If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?

[deecee]

Hi there – I'm seeking ideas/inspiration and am curious to hear what type of help would help you expand your F&B business. Cheers!

[maxpete]

@deecee thanks for your question! Tagging some folks as I am interested in hearing their thoughts. 

@RuckusDonuts, @mksavage, @MrWellFed, and @BrianaJo 

[BrianaJo]

I'm actually in this predicament right now. My husband roasts & baristas, while I stay home and handle all the social media and bookkeeping. We're trying to grow and scale to where both of us are basically replaced, freeing us up for better and different things, working on rather than working for the coffee shop. We just went through a round of hiring and got two part-timers even though we could only really afford 1.5 part-timers unless we can justify them with enough work off-loaded from us. For example, with Gregory's days "off" while the baristas work, now he can go around networking with various other businesses and sell b2b. Getting our coffee that he roasts in-house into clubhouses, offices, churches, schools, etc. Once successful, the baristas will help with fulfilling those orders as well, introducing a 'manufacturing' side of their work not just drink making. Whether that's weighing our 5lb bags, 12 oz bags, grinding the beans to fill in the single-serve pods, or preparing shipping boxes for coffee subscription services both our monthly subscription and also the white label/drop ship subscriptions, etc. I will be off-loading my social media work onto them. This will look like, preparing monthly themed social media posts, responding to questions, thumb-up/heart all comments, responding to customer questions, taking lots of quality pictures, taking lots of quality video, handling the coordination of monthly events both public and private. This'll free me up to start the podcast. After typing this all out, it sounds like a lot of work, and almost like we just need to hire a single person/manager to do this, but we don't have the sales yet to afford that. One of those catch22's. So for now we'll just slowly introduce various tasks to our baristas until it snowballs into them fully moving out of the barista work, or we hire someone to do those tasks specifically.

[Bronze_Palms]

I would hire someone to take on creating a strategy and executing on selling my line of retail products. The service side of my business has been so busy with staff and appointments that I have neglected giving it the attention it needs to get into the hands of other salons and consumers.

[Jjpainting]

The lowest wage I start someone out at is $20 an hour, which I expect them for just general labor (I’m a painter, mainly residential but some commercial) and this is what I pay for an employee with hardly any experience, typically these are part time employees. It’s hard to find anyone reliable and willing to learn the trade.  When I get overwhelmed and need to bring on a very experienced painter for a little bit to help me catch up, I pay between $35-45 an hour. For this wage range, I expect them to have reasonable transportation, and all of their own painting supplies where the only thing I need to leave for them is the paint. These employees typically are all about the same as far as skill set, but the faster they are, the more I’ll pay. If someone is a good painter and just not that fast, I’ll pay by the job. I’ll even do that with certain jobs for my part timers, especially if I send them for a job in which I’m not there. That way i know they are not being lazy, as this provides incentive to work harder (less hours and more money). But $20 an hour is such a low wage these days, due to how expensive life is nowadays, it’s hard for someone to make it on their own (live alone) with this pay. 

[RuckusDonuts]

JJ, a question: 

If you were not running a painting company but, as the original questionnaire asked, a food & beverage business would you still be paying $35-45/hour for them to make lattes, and if so what would be the price of a JJ latte?

And another question - are all your jobs already quoted IE you know exactly how much you're going to be paid?

Thanks!

[mksavage]

Ohhhh, such a great question. I think the kinds of things that would be most helpful to have support on are unfortunately higher than $20/hour jobs. I'd love to have someone who is available to support the cafe on a day-to-day, on-site basis that has an owner mindset and can keep the "big picture" in mind. I'd also love more support on a CFO/financial advisory level, and a marketing guru/content creator, ha! That's the dream list. But if I was capped at $20... maybe a personal assistant? I feel like I'm wearing 12 different hats throughout the day, and often feel like I'm chasing my tail. So, someone who could support me personally and keep me organized -- that'd be pretty great. Not sure if that moves the cafe forward though...

[Lovewell]

We wouldn't just outright hire anyone for $20/hour - instead we would pay our already established employees a living wage as best we could. Our staff is so amazing and truly the backbone of our vision that we can not wait for the day when we are able to offer them even higher than the state wage bracket. How amazing it will be to offer, even being a small business, a competitive wage in the marketplace.

As for making the day easier - day to day our leadership team really knocks it out of the park.

Inventory and receiving is always going to be there but having everyone trained on the systems we have has made our days so much more productive. Our staff can give all of our guests their full attention because the weight of the day is spread onto multiple shoulders who can take care of the daily and managerial tasks amazingly. 
Cheers! 

[sugarlab]

This is my average salary, but then again I am in California. If I were to bring another team member on, they likely would be in a baking or cake decorating capacity. I would off load the more simple tasks that are on my list. One of my long-time struggles is the balance between bringing on more staff so I can work on the business instead of in it, but then my labor costs creep up too fast. Haven't really found that sweet spot just yet. Although, I love what I do (cake decorating) since that's what got me into this business. So I'm not sure I really ever want to not be a part of production; more so clearing up the more simple tasks. 

Hope that helps answer your questions!

[Lovewell]

AGREED! On the finding the sweet spot… the battle of loving what you literally do (baking, customers, coffee etc) but also wanting to have the “owner” moments of getting things done and being a coach rather than in the ring. 

There are different seasons! 

[mksavage]

Also agreed on finding that sweet spot! I've taken a huge step back in the last year or so from the daily operations, but we're really struggling to keep labor in a good spot. We want to pay people competitively, give customers an excellent experience, but also have some margin for our lives... it's such a tough balance. I remain hopeful that a sweet spot does exist, and we WILL find it!

[RuckusDonuts]

Late to the answer party. It's "season" here in midcoast Maine. In the 9 weeks that are July & August we will sell over 27% of ALL the donuts we will sell in 2024.

So I've been kinda busy LOL

RE the question: Maine's minimum wage right now is $14.15. The town our shop is in (Rockland) has a $15/hr minimum wage. So the $20/hr in the original question is, by the time taxes etc are figured in is not significantly above minimum.

At $20/hr I'd love to find a Jack (or Jill) Of All Trades. Someone who is a Swiss Army knife, master of perhaps a few things but proficieant at about anything asked. And being blunt they don't even need to be that. Give me a good person who shows up on time with the right attitude & is team first, me second and I'll coach them into Jack and/or Jill, and the more they know & more valuable they becomes as a result their pay rate will reflect that. I tell my staff if they stick around the ground will rise beneath their feet and someday they'll be in charge of teaching Jack & Jills as managers/etc.

[mksavage]

Shows up on time with the right attitude and is team first -- 100%! Those people make all the difference, and are such great additions to the team! @RuckusDonuts