Does it feel like hiring snow removal employees is impossible?
The job market is TOUGH, and you know that quality candidates are what you need to grow your business.
After all, you need candidates who are:
In this total guide to hiring snow removal employees, you'll discover how to find, hire, and keep the best industry professionals in your area.
Since snow removal is a higher-risk industry with increased liabilities, you'll need to choose an insurance plan for your business.
After all, the snow removal industry is considered a high-loss group with a higher chance of needing to file claims.
Even if you already have business insurance, be sure to call your insurance provider to double-check that your snow business is covered.
The reason is that many traditional liability insurance policies used for lawn care businesses don’t automatically transfer to your snow removal business.
Also, make sure that you’ve got, worker's compensation and disability insurance coverage–they can serve as great incentives to keep amazing snow professionals feeling happy and secure in your business.
Knowing when it’s the right time to begin hiring snow removal employees is vital to the growth of your business.
Ask yourself these questions:
If you and/or your team feel constantly overloaded with work, then it's time to consider adding to your team.
If you don't have enough time and money to properly train a new hire, then consider delaying any new hires until you have the proper resources.
If clients are happy with your services, then you know you have proper training in place that's teaching high-quality standards.
Even with years of snow industry experience, you'll still need to train new employees on the ropes of your business.
Unfortunately, you're going to lose some money during this training process. Plus, you might even be forced to cut back on jobs in the meantime.
However, once an employee is properly trained your profits will likely be even higher than before your new employee joined.
Before hiring any new employees, you need basic procedures in place.
For example, you'll need to have plans to:
If this is your first hire, obtain an EIN in the United States (i.e. Employer Identification Number) or SIN in Canada (i.e. Social Insurance Number)
Oftentimes, businesses are struggling in their search of hiring snow removal employees.
However, just like you have to leverage marketing strategies to attract new clients, you have to do the same to attract great candidates.
For instance, you can begin marketing for new hires by:
Here's how to take advantage of these top strategies:
Even with new technology, flyers, door hangers, business cards, and print ads still remain effective. In fact, 82% of consumers trust print ads the most.
Plus, print marketing can be cost-effective, convenient, and easy to implement.
For instance, if you have residential snow accounts, then your team can conduct 9-arounds by distributing hiring flyers to the nearest 9 houses where they're working.
Social media is a great way to boost your efforts in hiring snow removal employees.
Just a few simple Facebook posts with job details can go a long way when one or two people share them!
Although, you can target ideal candidates using organic and paid social media, paid ads (e.g. Facebook Ads, Promoted Tweets, etc.) will typically generate better, faster results.
Also, since Facebook Ads has a customizable daily ads spend budget, it's an effective low-cost way to market your business on a limited budget.
Even better, you only pay for the CPC (i.e. Cost Per Click). This means, that even if your ads reach 10,000 people, you'll only pay for the number of ad clicks you get.
Plus, with Facebook's 2.9 billion active monthly users, its expansive reach makes it perfect for generating lucrative ads.
Additionally, Facebook's ability to target specific audiences makes it an even more powerful way to capture the right attention.
There are countless options for sharing online ads. Take a look at a few different sites where you can place ads online:
Plus, since these audiences are actively job seeking, these ads can provide some of the biggest results.
However, the narrower reach in audience may cause results to take longer. Though, the candidates you do reach likely will be a good fit.
In addition, Google Ads are another effective way to start marketing for new hires who are actively seeking snow removal jobs online.
Although Google Ads are higher cost than other online ad types, they can be more powerful due to their larger reach in audience.
After receiving a few ideal applicants, it's time to begin the interview process.
Here are the next steps to begin the process for hiring snow removal candidates:
Before interviewing applicants in-person, it's important to pre-screen them over the phone.
This is simply a brief phone call asking high-level questions to filter out any obvious, unqualified applicants.
In other words, this quick 15-minute phone call to gather information about their general background and industry experience.
Take a look at a few basic phone screening questions:
As you're talking with the applicant on the phone, don't be afraid to listen to your gut feeling. If something doesn't feel quite right, then it's time to move on.
Remember, even if your gut reaction is wrong, you're still only losing a candidate you couldn't trust.
If the applicant passes the phone screening, then it's time to progress to the in-person interview.
In-person interviews offer an excellent opportunity to catch any potential inconsistencies in answers between the application, phone screening, and in-person interview.
For this reason, it's important to repeat some of the same questions you ask—even if they've already previously answered them.
Also, you'll want to ask more in-depth questions as well as a few additional ones you might have about their specific experience or background.
These are a few questions you can ask during an in-person interview:
In addition to what the candidate is saying, it's equally important to be attentive to their nonverbal cues like:
Plus, pay attention to the red flags you spot in candidates you should NOT hire:
In order to ensure you’re hiring the right candidate, you should look for:
These qualifications are vital to ensuring you’re hiring the right person for your snow removal business.
Also, it's important to consider the difference between a snow employee and a snow plow driver.
When a candidate has met all of the necessary requirements, then it's time to explore whether they're the right fit for your business.
To do this, take a look at the 7 C's for ensuring you're hiring the best fit for your snow removal business:
Once the candidate has met all of the necessary qualifications and the 7 C's, then you’ve likely found yourself the right team member!
Similar to knowing how to hire the right team members, it's also important to know when to fire them.
For example, employees who consistently:
Bad employees can cost you clients, great employees, money, and time.
While it's never fun to fire someone, it's important to know when is the right time to do so.
If an employee is either showing those signs or they're producing low-quality work, then here's what you should do:
As always, track the employee's performance before, during, and after each meeting.
Maintain an ongoing record of your meetings as proof of rightful termination, if you should need it later.
Alternatively, this documentation serves as performance tracking to help you determine whether you want to keep the employee.
If after these interventions, the employee's performance remains the same or gets worse, then it's time to consider firing them.
Remember, it's important to be firm yet respectful when firing them.
Even though firing them may not be easy, it's what's often best for the business in the long-term.
If it feels like you've tried everything, and your entire team is bad, then there could be something systematically wrong with your snow business.
Keep in mind, it's not financially viable to fire all of your employees at once.
Plus, there's a good chance it has something to do with the systems you have in place.
Here's how to re-evaluate the systematic elements in your business:
Regardless of whether your team is underperforming or performing exceptionally well, it's important to consistently re-evaluate your hiring and training practices.
Remember, even though hiring snow removal employees is an important task, it's equally important to keep the employees you already have in the business.
Keep in mind, knowing how to hire the best professionals is useless if you can't keep them aboard and have to continue hiring.
To start, building a positive culture is one of the main factors in keeping your best employees on the team.
For instance, a solid company culture means your team:
Remember, even though hiring snow removal employees is an important task, it's equally important to keep the employees you already have in your business.
Building a positive culture is one of the main factors in keeping your best employees on the team and should include:
For instance, a solid company culture means your team:
Be sure to acknowledge your team for outstanding work and accomplishments, and you can boost retention by using the following:
Plus, it's important to offer a competitive wage so your team doesn’t leave for the competition if there's better pay.
Especially during a labor shortage, where finding quality candidates is a daily struggle, it's crucial to provide your team with the compensation they deserve.
One of the most effective ways at keeping great snow employees is by harnessing the power of the best snow removal software.
Service Autopilot puts your everyday tasks on autopilot so your team can focus on providing amazing services.
Plus, Service Autopilot allows your team to focus more time on providing clients with amazing services and less time on daily operations.
Instant invoicing
Better scheduling
Manage your clients and employees all in one system
Even though hiring snow removal employees and keeping them may feel like an impossible challenge, this guide has given you everything you need to:
Now, you're equipped with everything needed to begin hiring snow removal employees today!
Related: How Much to Pay Snow Removal Employees
Originally published Dec 6, 2018 4:07 PM, updated Nov 20, 2023 1:45 PM
Tags: Business Operation
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