When You Hire Employees, Feelings Matter

Introduction – Employees Are An Extension Of Your Brand

Hiring is about more than filling a schedule — when you hire employees, you’re designing the first impression that shapes how they’ll treat customers, coworkers, and your brand. For residential service contractors, onboarding that prioritizes feelings and relationships turns new hires into motivated team members. Follow practical, emotional-first steps at hiring and onboarding to reduce turnover, build referrals, and grow a reliable crew that represents your company with pride.

Relationships Matter! Just Accept It 🫤

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

I’m guessing the late poet Maya Angelou never needed to hire employees for a Home Services business! But her words are the key to build a “Critical Mass” residential services company. Here’s why…

80% of how a homeowner makes their ‘value decision’ on your services is based on their RELATIONSHIP💖with (how they FEEL about) the people involved in their transaction.

TRAP ALERT: A home services entrepreneur can easily get caught up in what Stephen R. Covey called “the thick of thin things”. (Obsessing over equipment, vehicles, marketing, technical processes, accounting and even the essential word, “PROFIT”!) Instead, I urge you to…

Focus first on FEELINGS! No robot or AI will ever match real human connection. So start consistently managing (or engineering) the RELATIONSHIPS that produce your customer’s feelings.

This “Service Engineering” philosophy is easy to write but brutally difficult to consistently achieve! After all, you’re dealing with individuals AND their constantly shifting emotions! But the plot thickens when…

As a proactive Home Service entrepreneur you must “Service Engineer” (manage) the relationship between two very different groups- your workers and your homeowner clients!

REMEMBER: It’s not only your in-home production workers. Each residential client also interacts with your phone dispatchers, accounting staff and salespeople. Then each of these relationships gets added to the simmering cauldron of a homeowner’s emotions! WOOF!

There are ever so many reasons why you must hire only the Very Best People! Most importantly? Because reliable, cheerful, and motivated employees instinctively create Customer Cheerleaders! (And they make building a Critical Mass business fun!) And yet…

NEWS FLASH! Our industry is facing a serious shortage of in-the-home production workers. So, to attract the very best job candidates and (more importantly) keep your existing, trained employees you must focus on how employees FEEL about your company. (And you too!)

Sure, you should pay your people well. (I suggest starting a new hire at a 20% premium over what they would make at any competing job in your local market.) And yet…

While you can hire employees with higher pay no one will stick around long term based only on pay. Instead, your employees stay with you because they FEEL like they’re part of a business family… immediately after hiring! (New Hire remorse is very real!) So, just for you…

“Family Feeling” 4 Step Checklist when you Hire Employees.

(Email me your ideas on what to add to this list.)

1. ✔Take their photo immediately after hiring. Rush order personalized business cards along with their photo I.D. badge to be drop shipped to your new employee’s home address. You should also give a new hire their uniforms right away. (Your goal with all this? To “emotionally commit” a new hire to their new job by displaying your commitment to them!)😁

2. ✔After formally hiring an employee suggest they fill out an optional “Family Fun Profile”. This can include family member’s names, ages, photos, nicknames, pets, hobbies, how long they’ve lived in the area and their thoughts on their new career with your company. Then forward this profile to your existing employees.

NOTE: You’ll also use this information (with your worker’s permission) to create their Employee Profile landing page on your company website.

3. ✔Immediately set up a new company email for as you hire employees. Then encourage your current employees to email or text a welcome message to their new Team Member along with a link to their own employee profile. (Or you can use a shared employee Whatsapp group.)

4. ✔Have their Fast Track Trainer (FTT) reach out to them. My main goal with Fast Track Training? To challenge a new hire immediately! (A Very Best Person will love this!)👍👍 However, I also wanted their FTT to become a mentor. So schedule your FTT to personally reach out to your new employee immediately after hiring.

Bonus Hints For Training New Hires

HINT: ✔Pay your FTT to take your new hire out for coffee (or a beer!) just to “get to know each other”!😎 You want even more hints? Fine!

HINT #2: ✔Schedule a company wide “Big Welcome” on a new employee’s first day of work!💖 (Click HERE for an 8-step Big Welcome script.)

Of course, our “FEELINGS Equation” is only half completed with analysis as you hire employees. You must also consider the (cue the foreboding music!)… the FEELINGS of your residential clients!😲

Summary – Engaged Employees Make Success Easy

If you want hiring to fuel growth, remember this: every time you hire employees, you’re also hiring the way customers feel about your business. Make the early days count — fast identity, clear welcome, real connection, and early mentors — and you’ll keep people longer, reduce headaches, and create advocates for your brand. Treat hiring as relationship engineering and you’ll win on retention, referrals, and reputation.