By Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: July 17, 2013
Over the summer SUS has been thinking hard about how to restructure Aftermath after its head position was vacated in April. Previously the restaurant employed one manager to oversee operations, management and marketing.
But since then SUS has divided the management position into three student manager positions: marketing, human resources and operations. They have also accepted applications for new serving staff. The kitchen will continue to employ one full-time kitchen manager, but for the other positions the applicants need to be students as long as they hold their position.
“I believe that the Student Union Society should also offer students jobs,” Potter says. “If we can hire these intelligent, bright, strong individuals, give them management experience on their resume, give them a reference letter, that’s going to help them.”
The positions were advertised through SUS media outlets as well as through posters on campus. Despite the non-competitive wage of $11/hr for a management position, Potter is confident they attracted solid applicants.
“It’s not super competitive, but what we are doing is we’re providing students with an opportunity to essentially have their hand in running a business, so the value that they’re getting in that is extensive,” he says. “[We’re] getting people with years and years of work experience, professional experience, skills that they can bring to the service to improve it.”
Earlier in the year, SUS spoke about hiring outside consultants to determine the best direction to go with the restaurant. They still intend to do this, but are moving forward with the new management structure based on structures at other universities.
“Bringing in consultants is expensive and between [SUS general manager, Meghan McDonald] and myself we’ve found that just talking with other student associations … looking at how other schools are doing it has given us a huge amount of data,” he explains. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to still go with outside help on how we want to construct things.”
Potter says they will be looking to assess their suppliers and point of sale systems for ways to improve, but that students shouldn’t worry about the menu or prices.
“I don’t want to make too drastic changes. We’re still going to go through the mentality of keeping food prices relatively inexpensive,” he says. “I’ll guarantee you that we’ll make sure it’s cheaper than anything around.”
As far as bringing in an outside consultant, Potter wants to wait until the new hires are in position and then bring them in on the decision making process.
“The people that we’re hiring, the people that we’re bringing into the service are customers of Aftermath. These people have a really good idea of where we need to take it and where we need to grow,” he explains.
