"Hey man just quit and you can collect unemployment."

Of course you can't just quit and collect unemployment for no good reason. There is an old wise tale that if an employee messes up or does something really dumb on purpose they'll get fired and collect unemployment. Luckily this is not the case. If it were than employees would be rewarded for intentionally or unintentionally hurting your business. This is one of the reasons it's so important to document a workers' mistakes. I don't want to get too specific with reasons someone can or can not collect unemployment because each State has different labor laws. With that said though it is very important that you understand the labor laws of your state and only a local lawyer can advise you on this.

Why are false unemployment claims an issue?

If you have employees you pay into their unemployment insurance each week, as do your employees. If someone is rightfully due unemployment when they leave then obviously that's what it's there for. When someone tries to dupe the system though you need to be able to protect yourself. The issue with unemployment insurance is that each time someone is awarded unemployment your unemployment insurance rate goes up and it keeps going up each time a new person is awarded unemployment.

During a rough patch in my company I had to combat some false unemployment claims and I even had one ex-employee who was already working and making money who submitted a claim! What I found is most employees don't understand how unemployment works, though there's always one employee who believes that the wise tail I discussed above is true, but do we really want to educate them on it? Not while they are existing employees obviously, right?

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind if you have independent contractors you will not contribute to their unemployment and if an ex-employee applies for unemployment the State might inquire as to why they are not classified as an employee...

What have your experiences been with ex workers claiming unemployment?

I start by saying that "I don't want to sound biased but...." - and then I go over the pros and cons with them. Start with the pros - the social aspect, the round the clock care, the potential for extra exercise etc. Then move onto the negatives. 

Most importantly, I tell them about the health risks of doggy day care - that their dog is so much more liable to pick up viruses and parasites that go around. In fact when the major outbreaks happen, dogs in day care are almost guaranteed to pick them up. I don't feel like I'm being dishonest here, because we've had more than enough experience of it. I've had tons of clients that go to day care on one or two days a week and have subsequently become very sick. Choose your worst story. In my case, it was a dog who picked up parasites from day care and after weeks of sickness she ended up with kidney failure. Not only that, the owner ended up with the parasites too. I have a dog now that was going to day care twice a week (we were taking him). At first I tried to talk the owner out of it by mentioning the above, but she was determined that he go. Within three weeks he had picked up a severe cough from day care which turned into pneumonia. He's still very sick. She has vowed never to take him there again. 

Next, mention that their dog is far more likely to get into a fight. Again, it's not hard to reference real life stories. I've had client's dogs end up with stitches after getting into fights at certain day care places. Let's be honest, a lot of these places employ non-dog people on low pay and they're not qualified to supervise large groups of dogs and they certainly don't know what to do if all hell breaks loose. There are plenty of cases you can find online of smaller dogs being savaged or even killed by more powerful and aggressive dogs at day care. Oftentimes they're so eager to make profit that they'll accept dogs with "issues." 

In addition, it doesn't hurt to talk to them about some of the other disadvantages of day care. Explain to them that ultimately, they want to raise a normal dog. And normal dogs are fine with being left on their own while the owner's at work, with one or maybe two walks to break the day up. A dog raised on day care is going to be addicted to attention and company, and when the time comes when they have no choice but to leave them alone, their dog is going to feel very distressed. Do they really want a dog who has to go into day care whenever they're going to be away from the owner for a few hours? 

Tell them that day care dogs don't really get that much more exercise. And they don't. I look into the window of day care places every day and see that most of the dogs are asleep or shuffling around slowly like they'd do at home. 

Then of course, remind them that most day care places pack walk dogs. Do they want their dog to be walked in a pack, by a different person every day who might not even know them? 

There are some clients who you just cannot convince. But I'm definitely losing far fewer clients to day care than I used to. 

For my future walkers, I am still up in the air about how to handle their calendars, whether I should just make them individual calendars with all of their dogs on them, or if I should share them on the current calendars (though I think that idea is messy in the event I need to terminate someone.) I've looked into Power Pet Sitter (used it at a company I once worked for) and a few others that are either cheaper or more expensive. I liked the fact that Power Pet Sitter lets you do literally everything under one roof, but I can't really afford $40 a month for their basic plan just yet since I'm only bringing about 10 daily clients on board and the others are occasional fill ins while hiring walkers to take on my work so I can make half of the money.

How do you set up your dog notes? Do you have a file that you only share with owners and add walkers notes to? Or do you allow walkers access to add to the direct file and potentially have all of your clients contact information at hand? Do you keep the dog notes separate from their regular Client Info pages? How much of your clients information do you share with walkers? I would prefer to keep client/walker contact strictly to a notebook and all other contact has to go through the office since I've lost 2 dishonest walkers this way when they left their business cards on the table and the clients would call them directly for last minute walks when I had said no.

Billing is another issue I'm going to have since people are still doing the paper check and cash methods. I have gotten some to use Chase QuickPay but I did away with PayPal a long time ago. I have a Google Checkout account that I have never used and plan to have people paying on that by May. Paper Checks are not a problem for me since my bank (PNC) allows cell phone/scanner remote deposits of up to $500 a day, but when I have walkers who I will probably not see me on a daily basis, I don't think I can wait to deposit checks since I will need to pay them in a timely manner.

I wish there was a way to integrate all of these processes together like one of those paid pet sitting software programs. I just can't see paying for one at this time because I'm still in the beginning stages and will be eating a lot of ramen noodles until I fill my routes next month.

Has anyone used an affordable pet sitting scheduling/billing program? Or is everyone pretty much using Google Docs? Suggestions :)