How to Grow Your Team as a Bike Rental Business Owner

Like many people who have started a bike rental business, you’ve probably run it alone for some time. However, as your business grows, you’re starting to look at building a team. This can be challenging if you’ve never hired anyone before, but it doesn’t need to be complicated. Of course, this can also be the case for established businesses looking to grow their team.

As an entrepreneur who has started a business, you’re undoubtedly used to working long, hard hours. Up to this point, you’ve probably been wearing all the hats in your business. However, you now want to regain your work-life balance, and you’re looking to hire some employees. Your question is how you find and hire people that will benefit your business.

Many things go into hiring team members, whether it’s your first or your fifth, so it’s good to know how to do it effectively. You must determine your needs, write job descriptions, advertise roles, interview candidates, train new employees, and foster a positive work culture. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the steps you need to take to grow your bike rental team.

1. Determine if it is the right time to grow your team

The first step in hiring new staff is knowing when it is the right time to do so. In general, this is when you reach the point where you can no longer keep up with running your business by yourself. You need to take a step back, look at where you need the most help, and determine where a helping hand would be most effective for growing your bike rental business.

At this time, it is also essential to consider whether you can afford to hire some employees. Their salaries will be ongoing expenses and investments in new equipment they may need. So, you need to determine if it makes economic sense to hire people to help out. You may need to seek advice and devise a plan to accommodate these extra expenses.

2. Define the roles you require

As your bike rental business grows, there will likely be many positions you need workers to fill. You must define these roles, calculate their workload, and determine working hours. This will help you to determine the employees you need to meet demand. Don’t forget to factor in peak seasons and the number of customers you expect to serve, as this can have an effect.

Typical positions in a bike rental store include:

• Floor Staff - The people who deal with customers.
• Mechanics - The people who repair and maintain bikes.
• General Manager - Someone who is in charge of scheduling and accounting.

While thinking about roles, you should decide whether your employees need to work full-time or part-time. It is also crucial to consider that some of these roles may be able to be outsourced at a lower cost. For example, marketing and accounting can be done by external agencies and don’t necessarily necessitate hiring a permanent employee.

3. Write compelling job descriptions for new roles

To attract the right kind of people to your business, writing clear and compelling job descriptions is important. If a potential candidate can’t tell what the job entails, it can be difficult to know if they should apply. Some essential components that make up a job description include:

• Job title - This should accurately describe the nature of the role.
• Description and duties - Summarize the tasks expected of the people you are looking to hire and make sure it’s clear and concise.
• Skills and qualifications - What you write here will depend on the nature of the position, but you must ensure you only list what is necessary.
• Compensation - Previously, this was not essential, but in the current climate, it is important to be transparent about salaries.

4. Advertising your open positions

How and where you advertise your open positions depends on the skills and qualifications required. For less experienced roles, you may consider listing them on Facebook, your local newspaper, or simply with a notice in your shop window. From our job examples, this may be a good option for hiring floor staff who can be taught how to deal with customers.

If you’re looking for more experienced candidates, you may be better off posting your open positions on LinkedIn or premium jobs listing sites like Indeed or Glassdoor. This will give you visibility to people with better qualifications and may be a good option for hiring mechanics, and a general manager from the examples we gave earlier.

5. Making hiring decisions

When hiring new staff, it is essential to determine if they fit your business well. Skills and experience are important aspects of this, but candidates should also be a good cultural and personal fit for you. This will help ensure they will be happy and motivated to do their best work. As a growing business, this will be vital to maintaining and improving your trajectory.

If you’re unsure about a candidate, it can be good to check their references to understand how they perform and work with others. Once you’ve decided and are ready to offer them a job, you should negotiate to find a salary and benefits you’re both happy with. Be aware that you may need to offer some perks to sweeten the offer and get the candidate on board.

6. Train your new team members

Finally, training new team members properly is essential, as this is probably the first time you’ve handed the reins over to someone else. It is important to look at how you currently work and if the way you do it is easily teachable to someone unfamiliar with rentals. This is especially critical if you’ve been doing much manual work on bookings and inventory management until now.

Evaluating your processes will allow you to decide if you have the right tools for team members to work effectively. For example, you may switch from manually taking orders and managing inventory to using rental software, like Booqable, to automate much of this work. This will not only help you be more efficient, but it will also be much easier to teach new staff.

Growing your bike rental team

Building a strong team will be crucial to maintaining and increasing success as your bike rental business grows. This is why it is important to determine your needs, outline roles, advertise effectively, find suitable candidates, and invest in the right tools. Following this guidance, hiring your first team members and growing your bike rental team should be more achievable.