Hiring the best is only the first step of the process—now you've got to set them up for success. What does that look like at a self storage facility, though? What if you own multiple facilities?
In this Gabfocus Spotlight, Sue Haviland dives into the things to remember when training your self storage managers.
Question: "What is your manager training process like?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Best of the Best, we spoke with Sue Haviland of Haviland Storage Services and Kraig Haviland from San Diego Self Storage. They gave us their thoughts on how to find and hang onto the best of the best when it comes to self storage managers and other employees.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Sue had to say:
I think you have to find if you're a one store operator or you have several, and who is doing the training, number one.
So a lot of times we can rely on really good managers to do a lot of our training. Because they're a good manager doesn't mean they're a good trainer. And so keep that in mind. So finding the right mix of your team who's going to do certain things with them. Is that one person? Is it a couple? Do you have a senior manager that helps with the training? Is it your area managers, is it you personally? And then having that plan. So we have day one, day two, day three.
And each person is different because sometimes if they came with experience and say they already knew your software, you gain a lot of time back there. You don't have to train them as much on that. You just have to train them on how you like things done. A new person who's never worked on it might need the three weeks, for example, to feel comfortable on their own, and somebody else might be ready to go in four days.
And then it's just getting into what are your things you're going to train, and if you have trucks, and if you got to teach them what fits in what size.
The biggest thing is just don't throw them out to the wolves, don't spend a few hours with them and then disappear on them. Make sure they get whatever that right amount of days that works for you to fit in and make sure you make the time. If you're going to hire somebody, make sure you have time on the schedule to do their training, or if you don't, then another plan B is who they're going to mirror with for a while and making sure that that's the right person. And then the follow up. Training is a never ending thing. And this is something we always forget, too, because we train them when they're new and then think that that's it.
But anytime you have new systems or programs, a lot of companies just roll it out and expect them to figure it out. Making sure you always have ongoing training and growing them. Again, being engaging, showing them that you value them, that they're worth your time and interest to put into them."
—Sue Haviland
