In part 1 of this two-part article, I took you behind the scenes at my own pet business, Preferred Pet Partners. We focused on processes and what I do to insure everything runs smoothly day to day. Today we’ll be taking another look behind the scenes but with a focus on people.
From day one I knew I wanted to hire people to provide my services. I didn’t know exactly how long I would also be in the field but I did know that the more time I spent in the field the less time I would be spending working on the business. This was a powerful motivator for me to get out of the field as much as possible early on.
Before we jump into how things work, I’d like to share a couple of philosophies. The first is continuous improvement. I’m a strong believer that if we aren’t continuously looking at our business and making positive changes, we will die a slow death and slip quietly into obscurity. Okay that’s a little dramatic but you get my point. The second philosophy I live by is that my people, my employees, are my single best source of ideas for how to run the business effectively. The reason for this is simple, they’re on the front lines. They interact with clients and with each other daily and they know what works and more importantly, what doesn’t.
During the pandemic, people managers everywhere were forced to re-evaluate how they interact with employees. Managers and employees who were once all in the same office together were now working from home and spread out geographically. Water cooler conversations came to a screeching halt and new ways of managing had to be adopted. Luckily, this was nothing new for my industry, pet sitting and dog walking, where sitters have always been out in the field 100% of the time. This does however, make the daily back and forth banter with employees more challenging.
Early on in my business I adopted a policy of doing shadow visits with each of my employees on a regular basis. I would go with them on a pet sitting visit and shadow them much like you would shadow a new employee to train them on your service processes. The difference was that I wasn’t training the employee, rather they were “training” me. This was a chance for them to ask questions and bring up concerns. It was a chance for them to give me feedback on what was working and what wasn’t. I would routinely ask them, if you were in charge for a day, what would you change? Some of our best process improvements come from these conversations.
Today, because I now live in a different state than my business is in, conversations with my employees are even less likely to happen organically. I had to find a way to keep this connection going and to keep the flow of good ideas coming through. While I can’t go out in the field with them, I speak with them regularly. I keep track of these conversations to insure I don’t go too long without speaking to each employee. This sounds strange but when things are running smoothly, and they run very smoothly generally, it’s easy to skip these conversations.
My business organizational chart is fairly flat. I have two people managers in Omaha who the sitters interact with most often. They both do pet sitting visits as well as their managerial duties so they maintain a good understanding of what’s going on in the field and with our clients. We also have a virtual assistant working remotely. I focus on cross-training so all three of them can handle most anything that comes at them from administrative to client needs to employee needs. There’s nothing magical about this structure though. It’s simply about finding what personnel structure works for your business and this has worked well for my business!
Most businesses have job descriptions and I do too. I find though that this is really only a good starting point. As a business that has multiple employees, I needed a way to hold everyone accountable. We have what we call the responsibility matrix. This is literally a list of every task, administrative and people oriented that is done on a daily basis. Next to each task is the primary person responsible for doing it and the back up should this person be on vacation. This eliminates confusion and makes very clear who’s doing what.
There are processes in place, mentioned in part 1 of this article, on how to source, vet, hire and onboard employees. This is critical when dealing with turnover. Even the best businesses will have some turnover so the documented processes insure that, if a key person leaves the organization, they don’t take their knowledge with them. Having these processes and cross training employees on our key processes ensures that if any one person leaves, we are still fully able to function at the level our clients are used to.
And finally, we use a group texting application for internal communications. This is a great way to link a remote team together and feel like we’re all working for the same company. There are constantly conversations going on between individuals or between groups. The topics range anywhere from scheduling questions to cute pictures of the furry clients they get to spend time with each day!
That’s the behind the scenes look at the people of Preferred Pet Partners. They are an amazing team and I work hard to ensure that every one is heard and feels valued!
Another great article you might enjoy
How to pay your pet sitting and dog walking employees
About Eliza
Eliza is the owner of two successful pet related businesses; Preferred Pet Partners, a pet sitting and dog walking company, and The Pet Business Coach, offering coaching and resources to aspiring or current pet related business entrepreneurs. She maintains two awesome blogs. One for pet parents https://preferredpetpartners.com/blog/ and one for pet business owners https://thepetbusinesscoach.dog/blog-page/. Eliza also supports various animal rescue and shelter organizations. Eliza and her husband have a growing animal family including kitties, goats and chickens. Visit her websites: www.preferredpetpartners.com or www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog.
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