Find the Right Staff for Your Food Trailer
Want return customers? You might think that the key ingredient to acquiring a steady following is your 100-year-old chimichanga sauce that was passed down from your grandmother. And while that might be one, the most important factor in developing a repeat customer base is the service that your trailer provides.
You might assume that great employees will come easily - especially if you're fairly compensating them. But this isn't always the case. Employees that are passionate, hard-working and skilled are hard to find. And when you do find them, keeping them will be another story. Especially in the food industry, turnover is high and the workforce is young. Most employees will have no prior industry training and they will be difficult to motivate.
And believe me, it will be disheartening to lose a newly hired and trained employee, given the cost that you have already invested in him/her.
So, how do you find the perfect staff for your food trailer business? It's never a walk in the park.
The first step is identifying your All-Star team. To do so, you'll need to determine exactly what positions exist at your business and how many heads you'll need to fill each one. Your staff will be relatively small compared to a brick-and-mortar restaurant, but you'll still need enough employees to cover each other in the event of illness or vacation-time.
To start, your food trailer business will need staff in the trailer itself and also at the commercial kitchen location.
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In the trailer, you'll divide your staff into two groups: front of the house (your trailer's public face) and back of the house (your trailer's cooking, cleaning and bookkeeping crew). Although employees may come to cover both areas, it's always good to have employees who specialize in one job description over another.
Here are some definite job titles that you'll need to fill: service window attendants, managers, chef and cooks, a driver (tower), and kitchen staff.
To find eligible candidates - that will last - begin with defining your vision of the perfect employee, so that you know exactly who and what you're looking for.
Find the candidates through these tools: word of mouth, online postings (especially social media sites such as twitter and Facebook), and local newspaper and magazine advertisements.
When you have a list of eligible applicants, call them in for interviews.
One technique that has become more popular among retail stores and the food industry is the concept of a group interview. This technique has several benefits. First of all, it takes less time on your part. Rather than spending 30-40 minutes with each candidate individually, you can gather 5-8 people and interview them all together within an hour.
This technique also lessens the pressure on each interviewees. While it may seem like a bigger set of eyes on the candidates will only raise the level of stress, it will actually turn the interview into a discussion.
