21 States (and Dozens of Cities) Affected by 2017 Minimum Wage Increases: What Restaurants Can Do Now

Who is Impacted?

There is no doubt that the two industries with the most at risk over the impending minimum wage increases are retail and hospitality.  Especially, in hospitality, the increases are set to affect over 14 million Americans in the hospitality/ food & beverage industries - that's nearly 10 percent of the entire United States workforce.  Of course, the attempt to close the wage gap amongst restaurant employees is very important.  However, with these changes coming, restaurant owners and operators must prepare their staff.  Below are the 21 states, along with their cities/ counties where the new minimum wage increases are taking place:

States Affected:

• Alaska - $9.80

• Arizona - $10.00

• Arkansas - $8.50

• California - $10.00 for small employers; 10.50 for large employers

• Colorado - $9.30

• Connecticut - $10.10

• Florida - $8.10

• New York - Varies across state from $9.70 to $11 (as of 12/31/16)*

• Ohio - $8.15

• Oregon - $10.25 (as of July)

• South Dakota - $8.65

• Vermont - $10.00

• Washington - $11.00

• *The basic minimum wage is $9.70 in most of the state. But it's higher for the fast food industry; Long Island; Westchester County; and large and small employers in New York City.

Cities & Counties:

• California:

  • Cupertino - $12.00

  • El Cerrito - $12.25

  • Los Altos - $12.00

  • Mountain View - $13.00

  • Oakland - $12.86

  • Palo Alto - $12.00

  • Richmond - $12.30

  • Sacramento - $10.50 (large employers)

  • San Diego - $11.50

  • San Mateo - $12.00

  •  San Jose - $10.50

  • Santa Clara - $11.10

  • Sunnyvale - $13.00

• Hawaii - $9.25

• Maine - $9.00

• Maryland - $9.25 (as of July)

• Massachusetts - $11.00

• Michigan - $8.90

• Missouri - $7.70

• Montana - $8.15

• New Jersey - $8.44

• District of Columbia:

  • Washington, D.C. - $12.50 (as of July)

• Iowa:

  • Johnson County - $10.10

  • Linn Country - $8.25

  • Wapello County - $8.20

• Maine:

  • Portland - $10.68

• New Mexico:

  • Albuquerque - $8.80

  • Bernalillo - $8.70

  • Las Cruces - $9.20

• New York:

  • New York City - $11.00 (as of 12/31/16)

  • Long Island and Westchester, NY - $10.00 (as of 12/31/16)

• Washington:

  • Seattle - $15.00

  • SeaTac - $15.35

  • Tacoma - $11.15

What Restaurants Can Do NOW …

Begin to Strategically Schedule Staff:  Get your schedules down to a science by analyzing your most crucial shifts and recognizing the strongest members of your staff.  If you’re short on time, the TeamLive tool on Harri is a great help to managers and operators, who need to align their schedules with real-time sales, better streamline their labor costs and control their overall staffing budget.

Take Your Restaurant/ Store Hours Into Consideration:  Making this work means, keeping track of your stores’ sales patterns   For example, if Monday - Friday @ 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM are very busy lunch-pops for you, yet there is a sharp dip between the hours of 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM, you may want to consider closing earlier during the week and drive all of your marketing efforts towards weekday lunch.  Your POS weekly and monthly reports should be a great indicator of these trends. If you have never done this before, contact your POS company rep for help.  

Think About Raising Menu Item Prices:  This is the last resort, so, be sure that every change made is absolutely necessary.  Go into this knowing that you may lose some guests at the expense of your menu changes. With the help of your culinary team analyze each menu item and break it down by cost.

Compare vendors on the pricing of specific ingredients (ie. if carrots cost more at Baldor than AFI than switching vendors could be effective in this case).  Do your best to communicate to your guests that your business has slightly increased menu prices to stay open, pay your employees fair wages, and most significantly to continue to have the great privilege of serving them.  

Chef Essentials: Knife Roll

One of the first skills aspiring chefs need to learn and master is knife skills. Knife skills are all-important when working in a professional kitchen and can take your art of cooking to a greater level. To do proper knife work, you need to be have a professional set of tools. A chef without his/her knife roll is like a business person without their briefcase.

These are the essential tools for any well-equipped chef:

#1: Chef’s Knife

The chef’s knife is one of the most versatile knives in the knife roll. It can be used for nearly almost any type of food, from chopping vegetables for service to slicing fruit for pastries. The large blade of the chef’s knife allows for balanced cutting, which helps in cutting ingredients into uniform sizes and even cooking.

Steal: Victorinox Fibrox Straight Edge Chef's Knife, 8-Inch
Splurge: Wusthof Classic 8-Inch Cook's Knife

#2: Paring Knife

For more precise knife work, a paring knife is essential. It is known to be the smaller form of the chef’s knife, ranging from 2.5 inches to 4 inches in length. It can be used for various tasks, such as mincing small food items like shallots and garlic to segmenting oranges for plating.

Steal: Victorinox Swiss Classic 4-Inch Paring Knife, Spear Tip
Splurge: Wusthof Classic 3-1/2-Inch Paring Knife

#3: Boning Knife

A boning knife is a must for a chef that handles poultry, meat or fish on daily basis. The narrow, long blade allows for easy and precise removal of bones during prep. When choosing a boning knife, flexibility is key; it can be either flexible or stiff. A more flexible boning knife allows for better control, while a stiffer blade is extra handy for thicker cuts of meat.

Steal: Victorinox 6-Inch Flex Boning Knife with Fibrox Handle
Splurge: Wusthof Classic 6-Inch Flexible Boning Knife

#4: Serrated Knife

The go-to knife for a culinary professional that works with pastries is the serrated knife. It is also known as a bread knife, dentated, sawtooth or toothed blade. The jagged blade is ideal for gliding through delicate goods, with hard exteriors but soft interiors, without crushing and ruining them.

Steal: OXO Good Grips 8 Inch Bread Knife
Splurge: Wusthof Classic 10-Inch Bread Knife

#5: Santoku Knife

The santoku knife and the chef’s knife are pretty similar in that they are all-around workhorses in the kitchen. However, a santoku knife is better designed for rougher cuts and scooping ingredients into bowls. It is especially useful when preparing large volumes of food. What makes a Santoku knife special is the Granton edge; the unique pattern allows for easy slicing of sticky foods.

Steal: OXO Good Grips Professional 6-1/2-Inch Santoku Knife
Splurge: Wusthof 4183-7 Wusthof Classic 7-Inch Santoku Knife, Hollow Edge

#6: Knife Sharpener

Remember, a dull knife is a dangerous knife, and a sharp knife is a safe knife. To ensure a chef’s safety, a knife sharpener needs to be in their knife kit. There are several types of knife sharpeners out there: grinding stone, sharpening steel rod and electric. Most chefs prefer the sharpening steel rod-style knife sharpeners since they can be easily stored in their roll up. 

Steal: Winware 12" Stainless Steel Sharpening Steel
Splurge: Wusthof 10-Inch Sharpening Steel

#7: Roll Up Knife Bag

A chef’s knives are precious (and expensive!) investment pieces. They need to be cleaned properly and placed in a roll up knife bag. The bag makes it easy for chefs to transport their knives to and from work.

Steal: Messermeister 5-Pocket Padded Knife Roll, Black
Splurge: The Ultimate Edge 2001-12BN 12-Piece Knife Roll, Black

Watch and learn basic knife techniques of cutting, chopping and slicing from Chef Jacques Pépin:

5 Ways to Improve Your Harri Profile

Currently looking for a new job? Before you start applying, first thing you should do is make sure to give your Harri profile a little refresher.

#1: Update your profile and cover photo.

Swap out your old profile photo, and upload a new professional headshot, if possible. (Check out our post, Tips for a Professional Profile Photo, to learn how to take the perfect profile picture.) Customize your profile even more and add a cover photo. It's a great way to show off your personality or your individual talents.

#2: Add new photos or videos.

You probably took some awesome photos last year. Add them to your gallery, so that employers and other job seekers can take a look at your work. Got videos? Sure, include those as well. (Just make sure these are professional.)

#3: List references.

Now that you gained more experience this year, ask your former employers or coworkers to be references. Once you receive approval, put their information onto your profile. These references will come in handy when prospective employers request them.

#4: Update the opportunities you are interested in.

If you want a job that is different from the one you have or previously held, make a small edit under your Basic Information. Remove unwanted positions you are no longer interested, and replace them with your desired positions. This assures you that you will receive alerts for the jobs you want.

#5: Stay up to date with your messages.

Make sure the hard work you put into updating your profile isn't in vain. Remember to respond promptly to employers when they message you. If you don't do so, your profile score can drop and hurt your chances of being spotted by hiring managers. Inform employers that you are no longer interested by politely declining via messaging. For more information about how your message response rate effects your profile score, click here.

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Top 10 Traits of a Great Employee

We previously reviewed what were the top 10 traits of a great employer. Now, we will be sharing some of the characteristics of an ideal employee:

• The common saying goes, "There is no 'I' in team." Being a team player is vital to any company, because as a group, you can accomplish more with greater results, and maybe at an even faster pace.
• Managers need reliable workers, people who they can count on for their business to run smoothly. This includes, but may not be limited to, arriving to work on time and not missing shifts.
• Hard working candidates are highly preferred since they will do whatever they can to get the job done.

See below for the other top traits that a great employee should possess:

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DISCOVER WHO'S HIRING ON HARRI

Follow Harri on Facebook and Twitter
for real time job posts and industry news.