It’s not only about numbers of personnel, there’s a personal side too. 

When Iona Kearney became operations manager at Speedy Sparkle Car Wash, she figured she’d get ahead of the game by making a staffing schedule three weeks in advance. But those good intentions soon clashed with the fast-changing, late-developing plans of her part-time employees, who requested so many changes that the schedule became useless.

Speedy Sparkle, a full-service car wash in Louisville, Colo., relies heavily on local high schools and the University of Colorado Boulder for part-time workers, and those students typically have busy lives. 

“I actually look mostly for part-time employees because I like the flexibility they offer,” Kearney said. “But I’ve learned that you can’t expect students in high school or college to know what they’re going to be doing more than a week ahead of time.”

To simplify scheduling, Kearney sends a text message to her two dozen employees each Wednesday, asking if there are specific days and times when they can’t work. On Fridays, she posts the schedule for the following Sunday through Saturday, with 10 to 12 workers scheduled for each weekend day and eight to 10 workers on weekdays. 

Speedy Sparkle has five full-time employees, most of whom prefer standard workdays with little variance. The part-timers form an effective bullpen, working primarily closing shifts and weekends to maintain adequate staffing levels. 

On low-volume days, Speedy Sparkle may have employees take unpaid lunch breaks of 60 to 90 minutes, and if traffic doesn’t pick up, they’ll be sent home. If volume then picks up unexpectedly, team members simply will explain to customers that interior services might take longer than normal. Customers “appreciate that honesty upfront,” Kearney said, “so it doesn’t seem to cause issues with the experience.”

Benefits of intentionally overstaffing 

Effective scheduling has taken on added importance as wages have risen in recent years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages and salaries climbed 4.2% during the 12-month period ending in June, following a gain of 4.6% over the preceding 12 months. Despite elevated labor costs, however, many small businesses see overstaffing as a way to build in some operational leeway.

At Speedy Sparkle, Kearney said she routinely overstaffs, recognizing that on any given day, several workers might request last-minute scheduling changes due to illness, family obligations, an important exam or a can’t-miss party.

“I’ve found that I can always find an employee who’s willing to go home early or take the day off, especially the part-timers, so if I’m overstaffed for the day, it’s super easy to cut labor,” Kearney said. “I’d much rather be overstaffed than understaffed because then the team doesn’t struggle as much.” 

At Dreams Eco Xpress Car Wash, being slightly overstaffed allows employees to spend more time on customer service and upselling rather than hurriedly moving from one car to the next, said Tom Tallon, director of operations. The company has three locations in the Calgary, Alberta, area, each manned by a supervisor and two attendants most of the time.

Prioritizing work/life balance

As businesses struggle to recruit and retain workers, car washes offering work/life balance and scheduling flexibility have a leg up, Tallon said. “A part-time job rarely is the top priority for students, especially those participating in extracurricular activities such as sports, and employers need to acknowledge that. It’s counterproductive to take a hardline stance by denying scheduling requests and firing those who don’t show up, especially when good workers are hard to find,” he said.

“We do try to be relatively accommodating because everybody’s got their own things going on outside of work,” Tallon said. “This younger generation, in particular, does like to prioritize things outside of work, especially if they don’t see this as a long-term job. I’m not expecting everybody to treat this as their career.”

“If you want to retain quality employees, it’s important that you try to accommodate them while also looking out for the interests of the business,” Tallon said. “There’s a give and take.”

Car washes struggling to retain full-time employees might want to explore offering four-day workweeks, according to an August 2023 survey from ResumeBuilder.com. In the poll of 1,000 American office workers, 96% said a shorter workweek would improve their work/life balance. In addition, 94% said they’d be somewhat or very enthusiastic about switching to a four-day workweek.

“It’s very clear that workers are enthusiastic about a four-day workweek, and this could be an alternative for organizations to give workers more work/life balance, rather than instituting remote or hybrid work schedules if that does not fit with their culture,” said Stacie Haller, ResumeBuilder’s chief career adviser. 

The personal side

Scheduling can be a way to connect with your staff on a personal level as well. 

For example, when staffers call out habitually, that could be a sign that they’re dealing with personal issues or don’t value their jobs, so Tallon typically will meet with that employee right away to identify the issue. 

Similarly, Kearney said she uses her weekly text messages not just for scheduling but to check in with employees. When a worker asks for a day off for a family function, sports event or to take the SAT, for example, she makes a note of that event and asks about it the following week. 

“I know that for a lot of managers, making the schedule is tedious and time-consuming, but I use it as a way to connect with employees one on one, which shows them that the company cares about them,” Kearney said. “I’ve really used it to my advantage as a huge retention tool because it helps me to stay up to date with all my employees.”

 

 

Predictive Scheduling 
On the regulatory front, car wash operators should be aware of predictive-scheduling laws, which require companies to give employees advanced notice of their work schedules and to compensate them for changing schedules on short notice. 

These laws are designed to provide workers, primarily in the restaurant and retail industries, with a more stable work schedule so they can better manage their finances and issues such as childcare. In 2017, Oregon became the first state to pass a predictive-scheduling law, and it applies to most retail, hospitality and food-service companies with 500 or more employees in total.

Major cities such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle have passed similar laws. To date, none of these laws applies to car washes, but legislators could expand the scope of covered employees in the future, placing burdensome regulations on car wash operators, according to human resources consultant Matthew W. Burr.

“It’s important to be aware of the evolving legislation at the city, county and state levels,” he said. “This has been primarily fast-food and retail driven, but that doesn’t mean it can’t expand to other industries as well.”  

In 2018, Tom Hoffman Jr., owner of the Hoffman Car Wash chain, with 31 locations in New York, spoke at a legislative hearing about predictive-scheduling regulations being proposed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The regulations, which eventually were scuttled, would have required employers to schedule work shifts 14 days in advance. 

If the business no longer needed a worker for a certain shift, it would have had to notify the worker at least 72 hours in advance, or it would have had to give the worker four hours of additional pay. If the business called a worker less than 72 hours in advance, it would have had to give that worker an additional two hours of pay. 

In his testimony, Hoffman said the proposals would be “job killers,” prompting car washes to automate more services and processes and reduce their headcounts. For weather-dependent businesses like car washes, predictive scheduling would be simply too restrictive, he said. 

“There’s no way to sugarcoat their impact, which is ultimately to eliminate the entry-level employment for high school and college students,” Hoffman said at the hearing. “Our employees’ jobs are in danger of being eliminated if these regulations are enacted.”  

High-Tech Help
While text messages and Excel spreadsheets work for some, there are multiple high-tech options designed to help with scheduling. 

There are an array of online tools available to streamline scheduling, including some powered by artificial intelligence. Employees simply input their availability, and the programs will spit out schedules that work for everyone. Popular apps include Jolt, Connecteam, Trello, Homebase, Hitask, Sling, Jotform, Open Wash Systems and When I Work.

In these programs, managers typically have the option of setting up schedules manually or using an auto-scheduling tool to do it in seconds, taking into account employees’ qualifications, physical limitations and other factors. Employees get electronic notifications when they’ve been scheduled for a shift, and they have the option to approve it, reject it or contact the manager to address issues promptly.

Will Whipple, owner of Heroes Express Car Wash, with four locations in North Carolina, said his company has used Jolt since 2019, and his employees like the usability and simplicity.

“It’s extremely user friendly,” he said. “We have a template for each location, and it takes all the guesswork out of scheduling. Employees can request time off easily, and you can set it up to whatever your company policy is as far as lead time for time-off requests. It’s worked really well for us. Our employees love it, especially our younger employees, because their whole life is on their smartphone.”

John Sproul, hiring and training director for Nashville, Tenn.-based Camel Express Car Wash, said he’s used several scheduling tools over the years, but Jolt has proven especially useful for his company’s five locations, as well.

“With Jolt, you can get a lot of stuff done with scheduling without spending a lot of time on it,” he said. “Employees can trade shifts and put in requests for time off through the app, and that’s something that our team likes. You can set up reminders via text, push notifications or email about their shifts too.”

In addition, point-of-sale systems typically provide predictive analytics, using factors such as sales history and weather forecasts to estimate labor needs. POS systems can estimate the number of employees needed for each shift by taking into account how customer volume varies according to conditions such as day of the week and weather, helping operators to avoid overstaffing or understaffing.