Hiring too fast without a clear training process tends to compromise the very quality that sustained an operation’s growth up to that point. Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, founder and director of Enjoy Pets, treats team expansion as a decision requiring just as much planning as any other area of the business, because a hiring mistake during accelerated growth costs more than one made during a stable period.
The most common problem happens when an operation hires in reaction to demand that has already piled up, instead of anticipating the need with enough margin to properly train new hires before they take on real responsibility within the service or logistics flow that sustains the pet business day to day.
Hiring in reaction to demand that’s already lagging behind hurts quality
Waiting for order volume to outpace the current team’s capacity before hiring puts the operation in a position of training new people under pressure, with no adequate time to absorb the process calmly. This kind of emergency hiring tends to generate recurring mistakes in the first few months, right when the operation most needs consistency to sustain the growth it has already earned.
Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho recommends hiring ahead of time based on growth projections, not just already confirmed volume, which gives enough margin to train new staff before real demand arrives at full force. This head start keeps the end customer from noticing the transition through delays or mistakes in the service they receive.
Structured training reduces dependence on informal knowledge
Relying only on verbal handoffs between veteran and new staff creates inconsistency, since each person ends up explaining the process slightly differently, with no clear documentation backing the standard the operation expects. This kind of informal transmission works in a small team but breaks down quickly as the number of hires increases during a period of accelerated growth.
Enjoy Pets, featured at www.enjoypets.com.br, documented a specific internal process for training new staff, covering everything from pet product particularities to customer service flow in sensitive situations. Hugo Galvao considers this documentation essential for maintaining a quality standard even when the team doubles in size over a short period.
Technical knowledge about pet products can’t be optional
A team that doesn’t master pet product particularities, like the difference between food lines for a specific age or size, makes guidance mistakes that can lead to serious complaints, especially in cases involving dietary restrictions or an animal’s health condition. Training this technical knowledge should come before any training on internal tools or systems used in the operation.
Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho reinforces that service delivered without sufficient technical knowledge damages reputation faster than any other operational mistake, because it directly involves the customer’s pet’s health. Investing time in this specific training first, before anything else, protects the operation from mistakes that cost far more to fix later.
The operation’s culture needs to survive its own growth
A small team usually maintains its standard of service and care through natural closeness among all staff members, something easily lost as the operation grows without deliberate effort to sustain that standard at a larger scale. Hiring fast without reinforcing that culture results in a technically competent team that’s distant from the care that set the operation apart in the first place.
For Hugo Galvao, sustaining a culture of care for the customer and the animal, even at an accelerated hiring pace, requires deliberate effort from whoever leads the operation. That attention to internal culture, just as much as to technical process, is what keeps the customer experience consistent regardless of how many new people joined the team during that specific period.
