AKRON, Ohio — Terry Rastetter-Helbling opened his ice cream shop, Skoops, in Barberton just before the pandemic hit.

What You Need To Know

  • Many companies across the U.S. are currently hiring 

  • One small business owner said he found the secret to finding quality employees 

  • The ice cream shop has had nearly one hundred job applications submitted during the pandemic 

"When we opened last year, literally it wasn’t even about a week and a half later, we had to shut down because of COVID," he said said. 

At the time, Skoops had about 10 employees. 

"All of our brand-new, new hires that got hired for this brand new place and we had to shut down completely," Rastetter-Helbling said. "Thank God they all came back.” 

When the shop reopened, they quickly learned they would need to hire some additional help.

"This year we just did a small hiring event," he said. "I put the sign up to let people know and we had about 92 people apply from just 12 p.m. to 3 p.m."

Now Skoops has about 22 employees, most of whom are high school students. 

"The employees that work for us, they are not just employees, they are family,"  Rastetter-Helbling said. "We spend so much time with them and at the same time we get to grow with them and they grow with us.” 

Rastetter-Helbling said at his business, employees come first. 

"The cardinal rule of business is always put the customers first," he said. "We kind of do it a little bit differently, we put our employees first and by doing so they put the customers first.” 

This "rule" is why he believes he has had success in hiring people, even during the pandemic. 

"In a society where everybody says good help is hard to find, that is just not true," he said. "It's the way you treat people. Good people and a good environment attract good people.” 

 Rastetter-Helbling said even with students heading back to school, he will still be able to maintain his full staff through the fall and winter months. 

"We make sure that their grades are good and that they have all of their school work done," he said. "We are not open late, we are only open till nine o’clock, so that being said, they are not leaving here at 10 o’clock to go home and get their homework done.”