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High attrition – Delivery personnel

We have a startup which focuses on home delivery. For the past six months I have been trying to hire atleast one delivery executive who would help me with the deliveries around the city. But none of them stay beyond one day or sometimes even fail to show up on the first day.

It is a two person startup. I wanted to concentrate on Business Development but now end up doing the delivery runs myself. The salary offered is market competitive but somehow fails to attract people (even part timers).

  • Something(s) doesn’t/don’t add up. It’s either you’re a bad person picker or your offer stinks.

    “The salary offered is market competitive” – Probably not. If it was, you wouldn’t lack for good candidates. Where are you based? What do you call competitive? Does the pay package offer a salary and benefits equal or exceed what is typically offered to the top 20% of candidates in that role/industry?

    WTF is a “delivery executive”? What is wrong with “delivery courier”/”delivery driver”? Where and how do you advertise and describe the role? Something tells me it differs from the reality of it. Do you take the time to find out in detail why each person quits (exit interview/phone call shortly)? You can’t expect to make a good hire in future without rectifying the mistakes you keep repeating.

    Pretty sure if you put a properly titled ad (delivery driver not a stupid title wrongly implying managerial role) with the right info (actual pay rate, company/candidate’s car, benefits, etc) in the right place (your local craigslist or newspaper classifieds for your city, not on some glorified startup board), you’d have the right people and wouldn’t be here.

    Reply

  • If you’ve been trying for 6 months, and haven’t found anybody there’s something seriously wrong with your approach. Perhaps you’re setting wrong expectations of what the job entails: “delivery executive” vs “errand boy”. Perhaps you’re mistaken about what a market competitive salary is (try offering more and see if that makes a difference). Perhaps you have wildly optimistic expectations about how much work people are willing to do for the salary you offer. Perhaps you’re trying to recruit in the wrong demographics. Perhaps you set unreasonable expectations.

    Nobody with any dignity wants to do a shitty job for shitty pay. Even as a startup it’s important to create good jobs, not shitty jobs for the work you don’t want to do yourself. Create an environment of mutual respect and where people can grow and make a meaningful contribution to your business.

    Reply

  • In a two-person startup, you’re going to do everything anyway. It’s naïve to think that you’ll be freed up to focus on business development, because if the business grows, you’ll have more deliveries, and need more delivery people…and you won’t want to hire ahead of the curve. That means you’ll likely continue to do deliveries yourself for a while.

    And to the poster’s point above, no one wants to work for a two-person startup and be an unvalued hired hand. Would you?

    Reply

  • Market competitive is a matter of definition. I’m sure you’re paying as much as other services are paying – but the types of people you want may not be the same.

    A delivery driver who has a fixed route and an easy routine is completely different than a delivery driver who’s constantly going different places, performing customer service in front of strange people, and under pressure to do more More MORE!

    Another aspect is that the job simply is difficult. There are a lot people who need to money and/or are willing to do the job who just can’t. A big part of the task for filling these positions is simply going through enough people until you find that happy combination of reliable, willing to stick, and does a good job.

    I speak of this as I’ve hired newspaper people, in home senior care, and ground pounding mappers.

    Reply

  • 1) “delivery executive” is a bullshit name. It’s probably intended to make the couriers feel better about what’s a really menial gig, but everybody knows it’s bs. What makes the courier feel better is decent pay.

    2) the world needs another delivery startup like I need a home in the head.

    Reply

  • when u commented the world needs another delivery startup like I need a home in the hole

    do u mean to say there is too many delivery startups popping up everywhere?

    Reply
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