Input Welcome

[rwebster]

Hi everyone,

I am the owner of a well established dog daycare, grooming/spa, overnight boarding and training facility in San Marcos, CA in San Diego.
Just want to say Hi and want to understand the growing grooming industry and how we can get more groomers out there working and servicing the needs of San Diego!!! Is it hiring groomers on call to address "walk in's", is it hiring more part time groomers, that don't want to work 60 hour weeks, is it a collaborative effort in growing the business, is it partnering with our local groomers and mobile groomers so we don't turn away ANY customer, how do we continue to service all of our clients with the shortages of groomers in the area??

Input and ideas are WELCOMED!

Rhondi

[dogma]

60 Hour Weeks?!? YIKES!!!!!

[TootsiePie]

My last 2 jobs I found here in the free ads. And we found other groomers here, but not always. My boss keeps an ad here year round. But it is hard to find groomers most everywhere from what I hear. It can be some work for owners to keep them too. Sometimes groomers leave to open their own businesses in fact that happens a lot.

[Stephen]

Few groomers want to work 60 hour weeks so of course you need more groomers but nationwide there are about 3,000 job openings any day of the week. It is the most chronic problem of the grooming industry for over 50 years. We list hundreds of job openings and job searches monthly in the classifieds outside of the board, and sometimes over 1,000 a month especially in Spring.

One issue Tootsie hit on is quite true. About 70% of employed groomers surveyed in the world's largest surveys of groomers say they want to be self employed, or plan to be. Of them, 55% said they did not like the management they worked for, and indicated that was the main reason for wanting to be self employed.

We provided on the job training for about 25 years and kept an average of 12 employees. Full time bathers stayed an average of 4 to 6 years, and full time groomers 5 to 8 years, so it wasn't a big revolving door at all. We had some groomers stay over 10 years. The business was extremely popular in town, we got involved with many community activities and charities. We had over 40 vets making referrals every month due to our working relations with them, and word of mouth did the rest so we felt the demand strains you are experiencing.

We didn't have part time groomers much, but extra part time bathers many of which were students at veterinary college and they were great workers. They had to drive an hour to get to us but the chance to get out of the classroom for hands on work thrilled them. It was fun to have them teach us more about what they learning in college too.

Ironically, we got several of our best groomers from our clientele and their families, the kids that were great with animals but had no college ambitions. That came about from my mother's interaction with her clientele. She knew them all quite well by offering full time staff at the desk, and she spent most of the day in client relations. That made it different than the average grooming business and they would not go anywhere else. Some amazing groomers came about by introducing this concept to her clientele that she could provide a career to some of the children of her clientele, and it just clicked. Some went on to open their own businesses. One in fact is still our friend of the family and went on to buy land, open a kennel and salon, and amazingly as you know real estate in CA, her property and development made her a multimillionaire...not bad for the kid of a client who had no ambition to go to college. My mother also went to career fairs...we always had a big stack of applications through activities like this and providing on the job training, and we were in Northern CA.

We did get some part time bathers from colleges, not the veterinary one. So many college kids are in college just to go to college, not for a specific career for which they are passionate. The ones passionate for animals outside of their college life can be found by offering part time jobs as bathers with postings in the student union or college newspaper. We would work around their class schedules, and our bathing supervisor in the bathing dept trained them and supervised. Again some actually left college when they found working with animals outside of being a vet was their passion. If they were good employees we made them assistant groomers and worked up to full charge groomers, and not quickly, it averaged 2 years...but they didn't have to pay to go to school. Only one tried to open a business a block away and she failed miserably. There are plenty of pets to go around, and Mom had her clients bonded to her business, so we didn't worry. There is no reason to offer on the job training and train them fast, that is not what I am saying. If we gave them this golden opportunity they had to work for it loyally and plan around 2 years. No express training other than to make them expert bathers first, and remember that was easy for us because we had a Bathing Dept Supervisor position.

So that is what we did in CA in the same conditions of today....a serious chronic shortage of groomers. My parents took on these challenges and this is what they came up with and we rarely had a job opening long and had minor turnover. There were no management books or consultants or the Net like today, they simply worked the problems and found solutions on their own...and they worked cooperatively with other business owners in the area...some answers came by cooperation with other businesses...they never called other businesses the competition...many actually came over to our home for dinner occasionally. I think good things find their way to people who don't compete but help find solutions for everyone, and word got around and many then wanted to work for them. Some would say in CA, good karma indeed. My mother would actually help other groomers find employees from her stack of applications, good for the groomers needing jobs, and good for other business owners...how many areas are lucky enough to have owners that work together like this? Not many, but see? It was another way of keeping grooming positions filled. A good example of a solution not so obvious but obvious.

My suggestion today? If business owners in your area would work together and be a VOICE for the opportunity of the grooming career path and get the word out to thousands of potential groomers in your area, you would gain dozens of good groomers. Remember how I said my mother worked with her clientele to find groomers in some of their relatives, and went to career fairs. Thousands in college, or avoiding college, just haven't seen anything from the grooming industry to "make the light bulb go off" and say, grooming! I could be a groomer. This is a seminal idea that could be developed on local levels by grooming business owners. It worked in 60's, 70's and 80's and would work today.

[petstimes2]

My biggest reason for having my own business exactly is finding a groomer that manages me fairly. I tell my mother what I have experienced and she says it is absurd, she can't get away with that and $*$(*@#)_. I like the ideas you said about owners working together, my boss puts down the other shops. You are right, I want to work with a fair employer or forget it I will start housecall or mobile.

[1 Clean Puppy]

I could work 60 hours a week easily, but I would burnout. Shortage of groomers very bad here in IL.

[DogGamut]

Hi everyone,

I am the owner of a well established dog daycare, grooming/spa, overnight boarding and training facility in San Marcos, CA in San Diego.
Just want to say Hi and want to understand the growing grooming industry and how we can get more groomers out there working and servicing the needs of San Diego!!! Is it hiring groomers on call to address "walk in's", is it hiring more part time groomers, that don't want to work 60 hour weeks, is it a collaborative effort in growing the business, is it partnering with our local groomers and mobile groomers so we don't turn away ANY customer, how do we continue to service all of our clients with the shortages of groomers in the area??

Input and ideas are WELCOMED!

Rhondi

Lake Elsinore here, it's hard to find good groomers, I know a few, but few and far inbetween, if the pay and work environment is good you should be fine