Losing a cheese counter employee can be costly, disruptive, and stressful, so properly welcoming and retaining new hires can pay big returns. New team members want to feel competent and confident. They deserve to have expectations spelled out clearly and some guidance on how to succeed. An effective onboarding process prioritizes what newcomers need to know and incorporates a plan for conveying it.
“The most important step in onboarding is good hiring,” said Rich Rogers, owner of Scardello’s in Dallas. “If you don’t hire the right people, it doesn’t matter what your onboarding program is. I learned that the hard way.”
When Rogers interviews, the conversation is designed to reveal what he most wants to know: Does the candidate have an outgoing personality, a willingness to learn, and a love of food? He is also upfront about the incessant cleaning that mongering entails.
Before new hires start at Scardello’s, they receive a video on how to wrap cheese. The store’s training manual—billed as a “cheese enthusiast guide”—includes basics like how to answer the phone and skill-builders like a cheese cutting guide and a glossary of cheese terms. The manual also includes a worksheet describing eight cheese types. Within the first couple of days, newcomers are expected to complete the worksheet by identifying two cheeses of each type in the case.
“The goal is to give them basic knowledge of every part of the case,” said Rogers. “You don’t have to know everything. But when somebody comes in looking for a Cheddar, you can guide them.”
Day one begins with a detailed tour of the Scardello facilities. “The last thing you want is for a customer to come in and say, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ and the employee doesn’t know,” said Rogers. For the first week, newbies shadow the more experienced mongers, listening to customer interactions, tasting whatever they like, and rewrapping wheels when transactions conclude. In these first few days, they learn how to process transactions and assist with receiving, an experience that teaches them how to evaluate wheels and spot any red flags that might be concerning.
“We tell people, ‘You’re going to be able to do the basics after the first week, but to command the case is going to take time,’” said Rogers. Until that expertise develops, “the best answer you can give a customer is ‘I don’t know; let me ask.’”
Newcomers are encouraged, but not required, to borrow books from the office, like Zingerman’s Guide to Great Service and Gianaclis Caldwell’s Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking. One onboarding tool that Rogers tried and abandoned was a set of skills tests, an attempt to evaluate a new hire’s mastery of key tasks like making a signature sandwich. Managers found the tests onerous and unhelpful. “It wasn’t making us better,” said Rogers.
At Gus’s Market, with five locations in San Francisco, cheese coordinator Luciana Villanueva starts new hires with a notepad and a store tour. In these busy urban grocery stores, employees need to know what’s in each aisle beyond the cheese counter. “We all wear white coats so we’re asked a lot of questions,” said Villanueva.
Day-one tasks at Gus’s also include pre-packing bulk items like olives and learning proper cheese-wrapping techniques with both paper and film. “They are not on the (cheese) wire, and if I don’t see good wraps by day four, they’re not moving on,” said Villanueva.
Competent wrappers move on to the wire, learning how to transform a 40-pound block of Cheddar into sellable sizes, how to produce wedges with a good rind-to-paste ratio, and how to land their cuts in the $5 to $7 price range that the stores’ clientele prefers.
Aware that such repetitive tasks can be mind-numbing, Villanueva makes sure new staffers know why they matter. Tightly wrapped cheese lasts longer, she reminds them. A poorly cut piece that’s mostly rind won’t sell.
“I often tell my mongers to think of these pieces of cheese as puppies and we’re the shelter,” said Villanueva. “We don’t want these cheeses to age out and become the pit bulls of the shelter. It’s a dramatic metaphor but everyone gets it.”
Allowing a new team member to shadow another for a few days is a luxury she can’t afford, said Villanueva. Gus’s production needs are too big. “The problem I have with shadowing is that people aren’t using their hands,” she said. “I always want mongers to be using their hands.”
Performance milestones include breaking down a 70-pound wheel of Gruyère into smooth cuts, offering a sample without compromising the wedge, and becoming comfortable with customer interaction. Villanueva has ditched the scripts that she thought would give new staffers more confidence with shoppers. “People don’t want to be told what to say,” she said. “They take clues from how I interact and then use their own voice.”
A written list of tasks—like opening and closing procedures—might seem like a helpful tool for new hires but Villanueva said she encounters resistance to that as well. “I’m on the fence about checklists,” she said. “I personally like them because it takes the thinking out, but some people are like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’” Villanueva, like Rogers, has discovered that the most effective onboarding accommodates people with different ways of learning. Some appreciate a supervisor’s close monitoring and welcome the manuals or suggested reading; others bristle with a manager at their elbow and learn more by doing than reading.
At Mulhally’s, her small specialty food shop in Hudson, Massachusetts, Katie Quinn has likewise revised her onboarding methods to adapt to how people learn.
“When we first opened, we tried to show everybody everything at once and you can’t do that,” said Quinn. “Some people need a couple of weeks to ease into things. Some people jump in but some need extra time.”
Every person Quinn hires has strong customer service skills, she said—more important to her than cheese counter experience or product knowledge. “We can get them up to speed on the cheeses,” said the merchant, through frequent tasting and observing.
Most new hires spend their first week working the floor and getting familiar with the UPC products. Then they transition to the cheese counter and receive instruction in cutting and wrapping. “We keep a buddy system the whole time,” said Quinn. “Nobody is left alone. They get a chance to see from me and my head monger how we describe cheese and sell cheese.”
Some people prove to be great hires but not great cheesemongers. “They’re more comfortable ringing up customers or being on the floor than cutting cheese,” said Quinn. “I try to position people in their strengths.”
Providing new staffers with clearly articulated expectations, tolerance for mistakes, and time to learn will almost certainly improve your retention rate. And in today’s tight labor market, that’s an investment worth making.
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