Staffing

What hiring does

Each member of staff adds one concurrent batch slot to the business they work in. On a level-1 premises that is roughly a quarter more output — which is only worth it if the counter can actually sell the extra stock. That is the trade-off the operating layer is built around: a worker is not free capacity, it is a bet on demand.

Hire fee

$1.50 once, when you take someone on.

Productivity

+1 concurrent batch per worker, in the business they are assigned to.

Wages

Wages are charged daily, per worker, at the rate for the kind of business they work in. They come out of the business’s cash whether or not the counter sold anything that day.

The rest of the daily bill

Wages are one line of the daily cost. Rent and utilities are charged on every business, every day, and scale with the opening cost of the premises and its level — which is why a starter business (free to open) carries the base rate only, and why an expensive business needs to sell more to stand still.

Base rent

$0.45 per day, plus 4% of the opening cost (scaled by level).

Base utilities

$0.20 per day, plus 1.5% of the opening cost (scaled by level).

Every extra site is its own premises: it pays its own base rent and utilities rather than sharing the first one’s.

When hiring pays

• · Hire when the counter’s queue is consistently empty of stock — a worker earning nothing is a wage you pay for nothing.
• · Do not hire to cover a stock problem: buying inputs is cheaper than a daily wage until the capital is the bottleneck.
• · A service business is the most expensive place to start hiring; a retail counter is the cheapest.