A cafe runs on a small team that brews, serves, clears and cashes up, often in split shifts from early morning to late evening. One missing barista on a Saturday changes the whole day for guests and staff alike.
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Share your requirementsA cafe is a small room with a big list of tasks: the espresso machine, the pastry counter, the till, the tables and the washing up, all handled by a handful of people. Opening staff arrive before the first customer, the afternoon lull brings split shifts, and weekends are the busiest days for the people who most want them off. Many staff are young and treat the job as a stop on the way somewhere else. Owners with two or three outlets find that each one drifts into its own habits. The wider food and beverage hub covers what the sector shares.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Drink quality depends on who is on the machine, and regular guests notice within a day when the usual barista is off.
Staff who work morning and evening with a long gap in between spend hours travelling or waiting, and many leave for straight shifts elsewhere.
The busiest days are the ones people most want free, so offs are argued over and favouritism is suspected.
Staff watch the tip jar and each other, and unclear rules on who shares and how much turn a small amount into a lasting grievance.
Menu knowledge, opening checks and dress standards differ between outlets, so a guest gets a different cafe each visit.
Young staff move on quickly, and the owner trains a new person every quarter without noticing the cost.
Outlet managers cover gaps on the machine, so rosters, reviews and conversations with staff get done late or not at all.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Retention and Attrition Management; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for food and beverage, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a cafes business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Steps from counter helper to trainee barista to senior barista, each with a few drinks to make and taste against a standard, tied to grade and pay.
What this coversHideSteps from counter helper to trainee barista to senior barista, each with a few drinks to make and taste against a standard, tied to grade and pay. See pay benchmarks.
A weekly roster with fair rotation of weekend offs and split shifts, shared before the week starts.
What this coversHideA weekly roster with fair rotation of weekend offs and split shifts, shared before the week starts. The attendance, shift and leave process can be set up around it.
Who shares, how it is divided and who counts it, written plainly and shown to every joiner.
What this coversHideWho shares, how it is divided and who counts it, written plainly and shown to every joiner. Have the rules checked by a qualified professional.
A short checklist for machine warm-up, display, till and cleaning that a new joiner can follow on day one.
What this coversHideA short checklist for machine warm-up, display, till and cleaning that a new joiner can follow on day one.
Fifteen minutes with the area manager on what is going wrong, what guests said and who is thinking of leaving.
What this coversHideFifteen minutes with the area manager on what is going wrong, what guests said and who is thinking of leaving.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Fair rosters, weekend rotation and a clear way to handle split shifts and weekly offs.
A first week that teaches the menu, the machine and the outlet routine in a fixed order.
A look at who leaves, from which outlet and after how many months, and what to change.
Short sessions on greeting, handling complaints and remembering regulars at the counter.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in food and beverage, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Kitchen, service and outlet staff leave quickly in food and beverage. How to ask what lies behind the first answer, compare outlets and act on what you learn.
7 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead article
Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Pay for skill rather than tenure, show a path to senior barista or shift lead, and give them some say in the menu. Most leave for a step up or a better roster, so offer both where you can.
They work when the gap is short, the roster is fixed early and people are told at hiring. Offer straight shifts as a reward for long service, and avoid putting the same people on splits every week.
Write one simple rule, tell everyone before they join and apply it the same way at every outlet. Because tips and service charge can carry legal conditions, have the rule checked by a qualified professional.
Use one recipe card per drink, a tasting check each month and a trainer who visits each outlet. New baristas should be signed off on the core drinks before working the machine alone.
Fix a block of hours each week for rostering, reviews and talking to staff, and hire a senior barista to cover the machine. A manager who cannot manage soon becomes the reason people leave.
We would ask how many baristas from last year remain, how weekend offs are shared and how tips are divided today. A barista skill ladder with a weekly roster rule is a sensible first job, and scope is written down for you to accept or change.
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