O<\/span>ne of my managers quit on the spot. I walked into his restaurant at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, the time every manager performs their weekly inventory and paperwork. He was sitting at his desk. I said, \u201cGood morning.\u201d He looked at me and said, \u201cI can\u2019t take it anymore\u201d, handed me his keys and walked out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n Not exactly how I like to begin my week. <\/span><\/p>\n I pride myself on keeping employees long-term<\/a>. Not every employee. Just the ones that should stay. What do I mean by this? After 40 years in the pizza business, I am a realist, and I understand the nature of those of us who work in pizza restaurants. To understand employee retention, we must first understand our employees\u2019 needs.<\/span><\/p>\n The first category of employees is short timers<\/a>. I call these \u2018Cuffers\u2019. The word is derived from a dating term \u2018Cuffing Season\u2019. Some roles in the pizza restaurant are, by design, transitory and minimum wage. These roles are not intended to be a career and they are not intended to be a \u2018living wage\u2019. These roles are for entry level, second job or students. They are temporary workers transitioning from one part of their life to another with us providing work along the way. <\/span><\/p>\n The second category of employees is longer term. I call these \u2018Barneys\u2019. Because Barney is a dinosaur\u2026he\u2019s been around a long time. Barneys may want to learn and grow with the company. They may want promotions and more responsibility. Some Barneys just want a steady full-time job with the same hours every week, so they can spend time with their family and raise their children. <\/span><\/p>\n As pizza owners and operators, we are in a business that averages an 80-percent turnover rate. That means if you have 25 employees on payroll, you issued 45 W-2s for the year. In other words, 20 people who you hired no longer work for you. <\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 Turnover rate = (#W-2s \u2013 #Current Employees \/ #Current Employees) * 100<\/span><\/p>\n How do we improve over the restaurant-industry average? The way we retain Cuffers differs from the way we retain Barneys. Let us discuss both.<\/span><\/p>\n It is interesting that managers often believe wages are the most important need of an employee. Not so with a Cuffer. Here are the needs of a Cuffer:<\/span><\/p>\n How do we retain Cuffers? Notice that the first three needs relate to their schedule. By implementing the following system for scheduling, you will retain Cuffers much longer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022Do the schedule weekly<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022Post the schedule on Thursday<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022Have an \u2018Availability Form\u2019 for each employee that indicates the hours they are available<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022Have a folder next to the schedule on the bulletin board labelled \u2018Request Off\u2019 that says:<\/span><\/p>\n Must be on 8 \u00bd x 11 piece of paper<\/span><\/p>\n Must be in by Wednesday of the week before the schedule is made<\/span><\/p>\n Must have your name and the day\/date\/time requested off<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022The rules are these:<\/span><\/p>\n All schedule requests will be honored<\/span><\/p>\n Once the schedule is posted, the shifts are the responsibility of the person assigned to the shift.<\/span><\/p>\n If the employee cannot fulfill the shift, the employee must get someone to cover for them<\/span><\/p>\n If an employee cannot find a co-worker to cover for them (they are required to try), they may call the manager and make it the manager\u2019s problem<\/span><\/p>\n Taking care of the three primary needs of a Cuffer will result in a dramatic reduction in turnover. <\/span><\/p>\n A Barney has different needs:<\/span><\/p>\n As you can see, the needs of Cuffers and Barneys are almost polar-opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n How do we retain Barneys? By monitoring how many hours they are working per week, reviewing their results as related to their pay, and maintaining an open line of communication. This can all be Just like a Cuffer, by addressing the three primary needs of a Barney, you will see a dramatic reduction in turnover.<\/span><\/p>\n Back to my Monday morning. My manager was a Barney who had been with me for over five years. We were just coming out of Covid and the challenges of his crew being out sick and the difficulty during that time of hiring new employees all led to tremendous stress and long work weeks. He was no longer following the scheduling guidelines, and often didn\u2019t post the schedule until Sunday night. He was moody from working open-to-close shifts. In the preceding week, he had lost two Barneys. two more Barneys had given him notice that they were moving away. Let\u2019s look at his three primary needs:<\/span><\/p>\n As leaders, we must address the needs of our team members. Losing my Barney was my failure. It was a valuable lesson and the impetus for me to address the needs of the different types of employees. This has directly led to higher employee retention through lower turnover.<\/span><\/p>\n Because without Cuffers & Barneys, we\u2019d be making ALL the pizzas!<\/span><\/p>\n DAN COLLIER is the founder of Pizza Man Dan\u2019s<\/a> in California and a speaker at International Pizza Expo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cuffers & Barneys: Long-term and short-term employees One of my managers quit on the spot. I walked into his restaurant at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, the time every manager performs their weekly inventory and paperwork. He was sitting at his desk. I said, \u201cGood morning.\u201d He looked at me and said, \u201cI can\u2019t take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":146504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3236],"tags":[366],"topic":[3256],"class_list":["post-146519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-employee-retention","topic-employee-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCuffers — long-term employees<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\n<\/span><\/p>\nBarneys <\/b><\/span>— long-term employees<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\naccomplished by meeting one-on-one at least quarterly.<\/span><\/p>\n\n