Why Comprehensive Vetting and Training for Contractors is Crucial

The short-term rental sector is exploding, but it has traditionally lacked standardization. Historically, there hasn’t been a training manual to follow when it comes to how a short-term rental should be serviced. That was something we knew we had to change at Well & Good Property Services. Taking the time to properly vet who you’re hiring and proving more than a living wage to our employees has set our company up for success. While time and money are high value resources, they are only part of the equation. Following these principles of effective training can benefit your business, too. 

Effective training comes from someone who’s done the work

Most companies train to avoid liability, when the real goal of training should be to increase efficiency and quality. Before we prepared our employees, we wanted to be in the field. For three months, we were out doing the actual work. In this way, we gained a hands-on understanding of the best way to get the job accomplished.

For example, when we service properties, We have a flow. It starts with removing all dirty and used items from the rental property to create a blank slate before cleaning. This process came about as we worked through the job ourselves. Doing the work was the only way for us to learn the best way to get it done.

If a company’s idea of training is checking boxes in training modules, they’re missing the point. Training sets your people up for success. Ideally, your training will make their lives more efficient and more successful. Well-designed training should benefit your employees as much as it benefits your company. 

Effective training is face to face

Face-to-face training has an immeasurable impact on how your employees feel about your company. Everybody wants to know how they can scale their business. The answer is: don’t be afraid of people. You have to have face-to-face conversations.

Face-to-face training is all about building trust. Often, contractors work for a company to whom they have no personal connection. If contractors or employees don’t feel like they know anyone in your organization, they’re not going to give very much. On the other hand, if they have had an in person conversation with someone in your organization, it makes all the difference.

As we train employees on the first day, we go into the field and talk shop with them. We can do this because we’ve actually done the work. This kind of training results in a level of connection that you can’t get if you’re sending an email or text.

Every employee wants to know there is a person who values them in the company. People always wonder why our contractors go the extra mile. They give us their best work because we’ve met them. We’ve gotten our hands dirty and worked alongside them.

Effective training keeps people in the picture

As we train our employees and contractors at Well & Good, we set a culture of professionalism. We do this by bringing humanity into every aspect of the work.

Every day, hundreds of guests arrive at homes that were serviced and cleaned by our professionals. Instead of keeping the guests and professionals separate and abstract, I want them to have positive thoughts about each other. I want the guests who walk in to know that a person spent a lot of time and energy making this place ready for them. There was a human here, and that human has a name, a face and a story. We work to tell just that.

Additionally, we want our professionals to be thinking of the guests in a positive way. The work they do quite literally can make a family’s entire vacation. Memories of a lifetime will be made in the homes we service, and that needs to be on the mind of our pros.

Bringing an element of humanity into training involves asking your employees to think clearly about who they are working for and why they are doing the work. We ask our professionals to show off when they work. We want them to exhibit some flair or “wow factor”. Professionals should take pride in their artistry. Even in straight-line, labor-focused work, there’s plenty of artistry to be had, and there’s plenty of flair to be shown. When your employees start thinking that way, they elevate themselves as professionals in their own mindset. 

Effective training makes work measurable

Everybody has to have a barometer to tell them whether or not they are crushing it at work. One of the books that benefited me most was Patrick Lencioni’s book “Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” According to him, the first sign of a miserable job is immeasurability.

Bringing measurability to an industry that has had very little of it is critical for us. As we train our employees and contractors, we aim to provide performance indicators.

Employees want to know what moves the needle. If success is clearly defined, employees can work toward it. If they know what missing the mark looks like, they can avoid it. Success boils down to measurability.

Giving your employees measurable work gives them motivation. We are all competitors. When we’re all in, the most significant thing we try to compete against is ourselves. We want to be better than we were yesterday.

It is our job as an organization to make work measurable. There are a ton of professionals who want to crush their work. There are a ton of people who are ready to be better tomorrow than they were today. We set the work up in a way that feeds their appetite for greatness and stimulates their need for excellence.

At Well & Good, properly training our employees and contractors is our top priority. Our continual mission is to “Serve Well and Do Good.” If we can train our teammates well, this culture becomes infectious throughout the entire company.

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