How to get your staff to care about your business as much as you do
How to build care and make it last
Your staff will never care about your business the way you do. That’s not an insult. It’s reality. You carry the risk. You carry the upside. You carry the anxiety home at night. They don’t. And they shouldn’t.
When owners say they want staff to care more, they rarely mean emotional attachment. They mean something far more practical. They want consistency. They want follow through. They want someone to notice when standards slip and fix it without being chased.
That’s reasonable.
What isn’t reasonable is expecting emotional ownership without actual ownership.
What “care” really means
Strip it back and most owners want four things:
Show up on time.
Follow standards when no one’s watching.
Fix small problems before they become bigger ones.
Treat customers and colleagues with respect.
That’s it.
No one is asking for lifelong loyalty. No one is asking staff to lose sleep over payroll. What owners are looking for is professionalism.
But professionalism doesn’t grow in speeches. It grows in structure.
You can talk about passion all you want. If the rules change depending on your mood, passion won’t save you. If effort leads to public correction or mixed messages, people adapt. They protect themselves.
That’s human.
The fastest way to drain care
In cafés that struggle with staff engagement, there’s a pattern. Responsibility gets handed out. Authority doesn’t.
You tell a barista to own service. They still need approval to comp a drink. You ask them to maintain standards. Then you override them in front of a customer. You say you want leaders on the floor. But every meaningful decision runs through you.
At first, they try.
Then they learn.
They learn it’s safer to wait. Safer to check. Safer to do only what’s required. Not because they don’t care. Because experience has taught them initiative carries risk and little reward.
Owners often interpret that as laziness. It isn’t. It’s calibration.
Stop demanding care. Design for it.
If you want people to care more, stop asking them to feel differently. Make it easier for them to work well.
Be explicit about what matters when it’s busy. Is speed the priority or connection? What never gets compromised, even during a rush? What happens when something goes wrong? Who can fix it on the spot? What decisions can staff make without checking first?
Most owners assume those answers are obvious. They aren’t.
Clarity removes fear. Authority builds confidence. Systems build trust.
When effort reliably leads to a fair outcome, people lean in. When it doesn’t, they pull back. It’s not personal. It’s self preservation.
And if you’re honest, you’ve done the same thing in environments where leadership was inconsistent.
We all have.
The objection you’re probably holding
Some of you are reading this thinking, I’ve already given authority. I’ve told them they can make decisions. And it still doesn’t feel like they care.
Fair.
Ask yourself these questions. What happens the first time they make a call you wouldn’t have made? Do you back them publicly and coach them later? Or do you step in and correct them on the spot? Do you praise initiative even when the outcome isn’t perfect? Or do you focus on the mistake?
The culture of a café isn’t defined in meetings. It’s defined in moments of tension. That’s when everyone learns what’s truly allowed.
The kind of care that lasts
The cafés where staff appear deeply invested are rarely dramatic about culture. They’re predictable.
Rules are stable. Standards don’t change with mood. Good work is noticed. Poor work is addressed calmly and consistently. There’s very little theatre.
People show up. They do their jobs well. They go home without emotional residue.
That’s the version of care that lasts.
You can’t force attachment to a business someone doesn’t own. But you can build an environment where professionalism feels fair, safe, and worth the effort.
What to do next
Write down three decisions your staff can make today without approval. Tell them clearly. Then the next time they use that authority, back them. Even if you would have chosen differently.
Especially then.
You don’t get care by demanding it. You earn it by creating a place where doing the right thing is supported, not second guessed.
That takes restraint. It takes consistency. And, once in a while, it takes you swallowing your ego.
But when you get it right, you’ll notice something subtle. You don’t have to ask for care anymore. You can see it.