I’ve never worked at a Taco Bell, but I have worked fast food. The manager job seems, to me, to be a mix of business management, scheduling, HR, food preparation, job training, and babysitting. After all, fast food restaurants are often staffed by first-time jobholders who need a bit more hand-holding than people in other industries.
It’s not an easy job. In light of that, Taco Bell just announced that they will start paying some managers $100,000 a year to run their restaurants. While they haven’t given a date or specified precisely which stores will have these new highly paid managers, they have said it will be focused on the Northeast and Midwest. Current salaries range from $50,000 to $80,000 according to MarketWatch.
To keep reading, click here: Taco Bell Hiring $100k Jobs
1) The law of supply and demand kicks in.
2) If it doesn’t make sense to pay a manager 5 times more than an assistant manager, then why do top execs (often) make 15 or more times their subordinates? Unless, of course, 1) is operating.
People tend to put down fast-food job positions mainly because they are looking at the lowest level entry low skill positions which in some states is now $15/ hour. But running a specific store restaurant as the manager requires many multi-tasking skills, least of which is people skills both with customers and employees.
Along with my long work career, I have worked as a restaurant manager for different types of fast food and it requires an ability to think on your feet, push accounting skills, the actual job skills with the ability to develop same in your employees and develop management skills in others, as just a sample of how much that manager has to do. I compare to being the CEO of that specific store and to be successful, you have to be totally immersed in the continued success of that unit, which might lead to conflict sometimes when a change is demanded from the corporate entity by someone who doesn’t know the day to day operation situation. (This is why I love the Undercover Boss show because when those bosses see reality on the store level, they realize that changes have to also be effective for every store to be profitable and just put into motion to satisfy the shareholders.)
Hearing that the salaries for store management are rising in fast food restaurants like Taco Bell is positive.
5 of my 7 kids have worked at a local Taco Bell. My 16 year old is still there. They have treated my kids wonderfully and it’s been a wonderful learning experience for them.
Having worked in fast service coffee, the other thing that retail and fast food managers do is work insane hours covering for employees’ absences. I would hope they’d pay staff more as well in order to avoid the constant cycle of hiring.