7.3--The Market Team

Mobile Market U Module 7: Operations
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The Market Team

Now that you have a sense of the daily operation of a mobile market, let’s take a close look at its beating heart — the people.

Hiring the right people for your market will make a world of difference in achieving your financial and social goals, but it will also make your work much more meaningful and joyful. But, who are the “right people”? To answer this question, you’ll need to first establish:

  1. WHO you will need to help run the market (roles)
  2. WHAT they will do (responsibilities)

As we mentioned earlier, we would encourage you to hire your staff from communities that are being served by your market. This approach tends to result in much higher employee retention, and it provides a deeper social impact for your community.

There are many aspects to staffing your mobile market. Click on the arrow to expand each topic related to establishing and managing your market team:

Recruitment

When seeking staff and volunteers for your market, we strongly recommend recruiting from your customer base. Making use of existing contacts and touchpoints within your community and among your partners for recruitment will increase your hiring success rates, result in much higher employee retention, and provide a much deeper social impact.

However, before you dive into developing and implementing a recruitment strategy, we invite you to first reflect on how your organization achieves a place of belonging for your employees — one that ensures inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility for all its members. These are important considerations for any organization today and especially ones with a social agenda. Creating belonging requires a high degree of emotional intelligence (EQ) and intentional action, and how your organization approaches this will be tied to your organization’s values and goals.

Here are some ways in which you can ensure your recruitment and hiring practices can work towards reducing inequality:

  • Use clear & plain language in your job postings
  • Avoid age/gender/ability/ethnic-coded language that suggests the job is intended for a particular candidate
  • Use imagery that reflects your diverse community in your recruitment and promotional media
  • Reduce/remove emphasis on a candidate’s work experience
  • Provide information about the interview ahead of time, such as providing: the name of the person performing the interview, the expected length of the interview, what candidates can expect, what candidates should bring with them, contact information if the candidate needs to get in touch, etc…
  • Ensure the interview is accessible in location and time
  • Provide options for the interview format
  • Focus on qualities and capabilities instead of direct experience of the candidate
  • Recognize and convey the value of lived experiences
  • Model honesty and kindness in during the interview process
  • Ensure the application process is accessible to all by providing multiple ways to apply
  • Take time to explain requirements and expectations of the job
  • Provide written copies of what you have said, if providing information that needs to be remembered
  • Take time to read the body language of your candidate/new hire and establish how you can help them succeed

These are just some considerations. Let us know how you approach the recruitment and hiring process using the comments.

For further understanding, we recommend the following resources:

Trauma Informed Care: Mental Health America Webinars Implementing Trauma-Informed Care Within Organizations (1 hr)

Roles & Responsibilities

There are two core paid positions that every mobile market needs:

  1. The Operator: To function well, your market should have 1-2 operators. The operator position is responsible for:
  • Sourcing the food
  • Managing the schedule
  • Managing the staff
  • Managing the volunteers
  • Managing the inventory
  • Reconciliation of moneys
  • Maintenance of market vehicle
  • Relationships with host sites and community
  • Licensing
  • Technology
  • Subscriptions
  • Driving the vehicle

Given the range of responsibilities, a person assuming the operator role needs to have a versatile skill-set, the ability to think on their feet, be able to make decisions and problem solve, and they need strong communication and relationship building skills.

The following write-up provides an understanding of what a day in the life of a Market Operator/Lead looks like: Market Lead responsibilities

  1. The Clerks: To the customers, the most recognizable face of the market may be the clerks. Depending on the size of the market, the clerk role may also be handled by an operator, but if not, your market should have 1-3 clerks on staff. Clerks fulfill the essential roles of:
  • Serving the customer
  • Replenishing the display
  • Acting as rotational staff to allow other staff members to be on break

Clerks should provide the best customer service experience possible, so hiring people with (or the potential for) superior customer service skills and a positive, welcoming attitude will be important. Typically, any additional skills can be provided through training while on the truck.

Volunteers

A market will often lean on volunteers to support its operations. If you have identified the need to employ volunteers (or perhaps you already rely on volunteers), be aware that in most cases volunteers will not view themselves as obligated to your operation in the same way that your employed staff members are. Given this, you should consider assigning the non-critical aspects of your operation (eg: helping bags, helping customers get the bags to their cars, etc…) to volunteers so that a “no show” doesn’t impact your operations.

Similar to staff recruitment, we’d encourage you to also seek out your volunteers from the communities being served by your market.

To ensure your volunteers are provided with appropriate support, and to ensure that the expected approach to customer service is maintained, we’d recommend that you pair experienced staff members with a volunteer to show them how to move about the market and interact with customers. Consider the following training protocol for volunteers: Copy of Volunteer Training Outlines Online Learning Platform.docx

It’s a good idea to implement a time tracking mechanism for your volunteers. While this may not be meaningful to the volunteers themselves, it will help you and your funders gather information on your resourcing needs, which may prove useful for reporting or for future grant applications. A simple sign-in sheet, excel sheet, or special built volunteer software can be used for this purpose.

Does your organization already work with volunteers? If so, what is your pitch to recruit volunteers to work with you for free? What community touch points do you leverage for recruitment? We invite you to share your approach in the comments.

Training

Once you have hired your staff, developing and nurturing a strong, trusting relationship will be key to your market’s success. You can establish trust by adopting clear and consistent communication and training practices. Doing so will signal to your staff how they can add value to your operation and how you can support them in their work.

Staff training needs to be considered as part of the employee onboarding process, but also as part of ongoing support for your staff over time and as new situations arise, gaps are identified, and as new methods, approaches, or technologies are adopted. Being open, honest, approachable, and meeting regularly with your staff will help you keep up-to-date on their needs and their experiences in their roles, and it will enable you to quickly identify issues that need addressing through your training and communications.

Ensure you put adequate time and effort into establishing the training needs of your market. Having an onboarding process and training calendar will not only ensure smoother operations, but it will also communicate to your staff that you have their best interest in mind.

When creating a plan for training, consider the following guidance:

  • Training that should be completed by all persons paid by and working at the market:

    • Civil Rights Training
    • Serve Safe
    • Harassment
    • Bloodborne Pathogens
    • Driver Safety
    • Safe Workplace
    • First Aid/CPR, NARCAN®
    • Vehicle orientation (eg: Van operator)
    • Pallet jack/Forklift certification
    • Timesheet
    • Safe lifting
    • Produce display
    • Market Operations
    • SNAP
    • POS

  • Training to be completed by all persons working/volunteering at the market:

  • Training to be completed by all persons facilitating food demonstration demonstrations:

    • Food safety
    • Food demonstration flow
Ambassador Programs

Ambassadors are people who care about food, food quality, and food insecurity and who work to bring about social change by dismantling the barriers to healthy food options. The key to the success of ambassadors is their ability to work at the grassroots level, by building connections, and establishing trust with community members.

Ambassadors can work to promote the market locally, assist shoppers and act as a localized wrap-around resource. They can also assist each week with market operations. Compensation is typically hourly or a stipend, and produce is often given as an incentive.

Insurance

A final matter that you will not want to overlook is to ensure that you have the correct insurance in place for your market. In addition to insurance for your truck, you’ll need to carry liability insurance for each site where you plan to park.

Speak to your insurance company about the type of liability coverage you will require. If you are just starting out and liability insurance is new to you, get some quotes so you can factor the cost of insurance into your operating budget. When speaking to your insurance agent, ensure you take time to get the right coverage by providing details on how you operate, the types of employee arrangements you have in place, and the kinds of vehicles you use, including any upfits that the vehicle has. Make sure your coverage extends to the full cost of the vehicle, including generators, batteries, etc…

Don’t forget about your volunteers. You should ensure that your insurance reflects new volunteers in addition to staff and include liability waivers for all new volunteers following training.

Having your Certificate of Liability Insurance readily at hand and being well-versed in your insurance coverage and your coverage limits will be very important when speaking to host site partners — and it will help establish your professionalism and credibility.