How to Hire the Right People for a School Vending Takeover in 2023
How to Hire the Right People for a School Vending Takeover in 2023
By: Aria Spears
If your Spirit Box team implemented a Vending Takeover for this school year or are planning for one in the next, it is extra important to consider how you will bring additional team members on board. The tips below will help you be sure you’re prepared!
What is a Vending Takeover?
A Vending Takeover is when your Spirit Box team competes to become the sole vending supplier for the entire school. If your Spirit Box is not the only vending machine in the building, chances are, you might be limited in what products you can offer and when, due to contracts with vending machine companies.
For example, one Spirit Box school could only buy beverages from a specific bottling company. This company was more expensive than other, more accessible locations like Walmart or Sam’s Club. This team had to abide by the rules of the contract as long as the contract was in place, limiting their Spirit Box product offerings.
If your team competed for the vending bid and won the contract, you need to make sure that the next team members who fill in for those who graduated are up to speed. Preparing ahead of time with finding, hiring and training the right people is key to ensuring they are ready to take on the responsibility of being the sole vending machine provider for the school.
Gather Contracts and Other Documents
Before and after you compete to be the exclusive vendor at your school, be sure you have read over the current contracts in place with other vendors. Some vending companies can restrict what products you can sell, where you can buy inventory and more. You will also want to know when the current contract ends so you and your team can prepare to compete for the bid.
This is critical information for each year’s Spirit Box team, so be sure the remaining members of the Spirit Box team are aware of the contracts and know where to find them. Don’t assume that they recognize the significance of these documents to your Spirit Box. It is the current team’s responsibility to pass on that information for the next year. The contents of this contract will help you know what the limits will be on the next team, and will help you find the right people to fill certain roles.
Assess Your Current Team
Most likely, not everyone from your Spirit Box team will be leaving or graduating from one year to the next. This means there will be team members with prior experience that you can build upon. If some team members are staying on for the next year, consider their strengths and what they have excelled at while on the team. Ask them what they enjoy working on and how they would like to grow in the following year. Perhaps if there is a new position to fill, you could inquire about whether they would like to cross-train in another area and then train someone else to do their past role.
This is all part of succession planning, an important aspect of any business. Ensuring that key information is passed from one team member to the next through documentation, training and more helps to ensure your business doesn’t slow down due to gaps.
Identify the person or people who will help to lead the way in becoming the exclusive vendor at the school. They will likely be discussing the team’s ideas and plans with the administration and should thus be able to communicate clearly and effectively, while also following through on the proposed action items that result.
The steps to becoming the sole vendor for your school are outlined in this article: BIG IDEA: WHY NOT BECOME YOUR SCHOOL'S PRIMARY VENDING PROVIDER?
Read through what it takes to become the exclusive vendor and assess your team’s current strengths and growth opportunities.
Create a Plan to Find the Right People
Once you determine the roles you’ll need to fill and what kind of qualities you are looking for, you can then decide how you’d like to find people to fill those roles. You can answer these questions:
Will you expect students to fill out an application? Will it be paper or online?
Will they undergo an interview process?
How many interviews and who will be involved?
Will students apply for a certain role or just apply to the team and be placed in a role by current members?
And more
Once you create or adjust the current interview process, you can then consider how you’d like to advertise that the team is looking for new members. Will you use online or social media marketing? Will you use screens within the school building? Flyers taped to the walls? Consider the people you’d like to reach and the best way to show up where they usually spend time.
You can learn more about creating a plan for hiring students here.
Design Their Onboarding & Training
Hiring the right people is just the beginning, of course. It is important to get them up to speed as quickly as possible on how the business works and their part in it. Before you extend an offer to join the team, be sure you and the current members have considered how you are going to train them in their respective roles as they were done in the past, as well as in changes and goals your team is working toward for the future.
You can learn more about training a Spirit Box team here.
Execute Your Plan
Of course, the final step is executing your plan to find, hire and train the right people for your team. It is a fun opportunity to learn more about the skills and interests of the people around you, and even more fun when you can connect those people to opportunities to grow in skills they care about.
Experience the Vending Takeover Benefits
Competing to become the exclusive vendor of your school does take preparation and planning, but it is possible! And it can have enormous benefits for your school, such as:
All of the vending revenue goes to your Spirit Box Teams and your school.
A hands-on learning experience that provides real world skills to high school students.
No contracts from other vending companies restricting what you can put in your vending machine. This will lead your business to be more successful and bring more revenue in.
Your team can help make this possible for the school. And ensuring that you hire and train the right people can ensure that Spirit Box doesn’t just succeed once, but year after year after year.
Feeling stuck? Got ideas? Contact our team today! We are here to help you and your team succeed.