Tips for Training Staff Members for a Pet Sitting or Dog Walking Business

Michael Grenier
Michael Grenier November 22, 2024

Managing a successful pet sitting or dog walking business can be an incredibly fulfilling and rewarding experience, but it also comes with its own set of challenges. One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome is also one of the most important aspects of running a business: hiring and training staff members. In the pet care industry especially, higher turnover rates can be a big issue and finding trustworthy team members with good availability is something worth investing your time and money in. To help put you on the right path, we will discuss a few of our favorite tips for training your team below in the hopes that they’ll be sticking around for the long haul!

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Tip 1: Develop A Comprehensive Training Program

The first step in setting your staff members up for success is to develop a comprehensive training program for your pet care business. This program should cover all aspects of the job, including caring for the pets, educating them on the basics of pet health, coaching them to provide great customer service, and managing important business operations (such as using pet sitting software or composing post-visit updates). If you offer additional services, like grooming, nail trimming, tooth brushing, or medicine administration, you’ll want to be sure all team members are equally trained and find out if anyone is unable to carry out specific duties (whether it be to an allergy, phobia, or other reason).

The training program you develop for your company may look very different from another pet care company, depending on your policies, expectations, and the types of services you offer. You may have a handbook informing staff members of these policies that you require them to read through, training videos for them to watch, or you may take a more hands-on approach and teach them as they go and gain experience in the field. Regardless of how you want to approach training your staff members, your training program should be structured, organized, and have clear objectives and timelines for completion. We would also highly encourage you to arrange time for new staff members to spend in the field. Whether you have them shadow yourself or a more experienced member of your team, this can be a critical opportunity to assess the trainee’s current comfort level, give them space to ask questions, and demonstrate firsthand how you expect them to carry out their jobs.

Luckily, our industry has a wealth of training resources available to pet care business owners looking for some inspiration or additional materials to work with. One of the best resources out there is FetchFind, which provides fantastic training materials and handbooks for pet care professionals to peruse.

Tip 2: Provide Hands-On Training

As we briefly touched upon in our last tip, hands-on training is essential for the staff members you hire to work for your pet care business. No teacher is better than experience in this industry. Allowing staff members an opportunity to learn the proper ways to care for the pets they are assigned and navigate client interactions is imperative to their development as a pet sitter and the success of your business. As part of your company’s training program, arrange time for new staff members to both observe and participate in real-life pet care situations.

This might mean that you schedule them to shadow more experienced team members, assign them walks and visits from different routes so they can practice caring for a variety of pets, and doing live demonstrations of administering medication to pets or brushing their teeth. You might also consider introducing them to a difficult pet and walking them through how to navigate the situation. The things that will be vital for your team members to know will depend on the services you offer, the clients you serve, and the types of animals you care for. You want your team members to be prepared for anything they might encounter day-to-day in the field!

Tip 3: Emphasize Customer Service

While providing top-notch care to your clients’ pets should be the primary focus of your team members, establishing a good relationship with pet parents is a critical component of managing a successful dog walking or pet sitting business. As they go through your training program, make sure to emphasize the importance of excellent customer service to staff members. This can include teaching staff members how to draft the perfect post-visit updates, showing them how to effectively answer questions and communicate with them through your pet sitting software, handling client complains, and building positive relationships with pet parents.

You might also consider coaching your team members on what is and isn’t appropriate for a client to request and let them know to come to you if they feel a client has crossed a boundary or has made them uncomfortable. Do not encourage them to handle such situations on their own but provide them with scenarios they might encounter and how they can handle things until they can get you involved.

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Tip 4: Set Clear Expectations And Goals

Setting clear expectations and goals for staff members is essential for both their success and the overall success of the business. Staff members are representatives of you and your brand, and how they provide service to the clients and pets under their care will determine the sort of client feedback, recommendations, and loyalty your company will receive. As you train your team, take the time to discuss how a staff member of your company is expected to conduct themselves in the field and outline what their overall goals are, both in the short and long term. This can be limited to the scope of the time they’ll be working with your team, but can also extend into long-term career goals, which can help you determine the type of work and assignments you give your team members to help in their development.

The types of things you might go over in detail are expected work hours, the quality of pet care they are meant to prove to their clients, and the standards your company has regarding customer service and how they’ll be expected to interact with your company’s pet parents. Being clear on what staff members should strive for and laying out everything they are expected to do as part of their job will help them better understand how to complete their duties with more confidence and how they can contribute to the success of the business.

Tip 5: Provide Ongoing Training And Support

The landscape of our industry is constantly changing. The services you offer today might not be the same services you offer tomorrow, and expectations around pet care and health may change with time, as well. With that in mind, training with your team should always be an ongoing process and not isolated to a one-time event or something that only takes place at the beginning of a staff member’s time with your team. While they won’t necessarily need the same level of training they did when they were first hired, as a leader, you should aim to help your staff improve their skills, expand their knowledge, and grow as pet care professionals.

Providing ongoing support, going over expectations and protocols periodically, and retraining staff on certain skills when necessary are all important parts of ensuring your team members are completing their duties as expected and correcting any bad habits that might develop over time. You can provide this additional training through regularly scheduled training sessions, periodic performance reviews, and by providing staff members with opportunities to provide feedback on current policies and expectations or to inform you of areas where they might be struggling.

Encouraging your team to ask questions and share their concerns with you or other office team members is another thing you can do to ensure your team feels well-supported and another way you can offer additional training where it’s needed.

Tip 6: Foster a Positive and Supportive Work Environment

Finally, it’s important to foster a positive and supportive work environment for your staff members. While this may seem like a given, it can sometimes be a difficult concept to grasp. What’s supportive and comforting to some may appear overbearing and micro-managing to others. Getting to know your team members and learning what works for them and what doesn’t is an essential first step toward building that environment. Some ways you can accomplish this are by providing regular feedback and recognition when your team members do something well. If there’s something they need to work on, reaching out to them individually and coaching them through it one-on-one can be incredibly beneficial.

But it doesn’t have to stop there! Connecting with your team members and building up trust between yourself and them is an essential part of creating a positive work environment, but establishing a sense of community between your team members can be an integral part of that, as well. While your team members may be largely independent as they go through their daily routes, consider creating opportunities for staff members to socialize and bond outside of work so they can get some face time with one another. While seeing cute pets all day is certainly one of the bigger perks of this line of work, it can leave one feeling isolated and disconnected from their fellow pet care professionals. Throwing an occasional office party or giving your team members a chance to connect during group training sessions can be a great way to help negate some of those feelings and help team members connect. Another great way to foster a positive work environment is to offer competitive compensation and health benefits.

Providing a positive work environment is essential to running a successful business because it can help staff members feel valued and motivated to perform their best. If you manage to create a strong sense of community and collaboration among yourself and your team, as well, staff will be much more likely to share their best practices with you and their fellow team members. It can also encourage staff members to come forward when they are struggling or have made a mistake if they feel like their voices are heard and that will lead to better performance from everyone.

In conclusion, training staff members in an effective and meaningful way is critical to the success of your dog walking or pet sitting business. By developing a comprehensive training program, providing hands-on training and ongoing support, emphasizing customer service, setting clear expectations and goals, and fostering a positive work environment, you can set your staff members up for success and put your business in a good position to continue expanding.

For more tips on establishing good relationships with your team and finding good candidates, check out our Ultimate Hiring Guide for Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Businesses and our blog post on Building Trust With Staff.

Happy pet sitting!

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