Employee management is the most important job of a truck wash manager. Done effectively, this can lead to high employee productivity, employee retention, customer satisfaction and ultimately, increase in revenue. A well-managed and strong service team is a team to beat!

However, employee management can be a challenge too. Here are tips to help you build a strong service team.

10 Tips on Employee Management for a Strong Service Team

1.Establish a Good Recruiting Process

Excellent employee management starts with the recruitment process. It is important that you screen and interview applicants so you can make sure that you hire the right people for your truck wash business. Save time and money by putting together a process for hiring. According to an article entitled “9 Recruiting and Selection Tips to Ensure Successful Hiring” on aboutmoney.com, you have to remember to hire people that can match the job demands you have today and can also provide the skills you need in the future. Be clear about your strategic direction before you start recruiting. The right person will be an asset to your strong service team for your truck wash business while a mismatched employee can do more harm than good.

2.Win the Hearts of Your Employees

Once you have recruited employees, you have to take the time to get to know them. Effective employee management is easier if you have a personal relationship with your employees. Set up one-on-one meetings with them. Have a cup of coffee with them. It will just take 15 minutes of your time to get to know them on a personal level. Be careful not to get too personal, though. Ask them questions. Get to know their goals. How do they get to work? What are their hobbies? File away all the information in your head and what you know about their personal lives will come in at one point or another. Similarly, you also have to share stuff about yourself. It would make them comfortable in sharing their life with you if you do it first. This is the first step in establishing trust.

Communicate regularly with your employees.
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3.Communicate Regularly with Your Employees

Your employees would appreciate to hear from you every now and then. Greet them good morning. Ask them how they are with sincerity. It would boost their morale to know that you genuinely care about how they’re doing. Check up on them as they go about their tasks. Remember all the information from the getting-to-know-you session that you filed away? Pull them out. Ask if the sick wife is now better. Ask if the kid was able to finish that science project he was laboring on. Over time, you will be able to develop a relationship with all your employees that they will remember with fondness.

4.Treat Your Employees with Respect To Make Them Part of a Strong Service Team

We always drill into the minds of our employees to treat all customers with respect. But how do we treat our employees? If we started right and got to know our employees, we should know that they are individual human beings. They are not mechanical robots or worker bees. They deserve to be treated with respect. If you start the culture of respect at your truck wash, your employees will respond the same way. They will respect the customers, one another, and you.

5.Macromanage and Мicromanage

We have often heard how employees do not like being micromanaged, or being closely observed and monitored. They say that macromanaging, or delegating responsibilities to employees, is the better employee management. However, it’s not as simple as black and white. According to an article on Houston Chronicle.com, some employees may prefer closer supervision, while others desire more leeway and creativity in performing their jobs. Effective employee management is managing according to an employee’s preferred style of being managed. You can determine this by observing, being attentive to your employees’  non verbal clues or by asking your employees how they want to be managed.

6.Walk the Тalk!

Another method of effective employee management is to practice what you preach. Always make sure that whatever you ask from your employees is something that you can deliver too. You cannot expect them to come in to work on time if you’re always late. If you want passion from your employees, they have to see passion in you.

Celebrate success!
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7.Celebrate Success!

Another method of effective employee management is recognizing your employees for a job done right. True! It doesn’t have to be an exceptional job. Start celebrating success, no matter how small. John washed more trucks than anyone? Celebrate! Sam washed the least number of trucks but exceeded his record? Acknowledge that! Get your team in a huddle at the end of the day to celebrate a successful day at work every day. This is one way to motivate your truck wash employees to do better every day.

8.Reward Your Employees!

Acknowledging and recognizing a good job on a daily basis is nice. It would be better if you can set up an awarding ceremony every month or every quarter, depending on what the budget will allow. Create awards like “Employee of the Month”, “Most Productive Employee”and the like. Design a certificate or a plaque. You can even add prizes to the certificates.  There are plenty of ways to reward your employees without spending too much.

9.Use Economic Incentive

Sure, there are non-monetary ways to reward your employees. But as your revenue increases, you have to remember who you owe it to. It can be in the form of a yearly perfect attendance bonus or an annual performance-based salary increase. According to Forbes.com, it is best not to neglect substantive incentives for lower-level employees. That is, if you expect them to be vigorously committed to an enterprise’s success. If you think it will be costly, a program has to be carefully structured of course, so additional payouts reflect clearly defined revenue.

10.Give the Necessary Support to Your Employees and Make a Strong Service Team

Your washers and detailers are your frontliners. Naturally, part of your employee management is to support them whenever necessary. Skills training is part of this. A customer is being difficult? Be there for your employee. Equipment is not working? Help your employee. Someone’s relative passed away? Pass the hat. An employee did not exactly perform a task correctly? Provide him feedback and teach him how to do it. Supporting your employees will build employee loyalty and one of the many ways to motivate employees.

Conclusion

The right employee management will keep your truck wash employees inspired, motivated, productive and loyal. Happy employees (thus a strong service team) make happy customers. And you know what happy customers mean: a successful and profitable truck wash business.

We have a lot more of employee management tips and techniques. Take advantage of our vast experience and knowledge in employee management in the truck wash industry, be a DetailXPerts franchisee now!