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, “Good morning.” He looked at me and said, “I can’t take it anymore”, handed me his keys and walked out the door.
Not exactly how I like to begin my week.
I pride myself on keeping employees long-term. 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’ needs.
The first category of employees is short timers. I call these ‘Cuffers’. The word is derived from a dating term ‘Cuffing Season’. 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 ‘living wage’. 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.
The second category of employees is longer term. I call these ‘Barneys’. Because Barney is a dinosaur…he’s 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.
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.
• Turnover rate = (#W-2s – #Current Employees / #Current Employees) * 100
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.
Cuffers — long-term employees
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:
- Schedule flexibility – time off
- Schedule posted on time so they can plan their lives
- Schedule flexibility – missing scheduled shifts
- Get along with co-workers
- Fun job environment
- Desire to learn
- Feeling part of a team
- Management support with difficulties
- Enough hours per week
- Regular evaluations for pay rate increases
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.
•Do the schedule weekly
•Post the schedule on Thursday
•Have an ‘Availability Form’ for each employee that indicates the hours they are available
•Have a folder next to the schedule on the bulletin board labelled ‘Request Off’ that says:
Must be on 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper
Must be in by Wednesday of the week before the schedule is made
Must have your name and the day/date/time requested off
•The rules are these:
All schedule requests will be honored
Once the schedule is posted, the shifts are the responsibility of the person assigned to the shift.
If the employee cannot fulfill the shift, the employee must get someone to cover for them
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’s problem
Taking care of the three primary needs of a Cuffer will result in a dramatic reduction in turnover.
Barneys — long-term employees
A Barney has different needs:
- Enough hours per week
- Regular evaluations for pay rate increases
- Management support with difficulties
- Schedule flexibility – time off
- Desire to learn
- Feeling part of a team
- Get along with co-workers
- Schedule posted on time so they can plan their lives
- Schedule flexibility – missing scheduled shifts
- Fun job environment
As you can see, the needs of Cuffers and Barneys are almost polar-opposite.
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
accomplished by meeting one-on-one at least quarterly.
Just like a Cuffer, by addressing the three primary needs of a Barney, you will see a dramatic reduction in turnover.
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’t 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’s look at his three primary needs:
- Enough hours per week. He was actually working too many hours.
- Regular evaluations for pay rate increases. While he was making a lot of overtime pay, he was not achieving his goal numbers for pay raises or bonuses.
- Management support for difficulties. As we were both busy, we had not had a one-on-one meeting for over a year.
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.
Because without Cuffers & Barneys, we’d be making ALL the pizzas!
DAN COLLIER is the founder of Pizza Man Dan’s in California and a speaker at International Pizza Expo.
