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Member Blog: 4 Budtender Onboarding Tips To Help Keep You Compliant

by Tommy Truong, KayaPush 

A recent survey by Headset.io found that 55% of budtenders leave their jobs within the first year of employment.* But why? 

Some believe improper onboarding could be a culprit.   

First impressions matter – and improper onboarding can leave budtenders feeling underprepared and unappreciated. Moreover, budtenders who don’t receive proper compliance training might be terminated due to compliance infractions and could even be at personal risk for their errors. 

Luckily, by setting up solid budtender onboarding SOPs that put compliance first, you are more likely to keep great hires – and avoid compliance infractions.

The following information will help dispensary owners implement hiring and training strategies to increase retention, avoid compliance infractions, and simplify dispensary onboarding.  

1 – Look into legal before you hire.

Compliant onboarding starts with understanding your budtenders’ requirements to work at your dispensary.

Every state has unique requirements regarding background checks, legal age, and budtender certifications – so it is essential to research each of these elements before you begin the hiring process. 

Once you have established your hiring guidelines regarding legal requirements – you can take it one step further and set up an applicant tracking system that is customized to only reach out to applicants who qualify for your set terms. 

Using tools that automate these processes will make compliant dispensary hiring easy.

Social equity hiring initiatives in cannabis 

While we’re on the topic of hiring for your cannabis dispensary, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the importance of researching potential social equity programs for dispensary hiring opportunities. 

You can use these resources to find qualified social equity candidates for your dispensary based on the state in which you are located.

2 – Have an organized onboarding documentation process.

The next step to a smooth and compliant onboarding process is to know all the forms you need to provide and gather from your new hire. 

If you are an American business owner, the forms you will need to collect from your employee include:

  • W2
  • Criminal record check verification
  • 1-9 
  • State Tax Form
  • ID or Passport 
  • Social security information 
  • A void check 
  • A signed employer agreement 
  • Any certifications you have requested they acquire

The forms you will need to share with your new hire include:

3 – Use self-serve onboarding software. 

Business owners who don’t use employee onboarding software manage a lot of paperwork.

From chasing new hires around for signatures or documents – to figuring out the best way to store things – it’s a time-consuming headache, and it’s not ideal. 

With dispensary self-serve onboarding software, dispensary owners can eliminate 100% of their paperwork – and increase their compliance in many ways. 

Here’s how it works. When a new hire joins, a dispensary owner can share their onboarding link, where their new hire will upload digitized documents directly into the system for central storage. 

If any documentation is missing, the system will send a reminder to ensure they provide all the information needed for dispensary owners to stay compliant. 

4 – Provide compliance training for budtenders

Compliance training should be a critical part of the budtender onboarding process – but what does that mean? 

For budtenders, there are four main areas of compliance to master: How to sell products to customers and with a POS system, how to handle products, and overall regulations comprehension.

Selling products to customers training might include:

  • Learn how to greet guests in a compliant way 
  • How and when to properly ID guests
  • Knowledge of strains, potency, and effects
  • Understanding different types of products based on clients’ needs

POS training might include: 

  • Knowing how to input ID information 
  • Learning how to ring in products correctly
  • Understanding product limits per customer guidelines 
  • Knowing how to use and report sold products with a compliant POS 
  • Understanding the compliance factors behind customer loyalty programs and incentives

Product handling training might include:

  • How to properly package product 
  • How to showcase product
  • How to inventory product
  • How to handle products

Overall regulation comprehension might include:

  • Current cannabis laws in the state or city
  • Current compliant regulations 
  • Store opening and closing SOPs for compliance
  • Security SOPs for compliance 
  • How to use cannabis software tools for clock in’s and schedules.

What are other tips to stay compliant? 

Compliance is one of the most challenging aspects of running a cannabis dispensary – however, if you surround yourself with the right team, use cannabis software built for dispensaries in your state, and check in often on regulatory updates – you will be alright.

*(Headset.io, 2022 An analysis of employee turnover in cannabis retail)

Author Tommy Truong is the CEO at KayaPush; the cannabis software helping dispensary owners manage their employee HR, scheduling, and payroll. KayaPush also integrates with leading dispensary POS systems. Tommy loves hot sauce, fried chicken, and running with his Boston terriers

KayaPush delivers an innovative, unified compliance solution that meets payroll and HR needs without compromising speed and accuracy. Implementing KayaPush will save you time and money and help eliminate the financial risks associated with non-compliance.

 

Committee Blog: The Employee Onboarding Process

by NCIA’s Human Resources Committee
Kara Bradford of Viridian Staffing, Kerry Arnold of Canndescent, Heidi Quan of Murchison & Cumming LLP, Nichole McIntyre of Urban-Gro, Michelle Whitmore of H2 Talent, and Mark Hackett of Emerge Law Group

You’ve found, interviewed, hired the right person for a position in your business, and they have just accepted your job offer. Congratulations! Now what? In the second part of our three-part series, the HR Committee shares insights on the Onboarding of employees. Onboarding new employees can be critical to ensuring happy and productive workers that understand the culture and expectations of your company. Having an organized procedure for bringing on a new hire is crucial for both the company and the new employee. Your company should be as prepared and ready as the new employee is expected to be for their first day. This can be a missed opportunity to make a great impression on your new employee.

In order to help your company with the onboarding process, a new hire checklist can be utilized to help ensure that you are covering all the necessary areas for a successful and smooth entry into your workforce. We have prepared two checklists for the onboard process. One is more administrative in nature while the other is designed to assist managers to help smoothly integrate and transition the new employee into your company. In some companies, a Manager may need to perform the tasks on both checklists if the company does not have an HR Manager.  

HR Manager Checklist

Starting with the HR Manager Checklist, it’s best to make sure that you’ve received a signed offer letter and/or employment agreement prior to the start date being determined. Some companies also prefer not to set a start date until the background check process has completed. Once this is completed, there are a series of steps to take prior to the new employee starting. You may need to order hardware/software, cultivation tools/equipment, etc. On their first day, it’s a best practice to have the worker complete all paperwork, including any W-4 documentation/I-9, etc, prior to starting on the job. We’ve also included instructions for I-9 completion. 

Data has shown that employees don’t leave companies, they often leave managers; so provide your managers with the resources they need in order to inspire more confidence in the new employee for their manager. If the Manager isn’t the individual filling out the paperwork with the employee, have the manager greet the employee as soon as necessary paperwork is completed. Having a manager focus their attention on a new employee as much as possible during that first day will help to solidify the new employee’s sense of belonging to the organization.  

Employee Onboarding Checklist For Managers

The manager should take time to introduce the new employee to all co-workers and other organizational stakeholders they may interact with while helping to familiarize them with the facility. The manager should then spend time setting/reiterating expectations of what the position entails and conveying any goals/metrics that the employee is required to meet. Finally, the manager should spend time training the new employee and setting them up for success, or delegating this to the appropriate subject matter expert on the team to do this. 

We often have companies tell us they are struggling to retain their employees. By providing an exceptional onboarding experience from the very first day, this will help the new employee to realize you value them and the talents they are bringing to your company, thus helping to feel welcomed and continue their contributions longer to your firm.  

In our next HR Committee Blog Post, we’ll provide a checklist with recommendations on how to handle Terminations.

Download The Onboarding Checklists Here:

HR Manager Checklist

Employee Onboarding Checklist For Managers

 

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