Innovative approach to skilled staff shortage lands award honours for doggie daycare

Faced with a shortage of skilled staff, Diesel and Blue Doggie Daycare & Grooming owner  Danielle Haase decided to take matters into her own hands, creating an innovative solution that’s a boon for her own business while providing career opportunities for local kids.

Ever since Danielle opened her local doggie daycare business in 2019 she says she has struggled to find trained dog groomers, a problem that’s only become worse since the global pandemic.

“There's no groomers in this world right now!” Danielle said. “Because of Covid, everyone quit and everyone got a dog. So there’s this massive disconnect between the amount of groomers and then the amount of dogs.

“I have advertised all over Australia or even considered FIFO, we considered flying someone in every week from Queensland as a groomer because we're that desperate for a groomer!”

But then Danielle realised that this could also be an amazing opportunity for young locals.  Working with TAFE and other training organisations, Danielle has created a traineeship program that, from next year, will see a regular intake of young school leavers being trained and qualified as dog groomers right here in Orange. 

“I realised there was this amazing opportunity for kids leaving school who didn't want to go to uni and were creative and maybe neurodiverse and loved dogs and they wanted to do something in that realm,” Danielle said.

“So I created this traineeship program, which has been kids approaching me up until now, but as of next year, we're going to have an intake every January – two trainees, every year, ongoing is the plan. A permanent, regular, organised traineeship program.”

This creative approach to solving a skills shortage saw Danielle win not just the Excellence in Innovation category at the 2023 Business Orange Awards, but Diesel and Blue Doggie Daycare & Grooming was named 2023 Outstanding Business of the Year.

“That kind of threw me off-centre a little bit,” Danielle said. “But it speaks to the success we're having, we also won the state Australian Achiever Award again in the pet services category — we've won state every year since we've started and we won national last year.

“But, as I said on the application, it's not like we've created anything new. We've basically just taken something that's on offer, which is fee-free training through government, and a business that has the potential to train and kind of pulled them together.” 

As well as putting the traineeship program in place, Danielle has also been actively meeting with career counsellors and schools to promote dog grooming as a career or a skill set that could take you anywhere in the world.

“If I was 18, 19, 20 and I had a Cert II and then Cert III in grooming I could literally travel the world,” she said.

“Instead of getting a Responsible Service of Alcohol or doing a barista course and heading off, you could get grooming qualifications and travel the world as a groomer, because there is just a dearth of groomers worldwide...

“Or if these kids are ambitious, own your own business! I've got no qualms teaching them everything I know and them going out on their own and opening their own businesses. Because it's just an industry that right now — and for the next three to five years – that is going to have the opportunity for rapid expansion and for smart school leavers to grab it and be successful.”