Category: staff
The Essential Staff of a Dispensary
Previously, we wrote about the essential staff of a cultivation facility, and now we turn our attention to dispensaries. Cannabis employment is exploding, and 2019 is projected to be a banner year for new-hires. The most in-demand jobs in medical and recreational markets are dispensary positions because these mostly customer-facing staff provide the greatest opportunity to interact with the general public.
General Managers
Consumers enter a dispensary for a transactional and educational experience with the expectation of receiving quality customer service. They survey the products, interact with staff, and either buy or take a pass. It sounds simple, but behind the counter and the scenes it’s much more complex, and it starts at the top with the general manager. This crucial position oversees all functions and operations of a dispensary from interacting with vendors, dealing with law enforcement, and managing inventory to handling returns and of course, hiring, managing, and training budtenders and other staff. Certain medical dispensaries require general managers to be physicians, nurses, or pharmacists.
Budtenders
Budtenders play a critical role in creating a positive customer experience.Consumers, especially those new to cannabis, have lots of questions: What’s the difference between indica and sativa? What strain do you recommend for this or that? How is CBD oil different than oil with CBD and THC? What are tinctures? Budtenders spend the majority of their days working face-to-face with customers and providing knowledge and advice about cannabis products.
Administrative Staff Without people streamlining office functions, a dispensary would fail. Administrative staff are the unsung heroes that ensure dispensaries operate as well-oiled machines. They answer phones, handle customer inquiries, verify medical cannabis cards, and maintain patient records, among other duties.
Cannabis is the fastest growing industry in the country, expanding at an annual rate of 28 percent and expected to reach a value of $146 billion by 2025
Security
There are efforts on the federal level to ease banking restrictions on cannabis businesses, most notably the States Act, but cannabis still remains a cash-only business. As such, dispensaries need physical security to protect assets while not scaring off customers. “While security is a tough game, you don’t want to set a tough tone between your security guard and cannabis consumer,” according to Marijuana Retail Report. “Work with your security staff to ensure that they embrace and understand the customer experience you are developing in-store. Since they are the first point of contact, ensure that they are helping consumers feel welcome and invited, yet are able to maintain a zero-tolerance stance on any customer activities that could present a perceived threat to your dispensary, staff and other customers.”
Conclusion
Cannabis is the fastest growing industry in the country, expanding at an annual rate of 28 percent and expected to reach a value of $146 billion by 2025. To keep up with the demand, not only does more product need to be cultivated, but it has to be sold to consumers. It takes the skill and knowledge of essential dispensary staff to keep these businesses running.
The Essential Staff of a Cultivation Facility
At the conclusion of many a cannabis customer’s journey is consumption of the product. Whether that method is smoking, vaping, ingesting, or topically applying the product, how it arrived on or in your person traces back to the cultivation facility where it was farmed, grown, and groomed. Dispensary shelves and display cases are bedecked with flowers, oils, extracts, shatter, edibles, and more, but none of that exists without cultivation. Canna-business is the fastest growing sector in the country due in large part to the essential staff of cultivation facilities.
Master Grower and Junior Grower
A successful cultivation operation starts at the top with the master grower, whose credentials include backgrounds in horticulture or agriculture and often advanced degrees. Also known as director of cultivation, this person is not only responsible for overseeing the cultivation of all cannabis plants, but managing the entire operation of the facility. They are in charge of all grow house employees and must routinely ensure that the facility is in step with regulations. It may not stop there.
As CNBC reported, “At larger operations, cultivation directors have management responsibility for a team of growers, and the position typically requires frequent interaction with law enforcement to ensure compliance.”
A junior grower or a master grower-in-training, works directly under the tutelage of the master grower. This person is primarily responsible for successfully growing the plants. Duties include planting, cloning, feeding, and proper watering.
Trimmers and Technicians
They call it a plant-touching niche for a reason. Trimmers have direct contact with cannabis plants, and their job is to prune and manicure the plants during harvest season without harming them. Trimmers are tasked with understanding the plant anatomy and the difference between strains. The job requires physical endurance and concentration. “Bud trimmer is an excellent entry-level job,” writes James Yagielo of Hemp Staff. “It’s a great way to break into a marijuana cultivation career with plenty of room for upward mobility.”
Similar to trimmers, cultivation technicians handle pruning duties, but they are more focused on the fulfillment of growing cannabis, including germination, cloning, and transplantation. Quality Control Inspector QC Inspectors ensure that cannabis products comply with health, safety, and potency standards. Many in the field are PhD’s in biology, agronomy, chemistry, or entomology and often
help inspect and enforce marijuana cultivation laws and regulations, as well as those that apply to the use of pesticides.
Director of Extraction
The function of processing or converting the raw materials of cannabis into usable forms, may take place under the same roof as cultivation, especially with companies that practice vertical integration. Extraction falls under the processing umbrella and is the method for turning cannabis buds into oils and concentrates for vaping. The Director of Extraction typically has a solid background in pharmacology or chemistry and designs and runs processing, including laboratory functions and the management of extraction staff.
Conclusion
Cannabis employment increased nearly 700 percent between 2017 and 2018 and is projected to grow another 220 percent in 2019. Legal cannabis was a $9 billion industry in the United States last year and will balloon to $21 billion per year by 2021. Cultivation is where everything begins thanks to staff with the unique skill set to make it happen.