Hiring Moving Labor-6 Tips for Your Moving Company

6 Tips for Hiring Good Moving Labor for Your Moving Company

As a business owner, you are constantly looking for employees who will bring value to your company, help you maintain a good reputation, and be reliable. However, as a moving company owner, you are at times forced to make quick hires, therefore not allowing you time to find the right guys. And we all know what happens next.  

So, what are some best hiring practices and how to hire employees that will be beneficial for your moving company? How do you set up a hiring process for your moving company to eliminate the stress of dealing with employee issues?

Here are your 6 Tips for Hiring Good Moving Labor for Your Moving Company

1. Identify the perfect employee for your moving company

The number one thing for finding moving labor is to know what type of employees you want in your moving company. Who are you looking for?  

To identify your perfect employee, write down all the important aspects of an employee. For example, you can include the following: 

A good way to create your demand/desire list is to analyze the traits of current or past “model” employees.  You may also consult with your managers, partners, or team members for suggestions and recommendations.  

What comes next? To make this profile complete, you need to go into more details and include points that are not related. In this phase, simply identify all the specific characteristics for your perfect moving labor. This can include anything from dealing with uneasy clients to the ability to handle fragile items. 

Here you can include things such as:

Besides helping you find and recruit the right mover for your moving company, this profile will also help you properly conduct the job interview and understand whether the candidate fits your desired qualifications and traits.

2. Establish proper employee pay plan

Create an efficient salary plan in advance to avoid unpleasant situations that will lead you back to the “finding moving labor” cycle. By efficient, we don’t mean the average salary+tips, but rather something competent.  Again, you can refer to the ‘ideal mover’ profile to understand what factors are important for them:

• Are they just looking for the top dollar?  
• Would they want a medical insurance plan?  
• Do they want more time off?
• What type of work environment do they thrive in?
• Do they prefer specific instructions or the freedom to make decisions?

The key here is to create a place, where your employees will feel appreciated, perform at their best, and enjoy their work. Establish an employee pay plan in a way that your workforce can get paid decently and feel personal and professional growth simultaneously. 

While incentive programs may seem a lot to pay out, keep in mind that they essentially help grow your business as well. Besides saving on constant employee recruitment and training, quality employees will also earn you more repeat customers and more positive reviews on the web.

3. Create an effective job description and mover handbook

As a moving company owner, you want to have a detailed, but also an efficient job description. We put the job description along with the employee/mover handbook as your employees not only need to understand their own duties but also the overall company policies and structure.  

Now, creating an employee handbook may seem difficult and not as important for a small moving company.  However, it is a key aspect if you want to overcome the hurdle of a constant hiring cycle, grow your moving company, and develop solid moving crews.  It is as important as a menu in a restaurant, regardless of its size.

And, with the current technology, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to create an employee handbook for your moving company.  There are plenty of resources and templates available online to help you get started.  Here are a few:

• Business in a box
• Xtensio
• AirMason

Some payroll companies such as ADP and Paychex also provide employee handbook services.  

Always keep in mind that your job announcement is the way to communicate your expectations to the candidates, so it needs to be as clear as possible.

4. Finding moving labor

An important factor in targeting the right candidates is to create an effective job announcement. A moving labor job announcement should be precise not only to the labor moving job, but also to your specific requirements.  This will help attract the right candidates and reduce the not so qualified ones.

Now that you have done all the prep work, it is time to go out and find the right employee for your moving company.  But where? How?

Let’s go back to the perfect employee description and use it as a guide for finding moving labor. For example, if you described them as a college athlete, it would be efficient to recruit them from the university athletic program, if they are fit, you might want to advertise/work with local gyms.

Here are some avenues to engage with prospective employees.

5. Always be hiring

Many moving companies fall victim to the business seasonality and high employee turnover rate, where you are forced to make snap hires, leaving you with less than desirable employees.  

To avoid these types of situations, make sure to complete this one simple task:

ALWAYS BE HIRING

Nothing more, nothing less. Don’t stop your recruitment efforts just because you have full crews.  Keeping a constant flow of candidates will ensure that when the need comes, you will have a ready pool of candidates and it will keep your current employees in check.  

6. Managing and Keeping good employees

Now that you have hired your good employees, make sure to train them properly, grow within your moving company, and constantly help them improve performance. We all know that no matter how good an employee, there is always room for improvement.  

A good way to improve your employees’ performance is through constant monitoring and constructive feedback.  Now, we don’t mean micromanaging or constantly being on their case, but setting key measurable performance metrics specific to your moving company or the moving job in general.  These can include:

You can use HR Management software or specific moving company software, such as MoveCo Solutions to monitor some key performance metrics for your movers, provide instant performance reports and properly organize employee files. 

We hope that our 6 tips for hiring good moving labor for your moving company were helpful. You may also visit our blog page to read other relevant articles to start, run, manage and grow your moving company.