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Finding Qualified Help

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daisy1

Active member
How are you all finding qualified help. Located in mid Michigan and I have not been able to hire a single person in over a year. Iam at my wits end working non stop daily, I have tried social media, the unemployment website and all I keep getting is unqualified school kids. No one I’m seeing wants to work because of free goverment money & plus these teens think they deserve $15 an hr. Thought of changing hrs to open at 3 or 4, but still will need to go in at noon and get prep done prior to opening so regardless I’m still working 12+ hrs a day UGH… I have been working the only 4 employees I got non-stop. Then I have 1 employee who has a some type of blood infection that flares up in his leg, that puts him in the hospital which leaves me short handed for about a week.
 
Also in Michigan and I don’t think it needs to be said but pretty much everyone is struggling to hire right now. My best avenue has actually been indeed and paying money to boost the listing. Another thing is we pay more than most other places $12/hr for drivers and $13/hr for inside. Something we also did, which might help you out, is closed one day a week. We picked Monday and it is allowing us to get one guaranteed day off a week and consolidate our workforce so we can have more people working every day.
 
Same issues in Arkansas. I us Hireme.com, they search all the employment services.
We also started closing on mondays and never saw a sales decrease. Last month my sales were up 3% from 2019 numbers with a 6 day week. My labor dropped $2,000.00 per month.
 
I already have a couple of teens working for me, and I have been closed on Mondays for yrs. Yeah I’m desperate of an adult who can work nights and direct these kids who love to lean & gab all night, shit i even have my 1 oven guy who has been with me for 6 yrs, I can’t even get him to direct the kids after I leave at night, I actually gave him the position and a raise and he is afraid to say anything to anyone, he’s not a leader at all, so I demoted his ass after 3-4 months.

Sorry I’m just rambling because I’m so frustrated & I know I’m not the only one dealing with this. I’ve been in this business since 1983 and took over my dads business in 07, and over the past 2 yrs its getting harder and harder to find that one qualified person to be my right hand man
 
you are not alone…as long as those $300 checks keep going out this is the new reality. My role allows me to float and fill in as needed and I have been constantly taking over roles and as soon as a replacement is found another one is needed. Have been tweaking things to cut labor whenever I can (pre prepped options, limiting menu items, limiting menu sizes and dumbing down everything so that I can hire students who seem to be more available for work)
 
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It’s not just the $300 checks though. There are posts on here going back a few years now talking about how hard it is to find help. I know for me it has been super tough for probably the last 6 or 7 years now. I think another issue that is starting to emerge that will have a profound impact on us moving forward is larger companies, like Target for example, who are now offering starting wages at $15/hr. If we aren’t able to meet them and compete against places like that for labor we are going to be missing out. I know if I was young and my options were work at Target for $15 an hour or work in a super busy, hot, pizzeria for even say $10 an hour I would never have considered the pizzeria for employment.
 
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