Finding, Attracting and Retaining Great Employees
The numbers are sobering, if not downright depressing.
Studies suggest that the annual turnover rate for hourly employees hovers around 50 percent. What’s more, these figures vary broadly by industry and by business. For example, studies put the turnover rate for retail workers closer to 65 percent to 70 percent.
No doubt, the strongest U.S. labor market in 50 years has employers from nearly every industry struggling to find and, more importantly, retain hourly workers. With employee turnover rates and expenses rising as the new decade begins, this challenge is a pressing and costly one for companies with shift workers, including laundry owners.
Fortunately, you can reduce turnover by actively recruiting and hiring the best laundry attendants available. Finding employees who are a good fit for your business is not impossible – it simply requires some effort and creativity. The best employees aren’t likely to just walk into your store and ask for a job – usually because they’re already working. If you want the best, you have to know what you need, where to look and how to recruit these quality workers.
This month, we asked a number of laundromat owners across the country to sound off on the labor situations at their specific businesses, as well as to share any tips or strategies for building a winning team that they’ve learned along the way:
Dave Menz
Queen City Coin Laundry
Amelia, Ohio
We currently have four stores and a robust pickup-and-delivery business in the Cincinnati market. In all, we have about 40 employees.
The tight labor market hasn’t affected our turnover at all. We feel we provide a great work environment, pay above-average wages, operate nice stores and, overall, treat our team well. As a result, they tend to stick around. Plus, due to our rapid growth, they see opportunities for upward movement, which helps them to see this as a long-term career.
To find good employees, we’ve contracted with a local staffing service, which has been life-changing. We’ve invested heavily in that relationship and have learned a lot about hiring from them. For example, the minimum wage in Ohio is $8.70 per hour – and one thing they taught us is that, if we pay within $3 an hour of minimum wage, we’re essentially getting the same labor pool as fast-food restaurants and so on. In other words, if I’m going to pay $10.50 an hour, I might as well pay minimum wage, because I’ll be getting the same people.
If we want to attract the next-tier labor pool in a tight market in Ohio, you must pay around $12 per hour, so we made the adjustments and reinvested in our team. Despite record-low unemployment, we’ve never had such a strong team – and it shows. We’re very happy that we made the change and have subsequently raised our prices with no pushback. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for.
In addition to the staffing agency, we also use Facebook and referrals from our current staff for most of our hiring.
In my opinion, just running a clean, modern store attracts much better candidates. No one wants to work in a dump with no air conditioning and broken equipment. Also, investing in a quality team atmosphere really lends itself to a positive environment. Happy employees tend to stay.
Our attendants make $11 per hour, plus drop-off bonuses; therefore, most of them average between $11.75 and $12 an hour. Our laundry processors make $12 per hour, plus a much more substantial bonus; they average between $15 and $16 an hour or more. Our delivery drivers earn $13 and hour. And our managers, supervisors and general manager make more.
Our attendants don’t receive additional benefits. However, our management team receives paid vacation, company cell phones, vehicle allowances and company laptops. Currently, we don’t provide health insurance at this time, but we’re looking into it.
I don’t believe that salary is the major motivator. If you value your team, treat them accordingly, and recognize and appreciate them, it goes a long way. Obviously, compensation is part of showing them that you appreciate them. Lastly, treat them like adults. Everyone wants to feel respected and valued. If they behave like children, replace them.
My overall thoughts are that we, as an industry, need to not be so hesitant to raise our prices. We consistently lag in price increases. Run a clean, safe, modern store and employ a knowledgeable staff that is above fast-food-quality. Additionally, give your workers solid training, management and support. Everyone will be happier, more successful and more profitable in the long run.
Clark Sowers
Black Hill Laundry & Dry Cleaning
Sturgis, S.D.
We operate four laundromats that are attended during business hours, and three 24-hour stores that are unattended.
The best sources and methods we use to find good employees have been Facebook, posting on the whiteboards within our stores, and referrals from friends and acquaintances.
To attract quality staffers, we’re trying to change the culture by assuring them that they’re the most important asset of our business. We want them to know that what they do matters to our customers. We’ve tried to raise their pay commiserate to their effort, as well as to make their workplace a better environment to come to every morning.
Steady, regular schedules and mutual respect can go a long way. We are pro-life and, thus, strongly pro-family. As a result, we let our team members know that their jobs are not the most important thing – their family is, and we do our best to work around family issues, if possible.
One of the methods we use to help retain quality staffers has been to provide limited benefits, such as a simple IRA, discounted eye and dental care, and key employee insurance. And we’re always looking for new ways to reward loyalty.
As far as salaries, we start our attendants at above minimum wage, but we expect them to earn more after they’ve been here a while. I hate the minimum wage, simply because it deprives me of resources I could use to pay quality employees more money.
Although salary clearly is important, emotional security is more important to employees – knowing that if they show up on time and work hard that they will have jobs and their paychecks will be good.
All in all, the tight labor market will drive up wages. It doesn’t matter what the pay is or what the industry is, there are “minimum wage” employees everywhere. The key is for motivated employers to identify their vocation as a business leader and to motivate their employees to reach that goal.
Theresa Cunningham
Brite Laundry Center
Williamsport, Pa.
We run two laundromats, with six employees at each location. The first store is attended 13 hours a day, and the second is staffed for 10 hours.
The best way we’ve found to successfully compete with the fast-food chains and major retailers for employees through a fair salary, plus a commission. In addition, we recently began offering paid time off.
Our main source of finding attendants has been our job postings at Indeed. Overall, I look for someone with empathy and compassion, and I’ll pre-screen job candidates with a few specific questions to help determine whether or not they display those characteristics.
As far as retaining employees, the best advice I can give is to take really good care of them. For example, we treat them to lunch when they’ve been extremely busy, and we offer bonuses for great work.
We start our attendants at $9 per hour, plus commission, which averages out to approximately $11 to $12 an hour.
Cary Lipman
CL Consulting Co.
Woodstock, Ga.
I recently assisted in the opening of two laundromats – one is 1,800 square feet in Marietta, Ga., and the other is a 3,600-squre-foot facility located in Douglasville, Ga.
The smaller store’s hours are 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and it’s fully attended by two staffers and the owners from open to close. The larger store is attended by three full-time employees and two part-timers, covering its business hours of 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Just a basic, old-school “Now Hiring” window sign proved extremely effective in both cases. All of the respondents lived nearby. As it turned out, most of the individuals we interviewed weren’t interested in working in the more stressful fast-food environment. They were self-starters who enjoy working on their own and closely with customers. In one case, the applicant expressed a specific desire to work in the wash-dry-fold segment of the business, because she explained that it’s almost a form of relaxing therapy for her.
The starting hourly rate at both stores was $12 per hour, well above the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. In addition, both owners will definitely be considering benefit packages with perks for their top attendants as time goes by.
The work environment in a well-run vended laundry is quite different from most other places of business. Therefore, salary – although important – should not be considered the main motivator A good laundry owner should emphasize the fact that, after the training period, attendants will be mostly on their own and running their own shifts with continued guidance. A good quality employee will appreciate that autonomy.
Bob Meuschke
Family Laundry II
Grandview, Mo.
Over the years, I’ve employed as many as 12 employees across three laundromats. However, these days I have just two staffers and one location.
During my time in the laundromat business, I’ve been successful with at least 85 percent of the employees – and I think that’s doing very well. I’ve always tried to make them part of my family in my attitude and my treatment of them. This seemed to work, as I’ve had several employees that stayed with me for more than 20 years, many working for me until their health no longer allow it.
I may not pay the highest salary in my market, but I make things work for my staff. For instance, for those employees who didn’t have bank accounts, I would cash their checks with no fees so that they didn’t lose any of their money, simply because they didn’t have a bank account.
In addition, I both my part- and full-time employees one week of paid vacation per year, and I’ve double-paid some of my staffers for those vacation days if they chose to work instead of taking the time off. There also have been times when I’ve advanced funds to loyal employees, if they ran into a financial bind.
If a babysitter was sick or didn’t show up, I would allow attendants to bring their children to work for a limited time so that they did not lose any of their work time. And I also let employees bring their personal laundry to work and process it during slower times at the store, while they’re still “on the clock.”
In all, I believe that creating this type of a family atmosphere seemed to work for me over the years, because I’ve never gone more than a week where I’ve needed help at my laundry business. Typically, my other employees have referred one of their friends.
Paul Hansen
Su Nueva Lavanderia
Palos Heights, Ill.
Currently, I have about 55 employees, approximately 40 of them are full-time and the rest are part-time. I operate five locations, two of which are open 24 hours, and the others are open from 5:00 a.m. to midnight.
The tight labor market hasn’t had any impact on being my ability to find or retain employees. I think part of the reason is due to the fact that Chicago has a much higher minimum wage, compared to its surrounding towns and cities. Our minimum wage is $13 per hour (and it will increase to $14 in July), while the other municipalities just outside the city limits are at the state minimum of $8.25 per hour.
This has led to many people making the short drive into the city to work. This higher wage also has meant better quality potential employees who likely wouldn’t work for the much lower rate.
Of course, this wage increase also has led to some unfortunate cuts. We’ve had to eliminate paid meal breaks and two weeks of paid vacation time. Moreover, we’ve had to cut hours by about 10 percent. In the past, we’ve had two attendants on duty at all times, but now that has been pared down a bit.
Our main method of finding employees is through Facebook and in-store signage. We’ve tried using job boards like Indeed, but found that very few of the people who apply bother to show up for an interview.
We pay our attendants $13 per hour, plus 40 hours of paid time off. They also get $100 per month in free wash and a 10 percent commission on wash-dry-fold orders. What’s more, we hold a big annual Christmas party at a restaurant where each staff member can bring a guest; it includes a great meal, an open bar and a huge raffle, with prizes ranging from gift certificates to televisions.
I feel the key to retaining good employees is to treat them with respect and to listen to their concerns.
I think the biggest concern for owners in many parts of the country is not the tight labor market, but rather the push for ever higher minimum wages. In many cases, some are seeing close to a 100 percent increase in the cost of labor. This, paired with the jump in water prices, has led to increasingly tighter margins. Those who don’t change their business plans to include price increases and retooling are soon going to find themselves in serious trouble.
Leah Schulte
Midtown Washboard Laundromat
St. Charles, Mo.
At Midtown Washboard, we have one full-time manager and one fill-in, as well as three part-time attendants.
We’ve been open just over a year and a half, and our turnover rate has been fairly high. We lost an employee after a few months, due to death in the family. And we’ve also had a string of short-term employees who quit for valid or deceitful reasons soon after training.
A lot of the local businesses are paying $11 per hour for similar employees; however, we’re lucky that some individuals prefer a small, family-run business, versus working at Target, Walmart or McDonald’s. On top of that, we’ve been flexible and accommodating with staff schedules, and we provide a fairly low-stress work environment, which certainly has its appeal these days.
Our top methods for finding employees have been word-of-mouth advertising, the direct recruitment of customers, perpetual in-store signage and Indeed.com. By contrast, we’ve had poor luck using Craigslist ads and Facebook postings.
With regard to Indeed, we conduct phone screenings first, and then we invite only the good candidates (not just any warm body) in to complete a full application and an interview. We’ve found that a lot of people will take the application home to complete but never return.
We check references and then invite candidates back a second time for a two- to three-hour shadowing experience (for which we give them a $10 free laundry card) to see if they really like to clean as much as they say they do. They can peek inside the bulkheads while I clean the traps, as well as watch a few transactions and the processing of wash-dry-fold orders. This has brought a few folks to the reality that the job wasn’t for them. Of course, during this time, we also can ascertain their grooming, communication and posture/body mechanics to see if we think they’re capable. I highly recommend shadowing to other owners.
It seems that, with Indeed, some of the applicants might simply be trying to hit a quota for applications submitted – whether for workers’ compensation or unemployment benefits – and are not really interested in job. Indeed requires a lot of time to winnow the crowd; however, it does allow for free advertising and casting wide net.
We pay our attendants $10 per hour, plus tips and $20 a month in free wash. Also, we’ve given out year-end bonuses and gift certificates, and hosted a company party. I always thank them at each shift change for their service and commitment to us, and I wish we could do more.
Missouri’s minimum wage is $9.40 and going up every year, so we will have to stay ahead of that. Again, I think our positive environment is a draw. I’m trying to get staff invested in some of the activities here – decorating the store, our grand opening, our one-year anniversary party, poetry readings at the store and more. Hopefully, this all will help our retention.
Brian Brunckhorst
Advantage Laundry
Dublin, Calif.
We have five stores – three are fully attended, one is partially attended, and the other is unattended. And we employ 25 part-time attendants to cover those locations.
Our turnover rate has been challenging the last couple of years, due to the full labor market and the fact that this is entry-level work.
To find employees, we advertise on Craigslist and Facebook. Also, we’ll ask our employees if they have any friends who may be looking for work. And, in fact, if we hire someone that way and the person stays with us for six months, we’ll pay the employee who referred the new hire to us a referral fee. I’ve actually been considering increasing that referral bonus, along with lengthening the time the new hire must stay with us from six months to one year. I think that might help with some of the turnover.
Regarding salary, we start our attendants anywhere from a $1.50 to $2 an hour over the minimum wage, which in California is $15.
We’ve also been working hard to try to combat the tight labor market by increasing benefits we can provide our staff that don’t cost us a lot of money, yet have high perceived value. For instance, we give employees laundry credits, allowing them to come in and do their own personal wash for free every month. It’s an easy perk. It costs us about 20 cents per $1 perceived value – so $100 a month costs me $20. It’s less than two hours of extra pay.
We also try to create a good working environment, by giving our employees flexible schedules. For those who want to work more, we try to accommodate that, especially those attendants willing to travel between locations. We’re happy to give them as many shifts as we can.
In addition, everyone gets paid breaks. If someone works an eight-hour day, they get a half-hour lunch and another 15-minute break. And we pay for that. Also, the state of California gives all workers a certain number of sick days a year, based on the number of hours they work. Of course, our staff received those as well.
Lastly, we empower our employees to make decisions. A lot of workplaces will micromanage their employees, but we let our attendants make the calls. It’s important to empower employees to make their own decisions – otherwise, the work environment can become stressful for them. For example, if customers lose money, our attendants have the power to offer refunds and make the customers happy.
And, just as important, we will back up our attendants’ decisions. If someone makes a decision we don’t particularly agree with, we’ll make a little course correction along the way. However, if an employee makes a call, even if it’s the wrong call at the time, nine times out of 10 we will back that call. We don’t want to make an employee look bad in front of a customer. So, our employees know we have their back. And that type of employee empowerment is an important factor in retaining quality employees.
Ken Barrett
Washin’ Coin Laundry
Golden Springs Laundry Co.
Anniston/Oxford, Ala.
Staffing has been a challenge off and on now for a few years. It seems to go in cycles, where we will have some longer-term employees, and then a couple will leave in short order and we’ll have to start all over.
Of our five 24-hour stores, one is attended from 7:00 a.m. to 6: p.m., seven days a week. The day is split into two shifts, and we typically try to keep the same shifts for the employees so that they can schedule personal appointments in advance. We staff this store with three attendants.
A few years ago, we began using a staffing agency. For our latest hires, I posted the position on Facebook and, after some basic screening, sent the candidates instructions to contact the agency. Out of more than 90 initial applicants and then more than 40 that made it to the next step, less than five actually followed through with the staffing agency.
Previously, I would interview and offer the position to anyone they sent. But, during the latest round of hiring, I turned down some applicants before interviewing them. A candidate with a history of bouncing between jobs every few months is a concern for me. I’ll typically refuse these individuals unless something about them really stands out or their reasons for leaving past jobs are justified.
In the last few months, we’ve increased our starting wage by a little more than 10 percent and have increased the salaries of our existing employees as well. Although we’re still competing with fast-food establishments, the fact that we provide stable shifts and no late-night shifts has helped us attract some great applicants.
Another popular benefit we offer our employees is the ability to do their laundry while on duty at no cost to them – some wash only comforters and other large items, while others do their weekly laundry. Last year, we also started to provide paid and unpaid days off. The amount of each varies by the average regularly scheduled hours per week and length of service.
Hiring your first employees will be a challenge. Make sure you have a good set of standard operating procedures, a vision of the employee you are looking for, and a training plan that can be signed off daily by the employee and supervisor/trainer. A plan will help new employees understand the expected length of training and lets them track their progress.
Also, be prepared to roll through a few employees, as you fine-tune your training and interviewing over time. Remember, you’re not hiring “you.” You’re hiring someone who can support your business and be a good ambassador for your services.
