the stuff of staff

Being a boss can be great as well as horrible. A lot of it, I think, comes down to your judgement of who to employ. As employers, my wife and I have made our fair share of mistakes but thankfully you learn and get better at targeting traits of good workers.

The problem in the cafe world is that most staff don't hang around too long. Starbucks, for instance, have a joyous turnover of 300%. That's one very fast spinning revolving door.

At haven, we certainly seem to be developing a core of staff that have one quality that every business yearns for: the staff care. It really makes a huge difference to the day-to-day running. This does not mean that you can get laxidaisical in providing clear instruction and sound operational procedures. But it does mean that when things do go wrong it is more likely to be a mis-communication than due to a lack of care. Mis-communication you can rectify. Lack of care is a one-way track out of the business.

It's so important for our cafe because we have a large check list of closing duties that we start at around 4pm....that's five hours before the doors actually close. The duties are not exactly fun but they are incredibly important: the list spans some four pages and requires an awful amount of cleaning. Why? Because as an open-plan cafe you cannot get away with anything be left for more than a day (and in the restaurant world that happens a lot). Our customers can sit at a table and view our kitchen. With this kind of scrutiny you must (and should) run a tight ship. It's testament to the staff that the health and food handling inspector is a regular customer.

So, how do you ensure the staff do the work? Our solution is a simple one: roll your sleeves up and show them yourself. Lead by example. If the boss does it then everyone does it. Nothing worse than a manager showing off his extensive collection of keys to the store safe and various cupboards, refusing to work up a sweat because they are "above that now".

But getting good staff is mostly about leading horses to water and all that. At the end of the day, you need to find staff with good solid character and a conscience. And I'm very proud to say that at Cafe Haven we have that by the bucket full.

Colourful characters can also be problematic. Like coming to work to find your staple in the middle of a plate of jello. Terrific.