Aug. 9—As the days of summer dwindle, local businesses are taking measures to ensure operations run smoothly as some employees head back to school.
High school and college-age students have a variety of job opportunities in town, with some of the most popular being in the food or retail industry. As young employees' schedules change due to school activities, many stores are preparing by bringing in new staff.
Taylor Faucett, store manager at Rally House, said she's been working for weeks to ensure there's an easy transition.
"It's a huge impact with us because I have a lot of college-age kids that are going back to either, like, (an) out-of-state kind of a thing, (and) I have a lot of high school kids who are actually playing sports this semester," Faucett said. "So in order to prep for all of that, I ended up hiring seven to eight new employees to kind of help cover all those extra hours that we're going to get. And we brought them in a little bit early so we can get them trained and get them ready to go for that 'holiday' season."
Taylor Hutcherson is a senior at Missouri Western State University, but she also works part time as a coach at Central High School, meaning her availability is about to change drastically.
"It's going to change a lot because I'm a coach at Central High School, so I will have to flip to that instead of working here. So I won't be getting as many hours at Rally House," Hutcherson said. "My time will be basically filled with softball the whole entire time. That's why I can only work here on Sundays."
Owners and managers at some businesses are asking customers to remain patient during the next few weeks, as these are transitioning times for everyone.
Jill Martin, co-owner of Plato's Closet, said people can expect wait times
"Probably the only thing that will be affected is the buy and wait times will be a little bit longer. So if you are bringing in stuff for us, we are still buying and taking all seasons, but we are training more people. So that might make your wait time just a little bit longer, but that will be the only thing that you'll see," Martin said.
Faucett said she hopes that customers remain patient and offer new employees some grace.
"The biggest thing is just being patient with all of them. Some of them are first-time job kids. They've never done this before. So they're trying to learn everything on the fly during our busiest time of the year. So just be patient with them," Faucett said. "And then if they're coming to ask other people for questions, just kind of bear with them on that aspect, too. They're trying to learn as quickly as they can, but there's only so much that they can know on a day-to-day basis."