Your employees are the face and best representatives of your business; they will interact with your customers, prepare your beverages and monitor the safety and well-being of your investment. There are several workforce models that may be applicable to your business, ranging from the foodservice model of unskilled workers hired at low wages to “press the buttons” to the fine dining model of premium customer service personnel akin to a tuxedo clad maitre d’ and skilled artisan Baristas manning your espresso machine, much like an award winning chef in the kitchen; there is a situation that is appropriate for each kind of approach.
It is not our intent to argue the effectiveness of any model with this recommendation to invest in your employees - it is our intent to recommend that with any model, you should choose the best possible candidates for their position and compensate them accordingly.
The best approach in any situation is to hire the best people and give them the training, support and compensation (monetary or otherwise) that they need to be comfortable and grow with their position. Thousand percent employee turnover rates may be common in minimum wage fast food restaurants, but consider what real cost this has on the small retail business: product inconsistencies resulting from inexperienced staff, exorbitant recurring training costs for all of the new hires, poor employee morale resulting from low wages and the personalities that low wages attract and most importantly, how these staff members interact with your regular customers – generally not well, and those that are able to develop a customer rapport are not likely to remain with your business for long as better paying opportunities develop elsewhere.
Technology tools are available to reduce the skill level required of your people to perform their jobs – take, for example, superautomatic espresso machines that perform all of the steps of a trained Barista, from grinding the whole bean coffee to extracting the espresso shots and even dispensing frothed milk, all at the press of a single button. As helpful as these devices may be, we caution you to use technology as a tool and not a crutch; whereas technology is helpful to assist your employees, not all problems can be solved with the application of technology alone in the name of cost savings.
We recommend by attracting enthusiastic potential employees with stable job histories and good references looking for a long-term position you may spend more out-of-pocket in the short term, but that the returns you receive in reliable job performance, increased sales and decreased training costs will far outweigh the upfront investment.
Stable candidates are generally influenced not solely by monetary compensation, but also through the sort of support workplace that fosters advancement and other benefits, such as medical insurance coverage; be certain to work with your payroll professional or human resources leasing company in order to develop a packaged offering that reflects the type of candidates that you wish to have representing you and your business.