How many people should I hire?

T

TexasRookie

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I will be opening a new Delco near a large college campus. We anticipate doing about 60-75% delivery. I was wondering what some of the experienced vets on the board would suggest when hiring staff for opening. We If I anticipate needing 20 drivers how many should I start with? What is the usual attrition rate?
 
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20 drivers !!! Gee what are you expecting to do delivery wise each shift ???

Average 4 - 6 deliveries per hour, maybe 8 within the college campus, per driver x 20 drivers x 8 hour shift = 640 - 1280 deliveries x $15 average ticket = $9,600 - $19,200 per shift.

Tell me where you are so I can open up as well as there seems to be customers to burn. But in all seriousness I know you won’t have 20 drivers on a shift but even with 10 it would be $4,800 - $9,600 per shift, and your not even open or established.

But in all reality … time for paul7979 to come in with some cold hard facts about delivery in a college town. He knows this type of volume delivery better than the majority here on the forum.

Dave
 
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TexasRookie:
I will be opening a new Delco near a large college campus. We anticipate doing about 60-75% delivery. I was wondering what some of the experienced vets on the board would suggest when hiring staff for opening. We If I anticipate needing 20 drivers how many should I start with? What is the usual attrition rate?
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If my math is anywhere close to being correct with 20 drivers you will have 800 delivery manhours per week. My drivers average 3 deliveries per hour so that would be 2400 deliveries per week. My average delivery order is $25 so that is $60,000 per week in delivery sales. You said 60 to 75% will be deliveries at 75% you would make $80,000 per week which is $4 million in sales per year. Am I close to your projections?
 
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What’s your business model? Low- median segment? You have to remember college students are looking for deals when buying food. Remember the good 'ol times of top ramen for dinner or a lick of peanut butter for lunch? I do! From experience, low prices will give you the volume but high volume= high labor and food cost = a dent to your bottom line w/ twice the work.
 
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OMG! I have no plans for the type of volumes you guys are talking about. (I think my oven would explode!) When I put the 20 driver number out, I was talking about the entire staff for the store. I would say the most we would ever have on at the same time would be 7. And that might be a strech. I know with most kids classes and such we will need to have the staff to work with the drivers around tests and other schedule issues.

What I was asking, is when you are doing a lot of hiring for a new store, if you think you need 20 good drivers, how many should I hire knowing that some will quit or not work out?
 
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I can run a schedule with 6 drivers on the biggest two nights of the week and 3-4 on the other nights and a day driver every day from 11-5 with about 8 drivers. Of those 8, two will be full time and the other 6 will be part time. The reality is that rush is only about 3 hours so a driver can work 4 four shifts a week including side work and cleanup and still only put in 16-20 hours.

Turnover, yes there is turnover, but you don’t hire in advance for it. If I were opening a new store and expected to need 10 drivers I would hire 10 and hold on to the extra applications. Employees can do the math, if they see more staff than needed they will figure it out and it will annoy them. The ones that you will loose as a result will be the ones you want to keep.

Also, I strongly recommend that you hire a few cross-over staff that can drive or do kitchen shifts. That gives you a lot of flexibility in scheduling. To run a schedule like you are planning you will need a couple of assistant managers than can open an close the store. Make sure they can drive too.

You will need to get right on this process. Your hired and non-owned insurance coverage will have some reporting requirements that you need to get on top of.
 
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The other thing to consider is family and friends who you can have an informal arrangement with during the opening weeks if you are worried about having ‘enough’ drivers. {although when I say ‘informal’ you need to make sure they are formally employed and insured etc - don’t mess with that one}

For example, when I opened store 2 I had two friends who I put on the books and who came in for driver training etc. They were put on ‘standby’ for the first two or three opening weekends. They had uniform but only came in if and when we called them. I think we used them a couple of times. One is still ‘on the books’ and we us him every now and when he is available.

As bodegahwy says cross training is really important so make sure you train as many staff as possible in as many areas. Most of my drivers came in to the shop for phone and pizza making training before we opened and this was really helpful.

Hope this helps.
 
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What is your delivery range (miles). I think this will have a large affect on how many deliveries/hour anyone can do.
 
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