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Finding Good Help.

Employee drama. I have only been in business since December, and only need to hire since January, but I already have had plenty of employee drama.

We hired our first employee off of Craig's List. She has worked out great so far, but because we don't have the steady hours to offer yet she has taken up other work. So that means she is not always available when I need her!

We got a call from someone with catering and kitchen experience inquiring about job openings right when we needed someone--score, right? Not so much...he was a great guy but he went MIA on me for a month! When he finally got back in touch, he said it was because his phone was broken. Borrow one dude! I had explicitly talked with him about the needed communication skills for this job. I need confirmation that employees are available when I invite them to an event (via google calendar). I got nothing before the phone excuse, then no-shows for jobs. So he was the first employee I have had to let go. I have already fired someone!

Being in a shared kitchen I have had plenty of time to observe other trucker's employees as well. I guess for $10/hr you don't get the work ethic or math skills that employers want from very many. Its not that they are inherently lazy, or without skills. Its that they aren't very intuitive when it comes to next steps. As soon as they are done with the assigned task they are either on their phone (selfies on the job--God bless 'em!) or staring at you until you give them the next task. Look around and think! What do you think needs to be done next?! When they are given a task and they don't like it, they complain, "Can you believe he asked me to XYZ?" Yes, yes I can. He is paying you to work...

I have hired a friend that has worked out very well. She is very intuitive and jumps in where needed with little prompting. She doesn't mind taking directions from me, and will give me a nod if she thinks another employee needs some supervision. But I think I got lucky! There is a lot to be said for how the dynamics in a relationship can change when you add employer-employee to it. We have hired church friends for jobs (not truck related) before and it has gotten a little hairy sometimes! So we have been avoiding hiring any more people from church. Seems a shame, but I would rather not jeopardize a relationship.

In the past week and a half I have had the hardest work schedule! I did 6 twelve-hour shifts in 7 days. My employees had to work a couple of back-to-back double shifts as well, but I was the one that had to stay after and prep for the next day's service. This was all because I landed a huge job, a festival, and a few dinner services in a row. But now that it is done I don't have another job for 5 days. So it has been hard to find good help, and hard to determine when to hire more help. If you have any pointers, I'm all ears...

In the mean time, I'm off to check on a few 'help wanted' posts...here we go again!

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