The last job I had as a cook in 1996 I was getting paid $10 an hour. My share of the rent of our 2 bedroom townhouse I rented with friends was 1/3 of $450, so $150 a month. One of my buddies currently works as a cook. He makes $12 an hour. His total rent in his two bedroom place is $1100. He's a hard worker and a good cook. I guess he's not supposed to ever be able to get ahead, drive a decent car, but a home...hell his last two TVs were hand me downs from me. But I guess cooking (not fast food mind you) is supposed to be an entry level job for teenagers?
My son works in the kitchen of a chain steakhouse, he currently makes about $10/hour. He's 20 years old and has been working there for less than 2 years, in the kitchen less than one year.. he's under consideration for some kind of kitchen management position that would push him up about a dollar an hour... if your buddy has been doing this for 20 years and he's making $12/hour, then there has to be something you aren't telling us.
There is. He's almost a decade younger than me. He's also job hopped a bit due to restaurant closures and/or being unhappy with management. Still doesn't change the fact that in 20 years the general pay has not risen with the rise of cost of living.
I managed restaurants for many years, and my latter years (my 2nd tour of managing restaurants, after 12 or 13 years selling cars in between) we spent in a variety of areas, with widely varying income levels. In every area, we started new employees at minimum wage.
My last restaurant was in a lower income area. I had to make changes in personnel when I 1st took the store over, because some employees were used to doing whatever they wanted as opposed to doing it the Wendy's way. I posted open interviews on my road sign, doe one day, from 2-6 PM. I had 50 or 60 people show up. I hired 20 or so people out of this group. They all started at minimum wage, and they knew it.
Wendy's had guidelines/timelines/instructional requirements for raises. We were supposed to do raises every 6 months, but there were some people I hired who just took off like rockets. They embraced learning proper procedures, and learned to be proficient at several position. Because they did so, I gave them raises, even though it wasn't "time" to do so. I had 4 or 5 employees making almost $5 over minimum wage. The franchisees asked me about some of the raises I gave, but when I explained why I gave them, they were OK with them. I had some almost brand new employee getting substantial raises within their 1st 3 or 4 months. I believed in rewarding those who embraced doing things the right way, and who embraced become proficient in their jobs.
My store was one of the oldest in north/central Ohio. The day I took the store over, Wendy's International came in and did a QSC audit.(Quality, Service, Cleanliness) We got a 50.
The final QSC audit we had when I managed that store was an 87. The was above the area average. We raised sales, because I insisted on, and rewarded those who embraced being friendly to every customer, and providing excellent customer service. Oh, and even after giving some fairly large raises, we still made profit in that store for the 1st time in the time the franchisees had owned the store. We also started beating many other area stores in sales, almost always in the 1st week of the month (welfare checks and such) but also in other weeks of the month. It was funny when we were the top store in sales in the market for 2 consecutive weeks. It was a matter of hiring good people, paying them well, and setting specific expectations for each job, and rewarding those who excelled.
I had some of my kids there to on to college, and some asked me for a letter of reference when they moved to other areas to continue their educations. I didn't have any kid who didn't do his/her job right ask for one, but I did have 5 or 6 who did.
Anyway, my point is that while I probably went over and above what most managers do, all managers want to reward and retain excellent employees. It is less costly to pay an exceptional employee $2 or $3 per hour more, than to have to find, hire, and train a new employee to a high level of excellence.
I would also add that I promoted many people to management positions. Today, even after I have been gone for such a long time, I know of at least 4 or 5 of my former employees who are managers, and one of my former co-managers became a general manager. I had some employees who learned a job, and did it well, and they were rewarded, but others learned everything they could, and excelled, and they received bigger, more frequent raises, and promotions. I have to believe that this is the way many businesses operate, to varying degrees.
When I was a young man, shortly after I turned 18, I moved to Columbus. I had moved down there with the understanding that I would be entering L&K's management program. However, when I got down there, they said that they had had to scale back the program, and were probably going to have to close some stores. Nice thing to do when I had just moved down there. However, I went to work for Elby's, with the understanding that they would give promotions based on how I worked. I was made kitchen manager within 4 months. I busted ass, and learned how to do everything I could. I had even learned how to run the register, and how to wait tables. They rewarded hard work.
Eventually I decided that I missed a lot of my friends in Youngstown,l so I moved back from Columbus to Youngstown. When I did, I didn't find a lot of restaurant management jobs available, so I had to work 2 jobs in order to do the things I wanted to do. I often worked 60-70 hours/week. Was it ideal? No, but if I wanted to do the things I enjoyed, and have the things I wanted, that's what I had to do. Eventually I went to work for Domino's,and was promoted in fairly short order. I had my own store within a year of working for them.
My point is that a person has to have goals, and they have to see a path to get them to their goals. Your buddy is a cook. Does he want more responsibility, and the higher pay that comes with it. or does he want to remain "just a cook"? Has he learned his job to the point where no one is more proficient than he is? Has he expressed a desire to get on a path to higher paying jobs with more responsibility? Has he demonstrated responsibility, and has he been on time every day, every shift, and held the call-offs to a minimum? Has he asked his boss what he needs to do in order to be promoted, and make more money?
I had employees who would want to just stay at one position, and who were very good at that position, but they were always going to be limited in how much they could make. I had other employees who wanted to learn everything, and they were often promoted to more responsibility and more month then they would have made at their former position. I drove my DM crazy, and amused her as well, because I would have some of my top employee doing the food safety logs, and even counting inventory for me. They showed that they were capable of more, and when I would lose a manager out of my store, I could promote another employee, and move all of my other managers up. I also had other employees wanting to do these things as well, and when I would promote an employee to manager, I would allow another employee to learn these things.
People have to continue to make themselves more and more valuable in order to make more and more money. A person can be proficient, and do an acceptable level of work, but to really make more money, they need to stand out above the average.
Just my $0.02 worth, based on my own experiences in the business.
