Escape room business is accelerating with enough speed to attract the attention of many, but the business looks easier on the outside because the whole idea of escape room business tempts many, especially those who love mysterious fun.
People love escape rooms, especially young adult and working because Escape rooms are one of only a handful few spots where a pack of Millennial can be as one, and appreciate being as one, without being on their telephones or inundated in online networking. You get an impressive affair that is about genuine living.
Escape rooms give a real escape from the virtual world and take you to an alternate world where all reality fades away for an hour.
What are Escape Rooms?
As you can imagine from the name, escape room is a room which is designed in a way that, if a person or more technically a player enters the room, he/she can only come out if they find out the escape by using physical renditions and other items in the room within a set limit of time.
The escape room is a physical game where the player plays the game in the real-time world and solves the puzzle. There is a different type of puzzle within the game and different diversions set in the room like jail cells, prisons, and other blocks.
The first real escape room was made in 2006 which was inspired by the computer game ‘escape the room’ and got famous in Japan, Canada, Israel, and many other countries.
Room Staff Jobs – How to Hire, Manage & Retain Employees:
Escapes rooms are becoming popular and many youngsters are choosing this as an opportunity to start their own business. But setting a business is not the easiest of the task, especially when you have to build something that required constant interactions with the strangers to offer, something to play and refresh their mind as well as give them an amazing experience.
There is no doubt that the scope of escape rooms is bright and more people choose them to take their mind off the pressure, but managing such kind of business is tricky.
Escape room staff is one of the most important factors, in the success of the business you cannot even dream of success without an amazing team of staff, but the question is how you are going to get the amazing team of staff to work with you? It needs a lot more than just hire some people to work for you, it is actually a team effort and you must know how to hire, manage and retain your escape room staff.
Here are some of the important points one should consider hiring, manage and retain escape room staff because this business venture is new and people hardly have proper knowledge about the work and what it took to succeed in this area.
1. Interested and catching job description:
The job description is the very first step a recruiter takes when it comes to hiring new staff. The escape room is a business which needs staff with great communication skills, so prepare a job description that can meet the requirement of the job and catchy enough to attract a potential candidate. Always remember that job description is what brings candidates for you, so pay a great deal of attention to the job description.
2. Hire the best only:
Hire the best candidate only because most of your customers are going to interact with your staff, which will decide if they are going to come again or not. Never compromise when it comes to hiring the staff for the escape room because compromise may look profitable or easy enough, but later it proves a disastrous decision because escape room is a type of business where your staff regularly stays in touch with customers who are total strangers. Try not to contract “just anybody, who appears to be sufficiently satisfactory“. Set out to locate the best ability out there, because it pays off.
3. Hire people who are interested in customer services not in escape rooms:
It may look a good idea to hire people who are excited to work with you and show immense interest in the game, but never make the mistake of hiring candidates who are only into the game because your needs are different. Hire someone who has experience of customer services like hotel administration, customer support or a host. You need the staff that is people-oriented and know how to interact with the customers and make sure they are satisfied.
4. Hire people who can work for the long term:
Hiring those people who have no interest in the job or the people who tend to change the job in every few months only bring problems and they often prove to be bad news. Always look for the staff that is interested in working long term, dig deeper into their previous job and never satisfy with resume only. The staff who worked for long duration is always better than those who change the job frequently simply because long term staffs have more understanding of the job and they are less costly than any short term staff.
5. Hire candidates who prove to be emotionally intelligent:
There was the time when experience and academic record is what that matter in the candidate for the job, but things have changed as well as the hiring process and priorities. Although experience and the academic record still play an important role, one thing which also should consider when hiring new staff is emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is more important in a job like a customer support service and the escape room is a business where you need emotional intelligent people in your staff to make your business bloom.
6. Do not stick to experience only:
Escape rooms are moderately new, so there are few individuals with important involvement in this industry. In any case! The business is developing and the interest of game experts is going to rise. You can use fresh talent if the teaching goes correctly and can prepare future game experts for the industry.
7. Offer an escape room for a potential candidate so that they can earn experience:
Experience is what turns a potential candidate into valuable staff because the experience is one of the things that are hard to find in escape room business because this business is relatively new and people have little to no knowledge. Offer an escape room for the potential candidates so that they can earn experience of everything and how it works as well as can engage himself more in the job.
8. Don’t forget to hint towards promotions:
Growth is always an important factor in finding the new job and moving from one organization to another so why will your staff work for you if you don’t provide growth to your staff? Never forget to hint towards promotion in interviews and front of your staff because the promotion will give them chances of growth and your employee need something to encourage them so that they can work hard in their job.
9. Offer flexible working hours:
The job in escape rooms depends on the number of customers and the demand which cause variation in work hours. Offer flexible work hour to your staff so that they can work willingly on those days when the business is at peak and work is going on for a few late hours. Flexibility in office hours also helps staff to unwind and focus on work more clearly.
10. Become tech-savvy:
The business of escape rooms is relatively new and so the staff, as well as escape room, mostly attracts youngsters or the people below 40 years of age which demand young and energetic customer service support.
The newness of this business demands tech-savvy staff so become tech-savvy if you want to succeed and keep your staff for a longer period. Technology makes our life easy and simple, as well as escape rooms, are part of modern entertainment so learn to love technology.
11. Use intense training system for newcomers:
Never show leniency in training your staff. The newcomers are usually those who take the job of escape rooms easily and think that because it is part of game or entertainment they can easily do that, but just like any other business it too needs a dedicated and well-learned employee. So never show an easy way out in your training and try to make sure each of newcomer got firsthand experience through intense training.
12. Make your staff have a conversation with the strangers:
Escape rooms is a business where every day you meet with new customers who can behave in any way. One of the best ways to make sure everything between customer service staff and the customer goes smoothly make your staff have conversations with strangers and then teach them how to improve their skills. When you teach by example, it leaves a great impact and the staff learns lessons more easily and accurately.
13. Always use friendly competition for your benefit:
If you are wondering why you need to compete with your staff with each other then you must know that employees perform well when they perform in the competition. They are more productive than usual as well as more attentive towards the task which ultimately helps you. Engage staff in some sort of friendly competition so that they can learn team power and can work better as well as get the motivation to work hard.
14. Give positive and encouraging feedback:
We, humans, love to hear our praises which give us a confidence boost and we generally work harder when our efforts get appreciation. The same thing applies to the staff of escape rooms because, like any other employee, they too love positive feedback from their employer as well as they stay loyal to you if you acknowledge efforts of your staff and say positive words about it.
15. Use instant feedback tricks:
Why wait for months or days to get the feedback from the customers when you can use tricks to get instant feedback from the customers. Use trick like suggestion and feedback chip before leaving the escape room area or thank you note for feedbacks, etc. This can help to get feedback from the customer who helps in improving services as well as staff work. Instant feedback trick helps in more than one way, so use it.
16. Encourage referral system:
It is always hard and sad to send one of your valuable employees away, but change is universal and you cannot stop it so why not embrace it more positively. Encourage referral system in your office because your employee knows how the system work around your office and they can refer some of the great employees to hire or can mentally prepare new candidate from referral which ultimately helps you in both cases.
17. Take your team in confidence:
When your team has confidence in you and your ability, they work hard and stay loyal to you as well as stay longer in the business. Take your team in confidence and prove you are a good boss, leader, and entrepreneur and know your way around the business world.
18. Give a goal and rewards:
A goal helps in the motivation and a reward makes your staff loyal to you and they work long term. So make sure your staff is not aimless and reward them when they achieve certain goals. A happy employee is a productive employee.
Conclusion:
Starting a business like escape rooms look easy, but this business has many difficulties and they need dealing too. We hope this article helps in hiring, managing and retain the staff because any successful businesses have a great team effort at the back of it. It is a business which is growing and in the coming years going to give employment to thousands of employee.