The best advertisement – find qualified employees for your car wash

If you find the right people, you can score multiple times: Your customers will feel well advised and treated in a friendly manner, and your employees will enjoy coming to work themselves because they feel comfortable in the team. In order for this ideal situation to come about, you should consider a number of things when looking for new employees.

Do your employees need special and/or further training?

If you are seeking employees who will do the pre-washing, advise customers on the wash programmes or operate the cash register, no special training is required. All these tasks can be taught to the employees through instruction. Ideally, they will already be familiar with these tasks because they have already had a similar job.

But it's not just the training that counts – your potential employees should have a few skills and qualities of their own. In the job advertisement, for example, you can specify the following desirable qualities:
 

• Technical interest
• Enjoy dealing with people
• Ability to work in a team
• Knowledge of written and spoken German
• Reliability
• Physical fitness
• Willingness to work shifts
• Willingness to work outdoors/with water
• Driving licence

If you find a prospective employee with all these skills and qualities, you can be sure that they will do their job well.

You can find employees in different ways

If you are looking for new employees, there are different places to start. First of all, there's your own website and Facebook page, of course: Post the information that you are looking for a new employee and what skills are desired. It is also worth posting on the larger job websites such as Monster.de, stepstone.de, indeed.com or jobboerse.de. Also take a look at the website of your hometown – you can also post jobs here in some cases. You can also reach many potential new employees via eBay classifieds.

Since you are looking for people who live not too far away, you can also place an ad in the regional newspaper or the weekly newspaper of your area. Although the number of readers is declining here, you will reach those who rarely browse for jobs online. Another simple option is to put up a small poster in your car wash. In this way, all customers can see that you have a job to offer. If they are interested, they can ask directly this way, or they can tell friends or acquaintances later who are looking for a job.

Find employees: Help from the employment office

The Employment Agency can help you find employees. You can place a job advertisement on the job exchange of employment agency and get advice from their recruitment specialists. If you have questions about the development of the labour market or about work organisation or working hours, you can get in touch by telephone or e-mail. You have also come to the right place if you have any questions about continuing vocational training. The advantage of a job advertisement in the job exchange of the employment agency is that their advisors can specifically recommend interested parties to you who match your job description. If required, the agency can also arrange temporary workers for a short period.

What costs you can expect for your employees

Depending on which channels you use, the cost of recruiting varies. The advertisement on your website and on Facebook in the information about your page are free, as is the poster in your car wash. If you would like to find employees via job exchanges, a small fee is often due for you as an employer. For advertisements in the newspaper, the longer the ad, the more you pay.

If you are looking for personnel, you should always bear in mind the costs you will have to pay. Of course you don't pay as much for unskilled workers as you do for those with a high level of qualification. Initially you should (also depending on the location of the car wash) nevertheless plan for about twelve to thirteen euros per hour gross – if you pay less, your potential employees will probably be more attracted to competition. Calculated over the year, this results in a gross salary of up to 22,000 euros. 

As an employer, you pay significantly more: You must take into account pension, health, nursing care and unemployment insurance contributions, as well as accident insurance and costs for staff recruitment, the staff room and training. Also, your employees get sick from time to time and can't work, so you'll have to provide replacements. All in all, an employee costs you several thousand euros more than their gross salary – and you may also want to offer Christmas or holiday bonuses. Here you will find an hourly calculator, which you can use to calculate the hourly rate for your employees.

Summary: You can search in a wide variety of ways

Searching is probably the easiest part of finding new employees. There are many ways online and offline where you can advertise the vacancy. Selecting new employees is more important. You should ask yourself how well they fit into the existing car wash team and whether the skills they have meet the requirements of the job. And finally, you should always keep in mind that you have to pay your employees – their gross salary does not correspond to your expenses!

We will be happy to advise you on all further questions regarding the planning of your own car wash.