5 Steps to Hiring a Rockstar Team for Your Moving Business (Part 3)

You're reading part 3 in our hiring series. In part 1, we covered key roles and responsibilities for different team members in your moving business. In part 2, we dug into the first three steps of hiring a rockstar team, including:

1. Organize your systems and SOPs
2. Create a compelling job description
3. Promote your open roles 

Up next: the final two steps in assembling a crew you can count on.

4. Interview your top candidates

Ah, the interview process. In the current market, it’s important to remember that interviews are a two-way street.

Just as you’re hoping to find a good fit for your company, the candidate wants to make sure you’re the right fit for them too.

To lead an interview that gives you your pick of top candidates, make sure you or your interviewer is ready to ask the right question and actively listen to the candidate’s answers.

Here are some potential interview questions to ask your moving company candidates:

1. Can you describe your previous experience working in a physically demanding role, such as moving or heavy lifting? How did you handle the challenges associated with this type of work?
2. What motivated you to apply for a position at our moving company? What aspects of the job appeal to you the most?
3. Can you provide an example of a time when you had to work effectively as part of a team to accomplish a task or project? How did you contribute to the team's success?
4. Can you describe a challenging situation you encountered while moving furniture or belongings? How did you handle it, and what was the outcome?
5. Can you give an example of a time when you had to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously?
6. Safety is a top priority in our company. How do you ensure that you follow safety protocols and procedures while performing physical tasks, such as lifting and transporting heavy items?
7. Communication is crucial when working as a mover, especially when coordinating with team members and interacting with clients. How do you ensure clear and effective communication on the job?
8. Our company prides itself on delivering exceptional customer service. Can you share an experience where you went above and beyond to satisfy a customer or resolve a customer's concerns?
9. Flexibility and adaptability are essential traits for movers, as tasks and schedules can vary depending on the job. How do you approach unexpected changes or challenges in your workday?
10. What do you enjoy most about working in a hands-on role like moving? How do you stay motivated and engaged in your work?

A great set of interview questions is a perfect way to understand who the best fit for your team really is. But it’s also important to keep an open mind.

“You want to look at the people who have taken an interest in investing in themselves. For me, I’d rather take someone with an interest in getting better who maybe isn’t an A-player today but is a strong B-player because they’ll get to be an A-player,” says Vince Burruano, former VP of Commercial Sales with JK Moving in an interview for the Grow Your Moving Business podcast.

“You want to look at the people who have taken an interest in investing in themselves.” — Vince Burruano, former VP of Commercial Sales, JK Moving

5. Onboard for success

According to the latest hiring stats, 20% of employees quit within the first week and 17% quit within the first month of employment. Yikes.

Scary numbers like these are directly related to your new hire onboarding process.

It’s time to go beyond the tick-list approach of filling out hiring forms to develop an onboarding process that makes it easy for new hires to hit the ground running. And it’s just as important for experienced workers as it is for completely green movers.

A strong team member onboarding process should include:

• Company culture, values, and mission: introduction to the company's identity, ethos, and expectations for behavior and work ethic

• Job role and responsibilities: comprehensive information about the new hire’s daily tasks, performance expectations, KPIs, and goals

• Training and development opportunities: any available opportunities and resources and for skills development and career advancement

• Communication channels and feedback: clear communication channels and feedback processes with managers and staff

• Performance evaluation and progress tracking: details on how progress will be measured, promoting accountability and recognition
• Company policies and procedures: including attendance, leave, code of conduct, ethics, compliance, etc.

A professional moving company requires a professional crew.

“Instead of just hiring someone and throwing them on a truck or only hiring people with previous experience, invest in spending time and money on training them before you put them out,” says Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery. “If you have training set up, you open up your workforce tremendously.”

Experts like Louis also recommend creating a clear bonus program to reward employees for things like positive reviews, zero claims, and other key performance metrics to increase retention.

“If you have training set up, you open up your workforce tremendously.” — Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery

How SmartMoving can help your team succeed

As with the rest of your business, your recruitment process should always be evolving.

But building the plane while flying it isn’t for the faint of heart. To keep things running efficiently, you’ll need scalable systems for getting team members hired, trained, and fully up-to-speed as quickly as possible.

That’s where an all-in-one moving platform like SmartMoving can help.

By centralizing and automating key tasks for your team, SmartMoving can help you:

• Simplify new hire training by providing a central digital system for all your core scripts and SOPs
• Easily communicate and manage schedules through the Crew mobile app 
• Streamline key workflows across all teams and business functions
  
  

“Technology is more familiar to our younger crew members than paper tracking. We knew that we had an outdated process and we needed something better,” says Adam Gurwell, VP of Moving Ahead Services. 

After realizing there was simply too much room for error between scheduling and dispatch, Adam switched to SmartMoving to streamline and digitize his team processes.

“We were still using carbon copies – and the generation of movers we have coming into the door these days – they are often seeing carbon copy sheets for the first time with us,” he explained. “The Crew app is so easy for my team to use and awesome for me with the reporting we can do through that with incentives, upsells and more.”

With well-thought systems in place, you can move from vetting to training new team members in a matter of days — not weeks.

Hiring movers doesn’t have to be so hard

As a reputable moving company, you can’t afford to cut corners on team building. But remember, today's crews don’t look like yesterday’s. 

Modern movers are digitally savvy, with little patience for clunky, time consuming processes. To attract and hire the right movers for your business, focus on establishing a clear recruitment process that presents your company in the best possible light.

And always take the time to put the right systems in place.

SmartMoving is more than a CRM. Whether you want to unlock faster follow-ups, go paperless with your inventory, or send accurate estimates in seconds, SmartMoving has the features you need to improve team performance.

Create your systems. Build your team. Scale your business. Book your free demo today to learn how SmartMoving can help make it happen.