Have a walk around your local shopping megaplex and count how many staff wanted signs you see. Even with an impending recession, the effects of the skills shortage are still being felt, particularly at the bottom end of the employment scale.

Gus’s standards dropped long ago. More inexperienced staff will make little difference to your dining displeasure.

How about applauding them instead. Maybe advertise for people with zip experience and screen carefully, then train well…

The hardest thing is always the start

I find this funny… Esp since I know someone who recently had a ‘trial’ with Gus’s Cafe. Even though they had several years experience working in hospitality – they were still expected to work for a well below average wage and only entitled to work the “quieter” shifts until they were up to scratch. No weekends either for at least several months.

Perhaps if they wern’t so tight on their wage they might keep staff around.

What a stupid post. People have to start somewhere you know. How ridiculous to assume that just because a person has never worked in a cafe before that they somehow lack hygiene standards.

I managed a Cafe for 5 years and finding good hospitality staff is a nightmare.. Sometimes that person with no or little experience is also a gifted fast learner due to them having intelligence and common sense in large quantities…

I find coming on this site and saying to ‘avoid’ Gus’ until they get all their staff up to speed to be appalling, how about you run a business and close down or turn customers away because you are training one or two extra staff…

moron!

Seems poorly managed to me (particularly after reading post #4)

Nothing wrong with no experience, but in Hospitality the hardest thing is finding staff with a 3 digit I.Q and enthusiasm.

I used to manage a couple of cafés in Melbourne, and work as a barista. SOme of my best staff didn’t know anything to start with but learnt super quick and had the necessary enthusiasm and people skills to thrive in hospitality. Others could make a coffee, but had the charisma of a damp teatowel and no idea what ‘haste’ was.

If the Gus’ Café manager can spot talent and is a good trainer, the café should be fine.

I will be continuing to patronise Gus’s.

Some things are more important than the momentary flash of irritation from sloppy service; keeping Gus’s going is one of those things.

IMO, it’s better to work with the people who own it now and help get it up to speed than turn around in a year or so and realise that we’ve managed to kill another Canberra Icon.

Actually AussieGal, commercial kitchen hygiene is something you need to learn BEFORE you start working with food, so people don’t get poisoned … floor staff, sure – recruit newbies and put energy and attention into shaping them up (on full wages – thanks for pointing out that unethical practice Genie). But recruiting a cook with no experience would be, as I said, an unusual management approach at best. Gus’s should be particularly careful – it’s a very tainted brand, thanks to the dreadful old Gus himself.

I’ve never had particularly good food or service at Gus’, and tend to avoid the place as a result. Perhaps the management are thinking things can’t get much worse, so they’re trying a new approach. Hopefully it will work.

The company I work for struggles to get good staff, and we pay well into the 6 figures for anyone with a brain and some experience. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for some of these retail places to get staff. Most of the retail/hospitality staff I seem to deal with these days come from the shallow end of the gene pool.

Gus’s are being smart. If they find people with great attitudes, they can pick up those skills in hours. Too many employers are fixated on people walking in with “experience”. We used to get them demanding 5 years experience in waiting/bar work (5 years was some kind of magic number, evidently). Fact is, you can be experienced as hell and still suck. If you get someone bright, eager to learn, and who wants to be there, you can teach them what they need to know in no time.

And as for hygiene, they can learn THAT too in the kitchen. Becuase I’m damn sure that most people have no concept of it. We did a melbourne cup thing at work, and after bringing in the groceries, set about unwrapping the stuff, plating it, cutting up the crudites and the fruit and cheese for the platters, the meats…

And I was the ONLY one who washed their hands before starting! And the only one who washed the flapping knife when I changed foods. The others said things like ‘scuse fingers…. what the hell does that do for all the dirty door handles, keyboards and phones you’ve been touching all day? ye gods.

Let’s all remember how much experience we had when we got our first jobs…

The company I work for struggles to get good staff, and we pay well into the 6 figures for anyone with a brain and some experience.

VY – This is relating to IT, yes?

After any staff at the moment?