain competitors. I always place a preference for other competitors' past employees. I'll flag gaps in employment but I'll often circle back. I'll begin to create personality personas based on how they structure and write out their work history. I will give preference to residential cleaners if I'm hiring for a role that demands great detailed cleaning.

6) I do a 3-step interview process and the winning candidate went through all 3 interviews. The first is 5 minutes over the phone to check engagement. Anyone who passes this get's placed in my Stack of 100. I'll pick the top few from this interview for the 2nd interview. That's on Zoom or over the phone for about 30 minutes. I'm diving into their work history, asking several questions, etc. Then I'll take the top couple from that round and interview a 3rd time. That interview is in person, often over coffee and sometimes dinner. I've even asked their spouse to join if married and I'll bring my wife. I want to get to know them better and see how they react around family. I also want the wife to know more about us on a personal level. I make the offer in person at the end of that interview.

Of 100 applicants, 1 makes it to this round. Usually I need 300-500 applicants to find 1.

7) After I hire, I onboard the new employee. I send them a link for the paperwork. I send a gift to their family (food gift basket). I schedule a start date. We train in person for only a couple of days and they're on their own. I introduce them to the team and the company. I'll follow up with them as needed.

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We didn't fully implement the following until much later. It was a process. It wasn't an overnight decision to make these changes. However, once we did, we realized we had better quality hires who continued to stick around. I hope this helps someone.