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Coaching for Leaders

415: Employee Retention in Small Business, with Chris Deferio

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chris Deferio: Keys to the Shop

Chris Deferio is a cafe quality specialist who has dedicated 20 years of his life to working in and studying specialty coffee retail. He is also the creator and host of the industry leading podcast, Keys to the Shop, which gives listeners insights, inspiration, and tools to grow as specialty coffee professionals.

Chris previously appeared on the show to help us get more perspective on managing part-time staff. In this conversation, Chris and I explore some of the practical steps that small business owners and general managers can take in order to support employee retention.

Key Points

  • Be mindful of the realities of turnover in a small business, but don’t let it stop you from thinking about the future and investing in people.
  • Yes, hire for attitude — and also have an eye to future potential as the business grows.
  • Ask people this question in interviews: “Where did you contribute to dysfunction in your prior organization?”
  • Make an investment in people beyond the paycheck. This could be learning, culture, competitions, or more. There are ways to do this without tremendous expense.
  • Practice intentional breaks in your rhythm, since nobody else in your business is likely to do this.

Resources Mentioned

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Larger organizations have at least the perception of more resources to retain employees.

0:07.0

But if you're the owner or manager of a small business, where can you begin?

0:12.0

Today, the starting point for small business leaders to be

0:14.7

conscious of and take the first step on employee retention. This is coaching for

0:19.8

leaders episode 415. Produced by Innovate Learning, Produced by Innovate Learning,

0:25.0

Maximizing Human Potential

0:28.0

Greetings to you from Orange County, California.

0:35.0

This is coaching for leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviac.

0:39.6

Leaders aren't Born.

0:41.4

They're made.

0:42.3

And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom

0:45.7

through insightful conversations. So many different ways that we all lead in our organizations and leadership while the core

0:56.3

principles of course are so similar in so many places there is contextual

1:01.0

differences depending on the size of the organization that you're in.

1:04.4

And one of the sizes of organizations that is a real leadership challenge for so many of us

1:09.9

is leading in a small business and particularly the topic of employee retention.

1:16.6

How do you retain employees in a small business, especially in a small business that perhaps

1:22.4

is in retail or hospitality that tends to have a lot of

1:26.5

turnover historically. But of course there's a lot that we can do as leaders, whether you're in a business like that

1:31.9

or in a larger business, to be thinking

1:34.6

about employee retention. Today, I'm so glad to welcome back to the show, Chris DeFirio.

1:40.1

Chris is a CAFE Quality Specialist who has dedicated 20 years of his life to working in and studying specialty coffee retail.

...

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