Longtime staff are your sourdough starters
“I thought of those transplants [long-term staff] … as sourdough starter; not only would we have the benefit of their impeccable technical training, but they’d seed the new spot with our culture. They’d communicate, through words and their actions, everything that we stood for and believed in.” Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality
For you non-bakers, sourdough starter is a fermented yeast and bacteria mixture brewed from flour and water. The starter sits in a jar on your countertop, working day and night without much fuss from you. Its needs are small: a warm environment, a tad bit of daily feeding, and time.
After about a week, the starter is the key ingredient you need to leaven and flavor bread, giving sourdough its unique taste.
When you promote from within your company you’re not starting from scratch.
You’re bringing over the passion and knowledge and values of your company to this new position. You’re using a bit of the sourdough starter you’ve been brewing on the counter for years.
You don’t always need outsiders to bring fresh ideas if you reward loyalty with trust and authority.
Their passion and knowledge and all the values they’d accrued … would infect everyone else we hired. As you grow, you can’t lose the very thing that gave you the opportunity to grow.” — Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality
And what do you do instead?
You bring in someone new believing they’ll bring in fresh ideas. You’ll spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours bringing them up to speed with processes and values (and often at a higher pay rate), and then wonder why that loyal longtimer you didn’t pick walks out the door.
If you want something new, I bet your longtime staff are anxious to try something new, as well.
“Ultimately, this is one of a manager’s biggest responsibilities: to make sure people who are trying and working hard have what they need to succeed.” — Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality
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Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara would never have been on my radar if I hadn’t heard him speak. Now, I think it should be required reading for every manager.