What Can I Reasonably Expect a Pet Sitting Employee To Do?

I was seated next to a very nice lady at a networking event a few weeks ago. She was a fellow coach and we got to chatting about our coaching experiences. We ended up making plans to get together the following Wednesday for coffee. Terrific! Tuesday evening arrived and I got an email from her saying that her day tomorrow was very hectic and could we reschedule to next week. I replied, no problem, that would be fine. I’ve been there myself when the week just seems to get away from you. The following week I again received an email the day before we were supposed to meet saying she had a conflicting appointment that she had made months ago and only just realized the conflict. She wanted to reschedule again I politely told her that I wasn’t available.

Some people might think I was too harsh or to hasty in my actions. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. What is clear to me is that I had certain expectations of our encounter. I expected her to honor the commitment she made to our meeting and I expected her to respect my time. These are the same expectations she should have of me. It was clear to me that she didn’t respect my time and I made the decision to step away from the budding relationship.

This all got me thinking of the expectations we have of our pet sitting and dog walking employees. I’m the kind of person that looks inward first. For example, with the new acquaintance I mentioned, my first question to myself was, were my expectations reasonable? It was only after I decided that they were, in fact, reasonable that I declined to reschedule again.

We tend to, or at least should, go through this same process with our employees. As a boss you are asking your employees to perform all kinds of job-related tasks. We expect them to complete these tasks but do you ever stop to think about whether what we are expecting them to do is reasonable?

I’ve heard pet sitting business owners say, I would never ask an employee to do something that I’m not willing to do myself. This sentiment is all well and good but let’s think about that for a moment. You are the owner of the business. As the owner part of your job is to go above and beyond to make the business run smoothly. Sometimes the things you have to do are not pleasant or may even be physically challenging. You do them though because no one, and I mean no one, cares about your business as much as you do.

Employees are great! They can be efficient, loyal, diligent and all-around rock stars. But it’s important to remember that they are not the owners of your business. They might care about your business but they will never care as deeply as you do. They have other jobs, other concerns and other lives that are more important than your business. And that’s just fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Because of this though, the limit to what they are willing to do is naturally lower than your own bar. You as the business owner need to be aware of where that limit is because the consequence for exceeding this limit is that your employees will be unhappy which could lead to them quitting. The challenge becomes knowing where the limit is. This is (one of) the questions that kept me up at night in my pet sitting business. What could I reasonably expect of a part time pet sitter?

Was it reasonable to expect them to get in their car during a snowstorm and drive across town to do a pet sitting visit that they had committed to?

 Was it reasonable to expect them to do a visit for a client before 6am or after 9pm?

Was it reasonable to expect them to clean up a diarrhea explosion resembling a crime scene from a dog who got into the power bar stash in the cupboard as soon as their owner left for the day and ate 13 power bars, wrappers and all (true story)?

Was it reasonable to expect them to do a pet sitting visit at the last minute?

Was it reasonable to expect them to work with dogs that were big and pulled hard on the leash?

The list went on and on. While these are all things I was willing to, and often did, do, they are not necessarily things that I felt comfortable expecting from my sitters.

I strongly believe that relationships fail, and I mean all kinds of relationships husband/wife, business partners, friends, employees and employers, because of misaligned expectations. We’re human and our expectations are formed from our life experiences. There is no issue here. The issue comes when we fail to clearly express and explain our expectations.

I had a manager once named Lydia. As my field manager Lydia was usually the one who stepped in when a sitter called in sick or late or simply quit. Lydia would drop what she was doing and do the visits for the MIA sitter. As my manager, I expected her to do this and for a long time, she did. She didn’t complain, she didn’t bring it up until one day she exploded. I got an earful for 45 minutes on how she felt taken advantage of and how she shouldn’t be expected to put her life on hold every time someone else failed to show up. I listened patiently and apologized for making her feel that way but the damage was done. Our relationship just wasn’t the same after that. Less than a month later she quit.

I spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. What I ultimately realized was that I had failed to set a clear expectation with Lydia on what her job responsibilities were. It might have been an unrealistic expectation to have her fill in last minute for the others, I’m not sure. What I do know is that because I didn’t take the time to lay out and discuss the expectations beforehand, the situation evolved to a point where we couldn’t recover.

It was a painful lesson but I learned from it and did better with the next employee. What I learned was that there are obvious limits to what we can expect an employee to do in the course of their job. It’s unreasonable for example to expect a pet sitter to confront an overtly aggressive dog. It’s unreasonable to expect them to be available 24/7. These are obvious limits but what about the less obvious situations or asks. The answer to that question lies in communication.

You need to clearly communicate your expectations to your employees. This isn’t a one and done. It should happen during the interview process, the onboarding process and the ongoing employment. And it’s not a one way conversation. Having your employee clearly communicate their own expectations will help as well. It’s important to keep the communication going both ways by checking in with your employee often to re-align expectations and highlight any ruffled feathers.

In today’s employment market many business owners are expecting less of their employees. They’re afraid to ask too much for fear of losing them. I would counter that they are losing these employees not because they asked too much but because they didn’t align expectations early on in the relationship. It takes some thought and some time to do this but, believe me, it will save your relationships.

Another article you might like;

How Much is Too Much Advertising?

https://www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog/how-much-is-too-much-advertising/

About Eliza

Eliza is an experienced pet business owner with a specialty in pet sitting and dog walking businesses. As The Pet Business Coach, she offers coaching and resources to aspiring or current petpreneurs. She maintains an awesome blog for pet business owners https://thepetbusinesscoach.dog/blog-page/ and a practical podcast to help pet business owners excel and drive their business forward. Eliza and her husband live in the Appalachian Mountains with their furry and feathery family including cats, goats and chickens. Visit her website at www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog.