Starting a business is never easy as it requires a lot of effort, energy, time and money spent on it. One thing to note is that although effort is being put in to nurture the business, there are many times where disappointments would occur when it fails to meet your own expectations.
20yo burger restaurant owner shares his struggles of finding a good employee
One 20-year-old Malaysian entrepreneur, surnamed Bo, took to his Facebook to share the challenges he has experienced in running his own business. Having operated for three months, he spoke about how he had failed to find suitable staff to work under him.
“I’ve started operating my restaurant for a good 3 months and in these 3 months, I’ve had to ask 3 different employees to leave. I’m not sure if I’m too nice or if my employees think I’m too young and they can take advantage of me.”
Source: Mr. Boger via facebook
Bo adds that his biggest struggle right now is finding good employees that were close to his own age to work, as many that he has hired have failed to display professionalism when on the clock. In fact, he alleges that some of them would head to toilet and stay in there for up to 20 minutes, for up to 4 times a day.
“They think that I’m a boss with no compassion or empathy because I would fire them for heading to the toilet. Some of them would take leave as and when they like and wouldn’t even bother telling me that they won’t be coming”, he said.
Explaining his initial intention of hiring employees that are close to his age is so that he could communicate better with them as there won’t be much of a generational gap, he claims that doing so has not proven to be fruitful.
“Many who express an interest in joining are usually high school dropouts who complain about their families and their schools. At first, they will tell you about how capable they are and how they will go above and beyond when working for you.
Once the novelty of having a job has passed, they will transform 360 degrees.”
Going on further, he recounts that the employees he hired often complain about facing pressure, being overworked, and not being treated fairly. Yet they wanted to work less hours and would often come in late to work.
“They don’t want to work for money, they simply live to relax.”
He said that he has grown tired of hiring new employees as despite paying them money to work, he would have to put up with their poor behaviour.
“You can’t tell them they did something wrong, otherwise they will give you attitude.
You can teach them that 1+1=2, but they will insist that 1+1=0. They have only worked in a kitchen for 2 months, and they want to be the head chef. Damn, I have been cooking for 5 years and even I have moments when I need to improvise at will.”
Netizens claim he is also at fault
Following his post, some netizens have pointed out his flaws that he isn’t compensating his employees fairly, given the duration of time his employees would have to spend working. He shared that after reflecting upon his mistakes he has amended his job vacancy posts so that it aligns with the law set by the government.
“I admit that there’s a bunch of Gen Z’s that are disappointing, but you cannot judge those Gen Z’s that are actually working hard for their future. It’s unfair to condemn all of them because of the bad experiences you encountered.”
Source: Mr. Boger via Facebook
“To be frank, if the salary you offer is below RM2,200 what kind of quality employees are you expecting? I don’t think age matter shere. You should ask yourself if you’re being a good boss. Are you offering things a boss should offer? If your employees work for 45 hours and above, are there any OT compensations?
Would you offer double pay during public holidays and do you provide EPF right away when they start work? If you’ve managed to give everything I mentioned above, then it really is the employee’s issue.
But if you can’t even be a responsible boss, then please don’t employees that are of good quality. I believe that there are still a lot of people who are fit to be good employees. All the best to you.”
Responding to the feedback, Bo has since uploaded another post and mentioned that he is now aware of his own shortcomings as a boss and shared that the only reason he would have such unreasonable requests for his staff to work 12 hours is because of his own personal experience.
In speaking with WauPost, Bo shared that when he started out selling his burgers at a hawker centre, he has to work for up to 12 hours. Given his own personal experiences in working for that lengthy duration, he came to set his expectations similarly when it came down to hiring his own employees.
“I didn’t have much experience working under someone as I started a burger stall right after I finished high school”, he admits.
Source: Mr. Boger via Facebook
When asked about his goals and aspirations, he shared that one of his dreams is to be able to expand his restaurant’s footprint in the near future with more outlets.
“It’s a constant learning curve and now that I have my own restaurant, I’m working towards building more branches and hopefully everyone can have a taste of the burgers we sell”, he said.
Tap here to give us a ‘Like’ on Facebook and stay up-to-date on the latest news.
