Finding Booth Attendants For Your Business.
One of the questions we constantly get asked by other booth owners is... "Where do you find your staff? "
Adding employees or contractors to your business can be such a daunting process, at least it was for us!
So I thought I'd outline the process that we use to find the perfect booth attendants for our business!
We have found parents (mums in particular) to be the most keen and reliable attendants. I mean it makes sense right? Families with small children often are looking for ways to supplement their income, Sometimes they even look forward to the break that work gives them. Especially when work entails socialising at a party or being provided a meal in peace, at a wedding! I once had one of my staff members send me a text saying "I feel like crap and was going to call in sick, but then I saw my kids fighting and thought NOPE! Im going to work!"
Mums also don't bat an eyelid when things go wrong, they just do what needs to be done to resolve the issue. Probably because as parents, we are so used to things not going to plan and we very quickly have to learn to roll with the punches!
Another bonus of hiring a parent is that December is by far our busiest time, and all parents need extra income over the Christmas period.
About Our Hiring Process:
We post an advertisement on our facebook business page. Something similar to below:
In the post, we instruct applicants to go to click on the following link for more information:
Via this link they will find a rundown of the role and an application form. We have found the checkbox system to be particularly helpful as it weeds out the applicants who don't have the vehicle required to do the job. They can't gloss over the answer, they have to tick the type of vehicle they own.
Before introducing this application form, we were so surprised by how many people put up their hands to be booth attendants, without access to a hatchback car that we had stipulated was the main requirement to the job.
After looking through these applications, we narrow down the applicants we think may be suitable and give them a call to discuss the position in further detail.
We will them ask them to pop into a real life booth hire job to see how it all works and make sure its something they think they are interested in and we can get a "vibe" about them and how they interact in a social setting.
After that we provide a formal training session, which runs for 1-2 hours, showing them the ins and outs of the booths, any troubleshooting tips they may need etc
We then give them the opportunity to take the booth home for a couple of days to practise and play around with! Such a good job perk, having your own professional selfie machine for a few days!
After this they are given a local booth hire gig to complete, and we have a more experienced attendant oversee the set up and the first hour or so of the booking. Once they feel confident on their own, we leave them be with both of our phone numbers for any troubleshooting tips and assistance. We have put a lot of effort into the maintenance and running of our booths so we very rarely have any issues.
They will then do another local hire gig on their own, with us just a phone call away.
Once this is complete we describe them as a "fully fledged boss booth attendant!"
Allocating the gigs.
We have a facebook page, specifically for our booth attendants. We post gigs available, as below, and everyone can choose which they would prefer. We feel that this helps with burnout. If we were constantly contacting them personally each week, they feel like they have to say yes, and therefore start resenting the role after a while. With this method, they self manage their workload.
We also use this page for important updates, positing great customer feedback and bringing up any issues.
Managing performance
I find the role of a booth attendant to be very simple, as long as they are friendly, outgoing and calm, they will do well. We have our attendants post set up pics in our group as they are done, this assures us all is well and it provided proof of their set up time.
We also ask the clients for feedback after the event for our clients. This way we can address any issues very quickly and easily.
Employee/Contractor Status
Every business is different and we would advise talking to your accountant/business advisors about the pay structure that is best for your business.
I have provided the links to a couple of blogs that provide some good info on this:
https://www.xero.com/au/resources/small-business-guides/business-management/independent-contractor-or-employee/
https://www.ato.gov.au/business/employee-or-contractor/difference-between-employees-and-contractors/
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