I manage a cafe in the specialty coffee industry. It is a small business, but there are 6 locations in California. I have been a manager in specialty coffee for the past 5 years, but only got hired at this place earlier this year.
We have a MASSIVE amount of turnover and no matter how hard I try to make the work easier and less stressful for everyone, it seems like I consistently get feedback that it’s not my management that drives people away, but it’s the feeling that the employees aren’t valued.
I hired several great people recently who have tons of experience and are exactly the type of people who make your job as a manager easy. A couple of them asked for a raise (baristas make minimum wage) so I told him I would talk to upper management about the situation and try my best to get him a raise. The conversation did not go well.
My boss (director or operations) said “we are not in the business to be giving raises to people with minimum wage jumping up next year.” I asked him how much is costs to train a new person. $3000. So I said “okay well is there a way that we can try to retain this person by giving them a raise instead of having to spend money on training a completely new person? This employee is asking for a raise because he used to be an assistant manager at another established specialty coffee shop and he supports himself and his family so he needs the money.” My boss replied “well he should know that this is not the type of job where you can support yourself and a whole family.”
This really solidified the fact that I need to find a different job. Even with that attitude of “well you should know that this isn’t a job where you can support your family” upper management will complain that the employees are not dedicated enough and that they always change their availability after getting a new job because THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE IN THIS CITY WITH MINIMUM WAGE.
The crazy thing is that the owner has said before that we can afford it, but “it’s the principle.” Wtf does that even mean??? During a manager meeting he said “our company does not pay any more than other companies, but we do have higher standards and higher expectations and people should take enough pride in their work to not need more compensation.”
In addition to this, my boss constantly tries to prevent people from using their sick time and does not like to use the term “earned sick time” because he says that people think earned means that people are entitled to that pay.
TLDR: I manage a coffee shop and the upper management have literally said they are aware of the fact that people cannot support themselves with this job and that they can afford to give raises but just won’t because they don’t believe that employees should be asking for raises.