Nearly a third of 'budtenders' quit job in the first year

'The better performing the budtender is, the more likely they are to continue working'

Nearly a third of 'budtenders' quit job in the first year

About a full third or 32.5% of cannabis retail sales employees — or "budtenders" — in Canada had been hired and left within the past 12 months, according to a new report.

Findings released by cannabis data intelligence firm Headset revealed that Canada's average budtender turnover in the past 12 months was 56.4%, with 32.5% of them newly hired within the same period.

In fact, the report revealed that 23.6% of budtenders worked for cannabis stores for only less than 30 days, 7.4% worked for 30 to 59 days, 6.3% worked for 60 to 89 days, 10.1% worked for 90 to 180 days, while 6.9% managed to stay for over 180 days before leaving as well.

By province, about a third of new budtenders hired within the past 12 months left in these provinces: Ontario (33%), British Columbia (34%), and Saskatchewan (36%).

"In Canada, Alberta is a bit of an enigma with retailers tending to have slightly better retention among new employees but having lost a larger amount of more tenured employees than in other Canadian provinces," read the study.

These findings reflect how employee retention is a "challenge" for the industry, according to the report, while underscoring how onboarding is important because of how frequent it is.

"This emphasises how critical it is to have an efficient and effective new hire onboarding process, because it will be reused frequently," read the report.

Read more: Cannabis now legal – but how will it impact your organization?

What made employees stay?

Despite the staggering turnover rates among budtenders, the report revealed that those who stayed in the business were the ones who were good at it.

"This shows a significant trend that is not at all surprising. The better performing the budtender is, the more likely they are to continue working," read the report. "This could be simply because it feels good to do well at a job and so it's natural to want to continue."

The report also attributed this to the tip-driven system in the industry, where top performers could be bringing home more incomes than their colleagues.

"Whatever the cause, this should be welcome news for retail hiring managers as they are more likely to retain their staff at the top of their sales charts than at the bottom," said the report.

Recent articles & video

Manitoba government reinstates 1:1 apprenticeship ratio

Two-thirds of Canadian organizations expecting cybersecurity incident

Training leaders to address chronic pain issues

Employee relocation to another province

Most Read Articles

Province introducing paid sick leave as of Oct. 1

Lecturer fired for misogynistic paper published in his name

Ottawa limiting employers’ access to Temporary Foreign Worker Program