Multiple Havre businesses suffering from low staff numbers

Multiple businesses in Havre are feeling the impact of staffing shortages - for some, this dates back to before the COVID-19 pandemic, which only added to the problem.

"I haven't had a full staff in probably about two years, to be honest. I've been short of management for two years. And then I usually can find enough teenage help to keep her rollin', but as far as management, I've been short for about two years," Rod's Drive-In owner Brian Schaub said.

"This has been going on, I've owned the store, what 21 years. I could probably tell you that it's been going on for probably a good 10 that it's been just getting worse, hasn't gotten any better," Schaub added.

Schaub said the business will have been closed on Sundays for a full year as of July 1. He said Rod's Drive-In doesn't open until 11 a.m. now and it closes at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. He said he works 10-hour days, six days a week. He said increased pay has not helped add to his staff.

He said he currently pays between $10 and $12 per hour usually and will pay more-experienced workers $15 per hour.

"Other than that, you know, we'll do a sign-on bonus, I'll pay, if you start with me like when you're 16 and work for me through high school, I'll pay for your books at college if you went to Northern. I've been doing that for about 18 years. I've never had a taker, not once have I ever had to pay (for) books," he added.

Schaub said, prior to having staffing issues, Rod's would have 25 employees, 28 in the summer. He said things slow down in the winter, dropping the total to roughly 18.

"Now, my last count, if you count me, we have 10. So I'm running a little less than 50 percent," Schaub said.

"Long-term impact would probably be (that) I will retire early. Rod's Drive-In will be for sale. That's probably where it would get if it kept getting worse. It's hard to say. I don't want to say that I'm lazy, but 60 hours a week is enough. I'm almost 50 years old now. This job is on your feet for 10-12-hour days, and it gets pretty monotonous and it's pretty hard work, actually. It's not easy," he said 

Schaub has been discussing the possibility of closing on Mondays as well with his management staff.

"It's really hard on my employees. We have families and we like to go camping and hunting and go to the lake. It's really hard for us to do that working, you know, six, seven days a week, 10-hour days. The employees I have now are, they're amazing. I think that they're the best crew that I've had in years, I just don't have enough of them," Schaub said.

Taco John's General Manager Chris Drew said her business didn't start having staff shortages until roughly six months into the pandemic when people started receiving unemployment checks. Drew said her staff size is down from 30 to 20.

"It's just not as good of accuracy and not as much speed because we don't have enough employees to make it run smoothly, so the food takes longer to get. Sometimes it's messed up because I don't have a lot of experience on the line," Drew said.

Drew said pay at the Havre Taco John's has increased to $11 per hour and she tries to be as flexible with worker schedules as she can be, offering people whatever they can work, but these efforts haven't been enough to increase numbers.

Long-term, Drew said Taco John's may also have shorter business hours and only operate the drive-thru, in order to give guests the attention they need.

"We want to keep that open. So that's, like, that's what we don't want. That's what we're struggling to not do is close that lobby, and we still have to once in a while. You know, people get sick, I don't have enough people to cover schedules, that kind of stuff," Drew added.

Havre franchises of major chains including Pizza Hut, Domino's and McDonald's also don't have enough workers.

"It's definitely hurt our delivery service, you know, not having enough drivers to get deliveries out, not having enough insiders at one point to, you know, keep pizzas going as fast as they need to in order to come out of the oven and get to customers," Domino's General Manager Tim Dahlby said.

"This winter wasn't too bad. Havre hasn't been hit quite as bad. We just didn't have quite as many applications as we wanted to to get the right people," Dahlby added.

Dahlby said the Havre location did have some turnover in the fall due to being taken over by another company. He added he believed it was relatively short, even before the pandemic.

"I receive (online) Indeed ads from my supervisors, so those come through. Also, Dominos.com has a pretty good, they have a pretty good website for getting people to apply and make that easy, good transition," Dahlby said.

Venessa Griggs, the manager of Havre's Pizza Hut didn't give an exact figure for current staff numbers but said the location has had staffing issues since the start of the pandemic. Griggs said the staff has been reduced to about half its previous size. 

Griggs said the Havre Pizza Hut is also advertising jobs online, also mentioning the online service Indeed, in addition to posting help wanted signs.

"Some days, we have to close (the main dining room) because we don't have the staffing. I just keep hoping that it's going to change and someday we'll go back to normal," Griggs said.

The Havre McDonald's franchise is perhaps fairing the best out of all of the businesses contacted by Havre Daily News, with staff numbers holding mostly steady.

"I'd say it's more of a recent issue for us, because obviously, we were used to having a dining room open, and when you close that down, we actually had enough employees in here to do our normal job. Then we were able to maintain everybody through the whole pandemic, so (it) wasn't really an issue, but it just has become an issue over the last, probably, like, two months or so for us," owner Jeff Ralph said.

Ralph said the dining room has been closed since the start of the pandemic.

"We currently don't have any plans to open it up until we get some guidance from McDonald's for certain things that we're still waiting on and some McDonald's are open and some are not," Ralph said.

To try and bring more workers on board, Ralph said, he's been utilizing a lot of advertising and internal referral programs.

"Obviously, we've changed some of our policies and benefits inside and just tried to re-promote some of the policies and benefits that we currently have so that more people know about it, and it has been working," Ralph said.

Ralph said he doesn't expect the current situation to have much of an impact on his franchise.

"I don't think it means a lot right at the moment. I think it just depends on when people are ready to return to work and start feeling comfortable being out in the work environment, things should just get a lot better for everybody. It might take a while, but, as of right now, we're holding our own with what we were planning on doing for this year," Ralph said.

Ralph said the staff size is pretty even with what it had been before. He said he hopes to bring on more staff to get ahead of future business later in the summer.