Ep. 141 – Stop Hiring Like It’s 2016: How to Recruit & Retain Great Gen Z Pet Care Staff

Are you constantly advertising, interviewing and training new staff… only to find yourself doing the whole bloody thing again a few months later?

Are you still hiring pet care staff using the same boring job ads and interview process you’ve been using for years — even though the people you’re trying to attract have completely changed?

And how much is your staff turnover REALLY costing you once you add up the advertising, interviewing, training, overtime, uniforms and management time involved every time somebody leaves?

In this week’s episode of the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast, Dom is joined by Rich Schlatter from Purr’n Pooch to talk about hiring, training and retaining the kind of people who can eventually help run your business without you. With more than 20 years of experience across everything from huge 300-animal facilities to smaller independent operations, Rich explains why a pet resort only becomes truly scalable when the owner stops simply hiring bodies and starts deliberately building people.

Rich shares how he’s completely changed the way he recruits younger employees, including replacing boring text-heavy job posts with videos designed specifically to attract dog-obsessed Gen Z candidates, and why he treats recruitment much more like marketing. He also reveals why one new hire can easily cost a pet business more than $5,000, how changing his recruitment process meant he could sometimes go eight or nine months without needing to hire anyone, and why his “coach-up” approach to staff mistakes focuses on retraining and development BEFORE reaching for the dreaded write-up.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Why Recruitment Is Really Marketing – Rich explains why you need to think about WHO you’re trying to attract, what matters to them and how your recruitment message needs to change accordingly.
How to Attract Dog-Obsessed Gen Z Candidates – Why video, photographs and the right language can be far more effective than another boring black-and-white job description.
A Better Way to Interview – How Rich gradually moves candidates from text and email to a short video call, facility tour and formal interview instead of throwing them straight into an intimidating face-to-face meeting.
The REAL Cost of Staff Turnover – Why replacing just one employee can cost upwards of $5,000 before you’ve even considered the wider impact on your clients and team.
Why Your Training Needs to Be Documented – How detailed processes, trainer sign-offs and trainee sign-offs remove ambiguity and create greater accountability.
Coach-Up Before You Write-Up – Why an employee mistake doesn’t automatically mean they need disciplining — and how retraining, investigation and better coaching can often fix the real problem.

A huge thank you to Canine Lab Testing for sponsoring this week’s episode. Most dogs carrying parasites show absolutely no signs, meaning an undetected problem can spread through a daycare or boarding facility before you even know it’s there.

Canine Lab Testing provides a quick and straightforward way to test for parasites, allowing facilities to collect samples on-site and receive results the next day. Their partnership with the National Veterinary Diagnostic Lab helps pet businesses protect the dogs in their care, reassure clients and potentially turn faecal testing into an additional revenue stream.

Find out more at caninelabtesting.com.

There are now just FOUR WEEKS until the Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo in Hershey — the biggest pet boarding and daycare expo in the world, click here to grab your ticket

Dom will be delivering multiple sessions this year, including his brand-new Top Dog, Top Dollar presentation and a four-hour Pet Business Mastermind Experience, featuring live hot seats and practical business development advice designed to help attendees turn everything they learn at Expo into action when they get home.

You’ll also be able to see Rich’s full presentation, Hiring, Firing, Coaching and Development: Creating the Team That Will Run Your Business For You, plus there’ll be dozens of other speakers, a packed vendor hall and hundreds of fellow pet business owners.

Grab your Hershey ticket at petboardingexpo.com

Episode Highlights

[03:52] – Dom shares the seven traits of super-successful pet business owners from his recent Pet Pro Expo presentation.
[06:56] – How Dom’s latest DDSA training helps pet businesses use social media storytelling to build familiarity, provide proof and move local dog owners towards action.
[13:54] – Rich Schlatter joins Dom and shares his 20+ years of experience across virtually every type and size of pet care facility.
[17:30] – Why a pet resort only becomes scalable when the owner stops hiring bodies and starts building people.
[19:36] – Recruitment is marketing: why Rich has moved away from traditional job descriptions and started creating eye-catching video ads for dog-obsessed candidates.
[21:24] – Rich breaks down his candidate journey from text and email to video call, facility tour and eventually a formal interview.
[26:43] – The eye-watering true cost of employee turnover — and why Rich calculated that replacing one team member could cost more than $5,000.
[28:40] – Why every element of staff training should be meticulous, detailed and documented.
[30:00] – Forget automatically writing people up: Rich explains his “coach-up” approach to mistakes, retraining and employee development.
[34:14] – Why, even after 20 years in the industry, Rich still considers Hershey the most valuable pet care event he attends each year.