Managing a successful local liquor store is much more than stocking shelves and ringing up customers.
People seek out small liquor stores for unique offerings, recommendations, and friendly staff. Having employees who are well-trained and fully equipped to help your patrons is vital for bringing in new customers and standing out from the competition.
However, training new staff and keeping track of employee performance can be tough, especially as your business grows or expands to new locations.
You can’t be everywhere at once, but by following liquor store employee management processes, you don’t have to be.
This is why many small liquor store owners adopt employee management solutions to help maintain a consistent customer experience and manage their workforce more efficiently.
In this article, we’ll highlight the importance of employee management processes for liquor stores and provide an overview of liquor store employee management best practices. 
Benefits of Using an Employee Management System
To some, “employee management” sounds suspiciously like “micromanaging” but that isn’t the case. Employee management refers to the tools and processes used to monitor and assess employee performance, work hours, activity, and more.
The goal of liquor store employee management isn’t to be some all-knowing eye in the sky. Instead, it helps employees by providing consistent daily processes and helps employers by giving them clear and quantifiable ways to communicate goals and areas for improvement.
Implementing employee management into your back office processes has many potential benefits for liquor stores.
- More engaged employees: There’s a lot of talk over “quiet quitting” and “employee engagement” these days — for good reason. Employees who don’t feel valued won’t stick around. Employee management tools help employees stay more engaged by simplifying administrative tasks, helping with training, and nurturing a positive work environment.
- More accurate time tracking, scheduling, and payroll: A consistent system for clocking in and time tracking ensures you have an accurate view of everyone’s hours. Monitoring peak hours and employee preferences can also help you optimize scheduling.
- Maintain security and compliance: Setting strict controls for exactly what employees can access, and ensuring they use age verification helps reduce the risk of shrinkage, protect customer data, and maintain legal compliance.
- Help employees grow: An honest view of employee performance helps you identify individual strengths and weaknesses. Taking a data-driven approach gives you a solid foundation to hash out problems and set clear expectations.
- Improve customer service: Most importantly, thanks to better collaboration and more engaged staff, employee management helps improve the customer experience.
7 Best Practices for Liquor Store Employee Management
Employee management is a complex topic and can mean different things depending on what industry you’re in.
For retail stores and liquor stores in particular, employee management best practices are there to ensure staff are informed, motivated, and in compliance. Here are some of the most impactful practices you can implement in your liquor store.
1. Leverage Technology
While implementing and learning new systems might seem tedious, consider the alternative.
Many small business owners track employee schedules manually or on a spreadsheet, leading to confusion or missed attendance. And while employees are working, there’s no real way to monitor them outside of hovering over their shoulder (which isn’t great for anyone).
Using a point of sale (POS) system with built-in employee management software streamlines these processes by having all of your staff information in one place. Top employee management solutions include several easy-to-use features, such as:
- Scheduling software
- Historical data on peak times
- Digital time clocks
- Automated payroll and taxes
- Employee activity and performance monitoring
- Access control management
Combined, these features give managers a comprehensive view of all employee activity across any number of locations.
2. Schedule Efficiently
As any business owner can attest, scheduling seems simple on paper but can backfire due to miscommunication. Using scheduling software ensures that employees have an accurate schedule with changes synced and communicated instantly.
When scheduling, make sure to note employee preferences directly on your schedule. For example, if a student can’t work daytime hours, note it on their employee profile. Some scheduling software automatically blocks off scheduling on dates that are outside of an employee’s normal working hours to prevent mistakes.
Finally, use data instead of a hunch to plan your scheduling. Instinct tells us that certain days and times will be busier, but use your POS system to see exactly when those peak days and hours are. Having extra staff on hand during busy periods ensures you can provide excellent customer service and keep everything running smoothly.
3. Be Consistent With Time Tracking and Attendance
Consistent time tracking is important to monitor employee attendance, ensure payroll is consistent, and address any absenteeism.
Use a digital time clock so employees can clock in and out directly on your POS system. One key point: monitor time accurately. If tasks consistently take longer than you expect, there might be issues other than an employee’s performance at play.
With a digital record of your employees’ working hours, you can also spot any consistent absences and address them in a timely manner. As with many things on this list, digital solutions allow you to go into these difficult conversations with numbers instead of just opinions.
4. Provide Ongoing Training and Performance Reviews
Keeping employees engaged and motivated is a huge challenge in the retail world. One of the most impactful things you can do is invest in your employees through ongoing training and regular performance reviews.
Start with a solid foundation. Ensure all new hires get thorough training on your store policies, customer service expectations, and product knowledge. Use training modules available on your POS software so that they are confident in addressing common questions and situations.
Related Read: Point of Sale Training for Liquor Stores: 6 Tips
From there, make sure you keep employees up to date on the latest products and industry trends. By taking the time to share your expertise with your employees, you will benefit your customers (and your business).
Last, conduct regular employee reviews. Give employees a chance to identify any areas for improvement and come up with a plan to help them. You can also use your POS system to track sales records, customer loyalty sign ups, and other metrics to identify strengths and weaknesses.
When conducting employee reviews, don’t just focus on the negatives. Share positives and areas where you’re happy with their performance.
5. Emphasize Communication and Team Building
Miscommunication is bad for business, and let’s face it: when things go wrong it often turns into one employee’s word against another.
Use communication tools in your employee management software to update employees on scheduling changes, promotions, product launches, software updates, and more to keep everyone in the loop.
Hold regular team meetings to check in with employees and make sure there are no questions about new updates. These meetings also give you a chance to discuss store performance, address any concerns, and brainstorm ideas to improve. Giving employees a chance to weigh in on promotions, layout, and other ideas is a great way to keep them motivated and involved.
Most importantly, nurture a positive work environment. Encourage open communication and teamwork. Remember, if your employees stumble it doesn’t reflect badly on them (at least in your customers’ eyes), it reflects badly on your business.
6. Monitor Employees To Ensure Compliance
Employee management software isn’t just for motivation and teamwork, it’s also an important tool for ensuring your store is legally compliant.
Use time tracking software to help you comply with labor laws by tracking employee hours, breaks, and overtime. You can also maintain records of performance reviews and any disciplinary actions.
Monitor individual activity for each employee, making sure they check IDs properly and keep accurate sales records. You can also monitor which employees scanned in inventory and pinpoint any potential sources of shrinkage. This is especially important if you are operating in an alcohol control state.
7. Automate Payroll Management
Keeping track of payroll can be tough, especially when you have seasonal employees or multiple locations. Modern POS systems use time tracking to automate the payroll process including calculating any state and federal tax withholding.
This simplifies payroll and ensures all employee payments are tracked and accurate. If you do have any full-time employees, you can also use employee management solutions to track benefits and retirement plans.
Remember, in some states, you’ll be required to set up a retirement plan if you have more than a certain number of employees, even if those employees are part-time.
Master Liquor Store + Employee Management With One Tool
Implementing employee management best practices will build trust with employees, boost motivation, and ultimately improve the customer experience.
If you’re considering adopting any kind of employee management software, we recommend a comprehensive solution to manage all aspects of your liquor store. Employee management software should make your life easier, not add yet another system to learn and keep track of in your daily life.
Bottle POS was designed by liquor store owners for liquor store owners to ensure that they can thrive and grow with confidence. We combine robust employee management features with advanced inventory tracking, sales reports, flexible payments, and more to modernize liquor stores without adding complexity.
Schedule a demo and learn how we can help you manage your staff with ease.
