Labor strategies for back-to-school season

The youth of America won’t want to hear this, but classes for many schools begin in just over a month. Not only is this bad news for them, but their summer employers as well. Seasonal help is returning to school and college campuses. Not only that, but the upcoming change in seasons leads to a necessary change in menus.

Source: Dawn Foods

In order to help bakeries be productive and profitable all season long, Dawn Foods offers actionable ideas for managing staff and product transitions.

Staffing Shifts

As some of your employees plan to return to school, you need to add to your team and fill gaps. Here are Dawn’s top five tips for effectively navigating staff transitions:

1. Ask for Referrals

Use those students returning to school for their contacts. Referrals help managers work with a pre-screened labor pool and allow them to ask for specific skill sets. Each bakery will need something different – are you losing a decorator? Front-of-house superstar? An innovative idea person? By leaning into your current team, you can ask for what you need from people you trust.

2. Expand Beyond Traditional Advertising

Be sure to use tools like Indeed, ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn to reach today’s workforce. Additionally, your owned channels, such as your website, social media and in-store environment, can be excellent sources of advertisement for your staffing needs.

3. Invest in Your Image

Your potential hires need to be able to see that when they search you online. A critical step is to give yourself a facelift – including updated photos, endorsements from current team members and customer quotes about your business.

4. Optimize Your Team’s Time

Take a step back to assess the number of team members you need to succeed. You may find that you can do more with less. These are some questions to ask yourself:

• Can you shift some recipes to using specific mixes instead of operating as 100 percent scratch?
• Can you leverage tactics like using one day to bake and then freeze a certain amount of inventory to use throughout the week?
• Can you offer customers online ordering or delivery options to make the most of your sales team?

5. Turn to Tools that Improve Efficiency

One of the most innovative ways to be efficient with your time is utilizing online platforms like Dawn’s online bakery shopping experience. This website turns any location into your office so you can offset business tasks like placing product orders to off-hours. This means that when bakers are in the bakery, they’re focused on the core business of baking and selling their treats. With features like online ordering, shopping lists and recipes and inspiration, bakers will improve efficiency in ways that have everyday impact on the business.

August Products

Source: Dawn Foods

You can show your community support during back-to-school season by creating cookies, cakes and cupcakes that highlight school colors from your hometown. You can also promote limited time offers (LTOs) that feature academic themes like pencils, globes, notebooks or laptops. You can also introduce back-to-school packs that students can take to their teachers, like apple-shaped cookies or donuts.

Another way bakeries can generate early season success is through special first-day-of-school discounts for donuts and juice before school or after-school cupcakes. Ask your customers to tag your bakery in their back-to-school pictures and social posts featuring your sweet treats.

For more recipe inspiration, visit dawnfoods.com/recipes.