Biggest thing is to LISTEN. Make your partners feel heard. One thing I really appreciate about my manager is that I’ve never had complaints about her cutting my hours or scheduling me too much, scheduling me outside of my availability, she always approves time off or at least works with you in some way. She’s super empathetic towards students and other situations like that. If you call in sick she doesn’t pressure you to come in. Of course she wants us to stick to standards but stuff like batch blending and things that make sense, she doesn’t care about. She picks and chooses her battles well. The only complaint I have is that she didn’t really give us the accommodations me and another partner asked for when we were both having mental health crises. On one hand it was our old ASM that actually dealt with all that but on the other hand she was still in the loop and should’ve stepped in more. I think the fact that you’re asking and are concerned about being a good manager shows you already have it in the bag. You’ll be fine. Just be the manager you would want to work under.

anything you can do to show everyone that you care about them and value them as an employee and make everyone feel equally valued. my manager makes really pretty name tags for everyone, but you can do anything. also i think one of the most important things is good communication. i had a manager that was terrible at communicating and never got back to me and it made me feel so uncomfortable anytime i had to reach out to him. you could also ask your team themselves for any tips or what they want their manager to be like

Honor the illness policy and encourage mental health days, and allow them to use sick time for it. Challenge the status quo to your DM when something feels out of control, like you need more labor for example; it shows the baristas you are doing everything you can. Double check availability when writing schedules and get everyone’s “preferred” shifts to work with when you can. Stand up for them to your boss, bad customers etc. Give them opportunities to work toward things; make promotions actually attainable (pdp, goals etc) or delegate projects to those who want them. Most importantly just be transparent. These are all things my manager does and I will never work for someone again who doesn’t actively do these things. Congratulations by the way!

Former SM now a barista. No. 1 - do your best to take care of your partners. Respect their availability (it's your job to staff the store, so don't schedule them for shifts that they can't work because you are struggling to build a good schedule) and do your best to create an "open door" environment where they feel they can come to you with concerns. Be there to support your partners but don't try to jump in to their position to "help" every time you want things to move faster - as an SM I did this all the time, and as a barista I have realized how annoying and counterproductive that it can be. Always be focused on staffing, even if you feel you are well staffed. If you don't you will end up running around putting out fires and instead of working with your team to improve operations/partner/customer satisfaction. It also gives a much better chance that you will be able to find coverage when people have to call out do to illness or emergency. On the flip side, take care of yourself. There are going to be times when you may need to come in during your off time due to call outs, but don't feel obligated to come in and work every time a barista calls out. Set boundaries in communicating when you are not at work. For shifts, there were three reasons to contact me when I was off: a) the store was unable to operate (due to power outages etc), b) there was a serious injury or incident involving partners or customers or c) there was a large amount of money or product missing. For baristas, there was one: a personal emergency which could not wait until the next time I was at work. And remember its never going to be perfect and there will always be haters. Don't let either one get to you.

My biggest thing is coaching: be direct, be quick, be compassionate.

Its easy to say "hey green bean why you suck", its more productive to ask "Hey bean, I wanted to check in with you. How are you feeling? Do you need any support right now? If I did this solution, would that work for you?" One encourages them to leave, which tbh isn't always the wrong choice. The other builds trust and encourages growth, which creates a rock solid team.

Also, if you're open to criticism, actually be open and graceful. The number of times I've been chewed out for actually giving feedback when it was "asked for" is a bit too high! I try to remember that getting upset at feedback will never change why people would give me that feedback. It sucks to hear criticism honestly, but otoh how else do we grow? Sometimes it's completely irrational (I'll never forget repeatedly talking down a barista adamant she was getting her hours cut in retaliation when she was getting the most hours of anyone and everyone's hours went down almost identically), but it's still valuable info.

I’m so glad you’re willing to listen to concerns of the baristas and their mental health. Can you transfer to my store 😩

You're on the right track with that mindset. Take care of your people, and they'll take care of you. Make sure they know you have their back. You'll do great.

Resist the urge to micromanage and trust people to do their jobs. Try to understand where people are coming from and why they act the way they do, and make it clear to them who you are as well. Be mindful of how you come off, my last SM drove a lot of people away with the condescending way she would coach people. It made them feel like nothing they did was ever good enough. One thing my favorite manager would do is celebrate everyone’s birthdays and Christmas with little gifts and baked goods, plus we had a gift exchange every year. You don’t have to get too crazy but things like that go a long way towards making people feel like you appreciate them on an individual level.

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