👥 Hire the RIGHT people

Here’s how to get the RIGHT staff in your laundromat.

March 04, 2023

Wash Weekly

Hi Wash Weekly Family.

Running a great laundromat business requires more than just quality self-service and wash-and-fold services.

You need proper staffing.

A well-staffed laundromat can have a profound impact on your business — from improved customer satisfaction to enhancing your reputation and brand image.

The RIGHT staff makes all the difference!

Here are some of the benefits of hiring the right staff:

  1. Improved customer satisfaction: the right staff are able to meet the needs and wants of your client base, which can result in repeat business.

  2. Increased efficiency and productivity

  3. Enhanced reputation and brand image

  4. Better work-life balance for employees

So, how do you find the right staff?

Here are some of the ways we find people to join our team:

  1. Word of Mouth: spread the word locally that you are hiring and use the network of your community and your clients. The best people might just be a stone’s throw away.

  2. Online Job Postings: use an ATS (applicant tracking system) platform. It will post your job on multiple job boards at once and allow you to review all submitted applications in one place. Use local community websites, newspapers websites, craigslist, etc.

  3. Employee Referrals: create an employee referral program where current employees get a bonus or reward for every great person you hire. Just make sure you set benchmarks they need to meet to get that reward or bonus – or you will just be giving money away when the person doesn’t work out.

  4. Community Outreach: get the word out to local community organizations and religious institutions that you are hiring.

Now that you know HOW to find the right people, we need to figure out what the RIGHT people look like.

Look for these qualities in your applicants:

  1. Good Communication Skills: review their phone and written communication skills and their body language.

  2. Positive Attitude: smiles work wonders in our store with clients.

  3. Reliability and Dependability: this is a hard one to figure out in an interview, but you need to put in the leg work to check employment references — and not just the friends and family references. They always only say good things about the candidate.

  4. Good Organizational and Time-Management Skills: dig deep during the interview and ask really specific, open-ended questions that only someone who really did the position at a laundromat well would know.

Lastly, develop a great hiring process.

  1. Developing Job Descriptions: We find it very useful to keep the job ad brief, but detailed. Remember, a lot of people are just filling out applications and waiting for someone to call them for an interview.

  2. Screening Resumes and Applications: Use online applications and prescreening questions to weed out applicants who aren’t a good fit before you set up and interview with them.

  3. Conducting Interviews: Try doing a pre-screening interview via Zoom or some other video format before investing the time of an in person face to face interview. Do more than one face-to-face interview and have them interview with a different member of your team each time. We do two interviews, which allows us to get to different opinions and increases our chances of getting it right.

  4. Background Checks: I see this skipped over by a lot of emerging (small) businesses mainly because of the cost. I can personally tell you that this is one of the most important parts of the process. You want to know about past history so you can make a well-informed decision on the applicant. And a past indiscretion shouldn’t be the sole reason to reject the candidate. Also, be aware of any laws, like ban the box, that prevent discrimination.

Taking the time to find and hire good employees can improve customer satisfaction, increase efficiency and productivity, and enhance your reputation and brand image.

All great benefits to building a profitable business.

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TL;DR:

  1. Benefits of hiring the right staff

  2. How to find good potential staff

  3. Qualities to look for in candidates

  4. Developing an effective hiring process

Til the next time, I’ll be here airing out some not-so-dirty laundry every Sunday!– Waleed 🏴‍☠️

I would love to hear your thoughts on this week’s topic– let me know in this issue’s survey below. And for more on the garment care business, connect with me on YouTube and Linkedin!

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