For most small wine shops, there are a couple of way to approach hiring help for the shop. How you think about those hires will influence the kind of help you get. [level-members]
Among the approaches we see commonly are:
- Hire cheap and easy. A local kid. After all, you’re the one your regulars are coming in to see. And there’s no guarantee anyone is going to stick around for what has to be viewed as a job rather than a rung on the career ladder.
- Old reliable. I don’t mean that literally, but hiring a local kid brings the risks of youth. Even the most responsible kid will sometimes opt to take the less responsible route, leaving you holding the bag. A more mature hire avoids that. Then again, if he or she is just in it for the paycheck, the damage can be a bit different – your customers can always tell when someone is phoning it in and would ratter be somewhere else.
- Patiently wait for the right person and train them. “Right” may mean different things to you depending on your business and your own strengths. Some managers hire on personality and train everything else. Others hire on retail experience. Or on wine experience.
Whichever approach you take, remember that how you attract the talent you’re after will affect the applicants you have to choose from.
You will almost certainly find it very helpful to have a written job description, even if you’re running a very small shop and hire only occasionally and always for the same position.
Having that written description and noting with each hire not only how they compare to the requirements of the job as you’ve written it, but how they performed, will help you fine tune the description and over time, help you attract the candidates you want – no matter what your approach to hiring shop assistants is. [/level-members]