When recruiting staff, how often do you wish for a local school that offered degrees in pet care? Finding professional pet care staff for our businesses is a shared challenge. Today it is easier than ever to create your own professional staff. This investment in your team will be repaid by loyal employees, consistent service, healthy pets, and happy clients.

My experience demonstrates that pet care centers can achieve high-quality pet care when they offer employees a professional career opportunity. Here are the three key steps to transitioning your center to one that supports careers in pet care.

First you must set expectations for professional pet care and believe that it is a viable, respected career choice. Define the qualities that a pet care professional must have to succeed in your center. During the job interview process, look for these qualities. Tell applicants that you are hiring people who are looking for pet care as a career and not just a job. This simple step will cut your pool to candidates that have desire and interest in learning professional pet care.

The next part of setting expectations is to reflect on your own management style and role in the business. Professionals with careers want responsibility and freedom to make decisions. They definitely do not want to be micro-managed. Owners that are successful in building a professional staff clearly define their role and focus on owner duties. They are also comfortable delegating decision making within pre-defined parameters.

Finally, part of setting expectations is good communication with your staff. You need to discuss openly their performance and opportunities to grow in your company. Performance reviews need to be two-way discussions where future goals of each staff member is an important part of the meeting. These goals should be documented and honest feedback given on steps the employee needs to take and steps the business is willing to take to make them achievable.

The second key step in developing pet care careers is to create a supportive operating structure. You need to define a career path for staff in your business. This requires clearly defined roles and formal job descriptions that reflect increased responsibility. Lead or coordinator positions that are responsible for work assignments and proper completion of processes by staff are good stepping stone positions to supervisor. For very small centers, this can be more challenging, but remain open to the goal. Take time to list your own duties and then go back through it to find items that do not require the experience of the owner to complete. These are the first duties to transfer to a more senior staff member, which starts a career path opportunity.

Key to a successful career path is the commitment to look first at your existing staff when you have higher-level openings; always post internally first. All internal applicants should get the courtesy of a sit-down discussion to review the job qualifications (outlined in the job description) and where they may meet and fall short of requirements. This is a great learning experience for all concerned. You find out staff members that have an interest in growing with your business, and your staff gets helpful feedback on how to improve their qualifications.

Documented job performance standards are another key aspect to a career path structure. An objective listing of desired results of each key work process sets the staff and management team up for success. Clearly defined work goals and frequent feedback on work results objectively identify your top performers. These are the staff you want to retain and get on a career path with your business before they get bored and look externally for additional challenges.

The last key part of creating your structure is to ensure your pay scale and monetary rewards align with a career path. Pay increases should be focused on completion of pet care training courses, successful cross-training of other job duties, and assuming more responsibility.

The last key step is to ensure your business has a formal training program that supports staff seeking a career in pet care. First impressions are very important, so formalize their first day as an orientation program to the business and their career. Provide information on your company history, mission, and goals in providing pet care services. Review the entire training process that they are starting with your company.

A formal training program requires that the on-the-job (OTJ) portion include written checklists and procedures for each key work process. You also need to ensure that the OTJ trainer does a good job of teaching others.

Pet care centers that attract professionals seeking careers will have a curriculum of training courses in addition to OTJ training. Today there are many resources for good pet care training materials. Pet first aid training is an historical core topic provided in most pet centers. Your curriculum should expand beyond that to include basic care for dogs and cats (plus any other species in your care), animal behavior, safe handling, and customer service. Recommended resources for courses include International Boarding and Pet Care Services Association, Association of Pet Dog Trainers, Dream Dog Productions, and Outstanding Pet Care.

Finally, creating opportunities for staff to cross-train to other job duties is a win/win. The business creates back-up coverage for unexpected shortfalls, and your staff engages by learning new duties. A professional career is reinforced with a boost in pay and recognition of their importance to the team.

Today’s top pet care centers respect and support the pet care professional careers and are growing key employees in our industry. This change in mindset and expectation keeps the top centers consistent in their quality of care and business success. All of us can be a part of the change by creating the supportive structure and investing in training our own employees. The investment pays for itself with healthy pets, happy clients, and loyal professional staff.

Susan Briggs is founder and co-owner of Urban Tails, a large multiservice pet care center in Houston, Texas. One of the first cage-free sleepover and dog daycare centers in the country, Urban Tails evolved into a training resource for pet professionals on safe daycare operations. Staff training is a passion for Susan, resulting in the development of tools available to pet care professionals through Crystal Canine, a training and consulting resource for the pet industry (www.crystalcanine.com). In 2008, her first book, Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety & Fun, co-authored with Robin Bennett, was published. This successful book inspired a dog body language poster set and pocket guide tools for pet professionals using the traffic signal safety colors. It was also the resource for Knowing Dogs Staff Training, a two-volume “staff training in a box” program on dog body language and group play, produced in 2012. All resources are available from Dream Dog Productions (www.dreamdogproductions.com).

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