This week, Shake Shack excitedly announced that it was implementing kiosk-only service at its newest NYC location, with an ostensible focus on digital innovation and improved customer experience. This means that, rather than interacting with a live cashier to place and pay for an order, the customer will use the kiosk to place an electronic order and use a credit card to pay for it. I don’t doubt that plenty of research has been done to establish that this will, in fact, increase efficiency, which is a good thing because, as I sadly know, those Shake Shack lines can be interminably long. I also am fine with the fact that I will no longer need to interact with cashiers who sometimes can be surly or incompetent (although, frankly, not usually at Shake Shack. I think their hiring practices and customer service training seem to be quite good.) But what this really means is that there are fewer jobs that will need to be performed by actual people. Who would otherwise get paid.
Continue Reading Lessons from Shake Shack: A Higher Minimum Wage = Loss of Jobs