Beating Hiring Bottlenecks and Building a Winning Culture With Libby DeLucien

This week on the Profit Roadmap, we welcome hiring expert, Libby Delucien.

Libby is an entrepreneur, mom, owner of several super successful businesses, a certified cleaning coach and so much more. On this episode of the Profit Roadmap, Libby shares:

How to find (and keep) the best employees
What it takes to create a strong company culture
What attracts good candidates
How to grow at scale
And MUCH more

Libby DeLucien started out with a company called Organize It, which specializes in helping people organize their homes. Then, she expanded into the cleaning industry, cultivating a highly motivated and effective staff that grew her company very quickly. Since then, she has created a hiring company called WootRecruit.

Check out some highlights from Libby’s episode…

Caring, Culture, and the Current State of Hiring

Hiring has changed dramatically over the past few years, especially in the wake of all the closures of 2020. Here’s what Libby had to say about that:

“It changed for everybody. It gave us a taste of time freedom. It gave us a taste of what it meant to work from home. And so if you’re not changing with that, you will be left behind.”

Libby says it comes down to providing a good life-work balance.

“It’s about a life-work balance… It’s not worth it to them to be treated horribly. It’s not worth it to them to drive into strangers’ houses and scrub toilets for a living. If we’re not giving them a life-work balance, if we’re not giving them great pay, and if we’re not treating them like VIPS, it isn’t worth it.

So we changed that and we got back to offering some flexibility and how we run things and the way we work. Are our employees walking all over us? No, absolutely not. They actually respect us more because we know we’re on their time.”

It also comes down to creating a great company culture. For Libby, that means caring for people. She said that this can be a struggle for some, and it is important to hire someone else who can fulfill that role (e.g. a caring office manager). But ultimately, team members and recruits need to feel cared for, understood, and that they’re all on the same page.

Caring is also about celebrating wins—big and small. This leads to a positive and healthy work environment. It makes her team feel appreciated and it also means they continue to deliver the best quality work.

Libby asked her team what their goals were in life, and found out that for them it was buying a home. So she took steps to make that easier for her team. She worked with a local mortgage lender who provided education and support to help make their dream of owning a home a reality.

Finding Candidates

So, how do you find the right people? There isn’t one perfect way, it really comes down to your business. It might mean getting referrals. Tapping into your network and your community to find candidates who have been vouched for by people you know.

Or it might mean using online job sites too. On those sites, it is important to advertise the great things about your company culture. Things like a great work/life balance, promoting from within, or even offering great pay.

Remember to think about it from the potential employees’ perspective. What would make the job attractive to them? How can you stay competitive against the other job opportunities in the area?

Here’s what Libby had to say about the job posting she has:

“My ad literally says, ‘Come work for a woman-owned, minority-owned, Spanish speaking business owner. Because that’s what I want to attract. That’s who I am. It’s everything from the verbiage in the ad with things like your pay, your benefits, and core values.”

When it comes to pay, this is incredibly important to candidates.

“Your pay has to be sexy. If your pay is not sexy, it’s not going to attract anybody. Now. It doesn’t have to be crazy, but it has to be competitive in the market. Being competitive and being a caring boss will really keep people there in your company.”

Remember that there will be the challenge of finding people simply because of population shifts. Lots of the “baby boomer” generation is retiring and this is compounded by the fact that generations after baby boomers are having fewer kids than they did in times past. Ultimately, this means a shortage of people that isn’t going to get corrected any time soon.

Interviewing

Libby’s key to interviewing is to see it as a process where the best candidate makes it all the way through for a position. This is a rigorous process but she makes sure to be polite, structured, and most importantly social. It should feel like a natural organic conversation.

That said, interviewing should be a specific list of questions that you’ll ask all the candidates. This gives you a consistent approach to everyone and can help you make the best decision. Essentially, this is a data collection.

Keep in mind what it might be like for the candidate. So may come in and feel nervous or it could have been years since they had an interview. Just be patient and empathetic to fully understand their perspective.

Libby also says that it is important to have an “avatar” of the kind of employee you want. Libby really wants to get it whether or not a job “will fill their bucket” so to speak. Internally, will this job provide fulfillment for them? Will the job you’re offering be able to help them step up in life or even get one step closer to where they want to be? If not, they are the kind of employees that will leave very quickly.

Turnover

Turnover isn’t always a bad thing. People move, have changes in the family, or a job might be a stepping stone in their career. Libby says it is important to plan for this kind of turnover and not see it as a negative thing. This is especially true if a great employee leaves to chase their dreams; you played an important role in helping them get there.

Know Your Numbers

Libby says that one single, good employee can generate her business about $80,000 whereas a single customer may only bring $3K – $4K per year. So for her and her company having the right employee is a lot more important than finding another client.

Your Prospects Are Watching

Libby says that 87% of prospects are checking out the companies they want to work for online. Libby wants to create an authentic experience for business meaning she wants to show real employees doing real work, avoiding stock photos.

Business Operations

One of the things that has helped Libby streamline her business in all areas has been Service Autopilot. She loves the app and automations provided by Service Pilot and they consistently save her a ton of time. If you want to learn how Service Autopilot can help your company, just click the button below.

Start Hiring the Right Team and Improving Employee Retention Today

It is important to think about hiring as playing the long game. There isn’t a magic bullet that will help you find tons of perfect candidates overnight. But, by improving the process, you can attract great talent who are the right fit for your company.