The first Saturday in December, and the temp is stuck
Your Christmas temp started on Thursday. They watched you on the till for an hour, and you meant to show them the rest on Friday, but a delivery arrived. On Saturday the shop is full. A customer wants to pay half by gift voucher and half by card, another wants a gift receipt, and a third is collecting a web order. The temp calls you over for each one, and the queue gets longer.
By the second week they have picked most of it up, just in time for the season to end. Next year, you start again with someone new.
Training happens by shadowing at the worst possible time
A small shop has no training department. Everything a new person needs to know lives in the owner's head and the regular staff's habits, and it is passed on by watching and asking.
- Temps start just as the shop gets busy, when nobody has time to teach.
- Till tasks such as split payments, voucher redemption and refunds come up rarely but at busy moments.
- Policies on returns, discounts and holding items are unwritten.
- Each staff member shows things slightly differently.
- Nobody keeps track of what each new person has actually been shown.
What learning on the job costs in December
Every question at the till slows the queue at the time of year when queues matter most. Mistakes, such as a wrong refund, a voucher not deducted or a click and collect handed to the wrong person, cost money and goodwill.
The owner and regular staff lose time from serving, and the temp has an uncomfortable first few weeks. Good temps who might come back next year are less likely to if they felt thrown in.
How we build a shop guide for new staff
- We walk through your shop's tasks with you and your regular staff: till basics, split payments, vouchers, gift receipts, refunds and exchanges, click and collect, gift wrap, opening and closing.
- Each task becomes a short step list with photos of your own till screens, and a short phone video where it helps, recorded in your shop.
- Your policies, such as returns, staff discount, holding items for customers and what to do if the card machine fails, are written in plain words on one page each.
- New staff get a link and can read or watch at home before their first shift, and look things up at the counter when a question comes up.
- A checklist records what each person has been shown and has tried, signed off by you or a regular member of staff.
- When your till or a policy changes, you update one page and everyone sees the new version.
| Task | Shadowing only | With the guide |
|---|---|---|
| Split payment | Ask whoever is nearby | Step list with till screen photos |
| Gift voucher | Watched once | Short video and steps |
| Refund or exchange | Call the owner | Policy page and steps |
| Click and collect | Shown if it comes up | Steps, practised before the rush |
| What they have learnt | Nobody knows | Signed off on the checklist |
The guide does not replace being shown things in person. It means the showing can happen before the busy days, and the answers are there when you are not.
December with a guide in place
Your temp reads the guide before starting and practises the tricky till tasks on a quiet afternoon. On the busy Saturday, when a split payment comes up, they check the steps on their phone rather than calling you over. You can see from the checklist that they have covered vouchers and click and collect, and you know which things to show them next.
The guide stays for next year's temps and new Saturday staff, and it gets better each time someone asks a question it did not answer.
Signs your new staff need this
- Temps learn the till by watching on busy days.
- Your policies are not written down anywhere.
- New staff call you over for the same questions.
- Mistakes at the till go up in December.
- You explain the same things to new people every year.