.png)
-3.png)
Having the right, comprehensive management platform can not only help you understand your business, but it can help you understand your employees’ needs. In this blog, Ariana Roviello, owner and operator of Laundré, talks about how a laundromat management solution can help improve employee retention rates at your laundromat.
How the Right Management Solution Can Help Laundromat Employee Experience and Retention Rates
Employee turnover rates are a big concern across many industries, especially in the wake of COVID-19, and retaining good, productive employees is more important than ever. High turnover can not only be challenging when staffing your laundromat, but it can also be costly when frequently needing to allocate funds to employee recruitment and training to get positions filled..png?width=281&name=Basic%20Cents%20Design%20Elements%20(5).png)
I’ve learned that there’s a pretty high turnover rate in this industry, but my manager has been with me for almost three years and I’ve had multiple laundry tenants with me for almost two years. Implementing a laundromat management solution that offers employee management should help analyze your employee data, but also offer active solutions like employee training, a customer support line, and tools to incentivize my employees — all of which help empower owners to hire and keep top employees.
1. Intuitive Employee Training
At Laundré, we had instances in the past where we would onboard someone, and they would get overwhelmed by the technology and all the things they had to learn to run it, so they would leave. This would hurt us because it takes time and money to hire someone, train them, and go through the whole onboarding princess.
From a retention perspective, you want an easy-to-use POS and employee interface that is beneficial for employees. Cents has helped our employee management because the training is really intuitive. It created a less stressful work environment and requires less specialized knowledge and training. There can still be user error, of course, but it’s less likely since the flow of the platform is so seamless.
2. Tools to Help Incentivize Employees
I believe that just as it’s important to give your employees the tools to succeed, it’s important to treat them with respect, as well. Part of incentivizing employees is acknowledging small milestones. At a certain point, we’re capped at what we can pay per hour, so what else can you provide? For birthdays and holidays, we do small bonuses and gifts. Just small, little things that don’t cost very much but the act means just as much to them.
On top of that, we are coming out with a “leader board” utilizing the Cents’ platform to see how many pounds they process a week based on how many hours they worked. For example, if Mark has sold or priced the most for the week, there’s a prize at the end like candy or a gift card.
For us, having that type of insight really intrigued us because we were looking for a way to incentivize that many people on a weekly basis. An employee management platform that provides you with these types of insights, gives you the opportunity as an operator to create cool incentive programs.
3. Customer Support
With the right laundromat management solution, having a customer support line that’s practically an extension of your own business is a huge advantage. If they are communicating with you and keep the lines open for you to communicate when you need them, then this won’t just help with employee retention but with your business's overall success. 
With Cents, sometimes my attendants will call their support line first before they call me, which is amazing. I know it’s usually for things that can be handled on the floor, but it’s great that they feel comfortable calling the customer line and telling them the issue they’re having. This helps me focus on bigger-picture business items and not have to stop and help them with these fixes.
Learn How Cents Prioritizes the Employee Experience
With the cost of labor on the rise, avoiding turnover is essential for today’s laundromat. Outside of washers and dryers, employees are a central part of a laundromat operation. Cents empowers laundromats to better manage their employees. With Cents, owners can quickly and easily identify a team’s successes and top performers, recognize troublesome areas, and work to motivate employees, ultimately driving overall staff satisfaction and retention rates.
Contact our team today to learn more about how Cents can not only help with employee management and retention, but all other areas of your laundromat business like point-of-sale, operational efficiencies, machine integration, pickup and delivery, and more.
