Make The Most Of A Young Staff

At their Tropical Smoothie Cafe stores, Dennis and Nicole Drake know that most young employees are temporary. But they invest in their future anyway.

- Lydia Belanger

Dennis and Nicole Drake know how to motivate a workforce. The husband-and-wife team—a Defense Department adviser and an aerospace engineer, respectively—spend their days working in highly sensitive U.S. intelligence and defense facilities, managing projects and teams stretched across the globe. Then they turn to their side hustle, where those same skills are put to different use: They own and operate two Tropical Smoothie Cafe stores in Virginia, employing high school and college students preparing for their future. To keep their staff engaged and working hard, the Drakes have implemented programs, rewards systems, and scholarships to set up their employees for success—at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and beyond.

Most of your staff are Gen Z. How do you recruit and hire?

DENNIS: In this industry, you have a lot of companies vying for the same people, and there’s high turnover. We have to understand the dynamic of how to hire right and keep our employees from moving simply for a dollar or two.