Tavern Keeper Employees Guide | Hiring Staff

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about Tavern Keeper Employees so you can hire the best people to run your tavern.

How Tavern Keeper Employees Work

Tavern Keeper employees are surprisingly complex. They each have different Worker Roles specializations, Traits, wages, and more. Here’s everything you need to know about employees.

Worker Role

The Worker Role is the job that your employee does in your tavern. Employees can be assigned to multiple roles by being a «Generalist,» but they’ll miss out on skill bonuses if they aren’t assigned a specialized Role.

Here are the possible Worker Roles:

Generalist: Generalists can occupy 2 or more roles of your choosing at the same time. However, they wear a Generalist uniform and therefore do not get any skill bonuses from their uniform.
Server: Takes food and drink orders, serves as a barkeep, delivers food to seated patrons, and books bedrooms for patrons.
Chef: Cooks food.
Janitor: Cleans up dirt and footprints, and polishes furniture and floors to reduce further dirt.
Dogsbody: Stores newly-arrived products in the Storeroom, loads and unloads taps in the Taproom, maintains and repairs equipment.

Worker Uniforms

Workers in all roles will want to change into their uniform before starting their workday. This requires a Locker to be built in a Staffroom. Only one employee can use a Locker at a time, so you’ll want to have roughly 1 Locker for every 4–5 employees to speed up the start of their workday.

Work Hours

Work Hours are the hours your employee is working. You can schedule the Work Hours for each employee (and select their Worker Role) on the Work Schedule furniture; it must be placed in a Staffroom or a Hallway. Employees will check the Work Schedule occasionally, too.

Generally speaking, employees will be unhappy if they work more than a certain number of hours in a 24-hour period, however you divide it, regardless of their Worker Role. The limits for Work Hours are as follows:

Unskilled Employee: 14 hours
Skilled Employee: 12 hours
Expert Employee: 10 hours

Worker Tiers and Skill Tiers

There are three tiers of employees: Unskilled (copper, one chevron), Skilled (silver, two chevrons), and Expert (gold, three chevrons). This same ranking system applies to skills. As a rule, a higher tier is better. The Worker Tier of an employee is determined by his or her highest skill.

Employees with higher Worker Tiers will give you better results in their respective fields. However, this also raises their hiring cost and salary. It also increases their «Expectations,» which are the requirements to keep them happy; you can read more about the specific Expectations of each Worker Tier in the «Worker Tiers and Expectations» section below.

Stress Reaction

A «Stress Reaction» is what happens when an employee reaches critically low Happiness. When that happens, they will perform a harmful or destructive action as detailed in their «Stress Reaction» to the right of the Worker Tier on their character sheet.

Each employee has one Stress Reaction. Here are some examples of possible Stress Reactions for your employees:

Money Beats Stress: The unhappy employee will steal gold from your tavern’s funds.
Quitter: The unhappy employee will quit outright.
Stress Berserker: The unhappy employee will start a fight, which can cause damage to furniture (or even outright destroy it).
Stress Drinker: The unhappy employee will drink a lot of the tavern’s alcohol.
Stress Eater: The unhappy employee will gorge themself on food from the tavern.
Stress Lethargy: The unhappy employee will go to sleep for 24 hours.
Stress Vandal: The unhappy employee will break things around the tavern.

There may be more Stress Reactions beyond these (or more added in a future update); either way, this should give you a general idea of what to expect.

You can prevent Stress Reactions by keeping an employee from getting critically unhappy. If their happiness is getting dangerously low, give them a bonus. If that still doesn’t help, you can manually take them off work on the Work Schedule so they can start destressing and recovering their Happiness.

Traits

Traits are permanent buffs or debuffs that an employee has. Some are good, some are bad, and some are both. And, of course, some employees have no Traits at all.

Here are some examples of Traits:

Cannot Be Bribed: [Employee] will refuse any cash bonuses or attempts at bribery.
Clumsy: Galdor is particularly clumsy and known for dropping things.
Cold Tolerant: [Employee] doesn’t mind if it’s cold. (Note: this disables the «Does not like when it’s too cold.» Expectation for this employee.)
Darkvision: Thanks to a carrot-heavy diet, [Employee] can see in the dark. (Note: this disables the «Does not like to be in darkness.» Expectation for this employee.)
Dirt Dodger: [Employee] becomes unhappy when the environment isn’t clean.
Deep Sleeper: Once [Employee] falls asleep, there’s no waking them. On the upside, they don’t mind noise either. (Note: this disables the «Wants a quiet place to sleep.» Expectation for this employee.)
Easily Bored: [Employee] is easily bored and hates having nothing to do.
Easily Bribed: When you give [Employee] a cash bonus, it costs half as much.
Fast Worker: [Employee] likes a good pace when working and walking.
Fear of the Dark: [Employee] becomes unhappy in dark areas, even while asleep.
Filthy: [Employee] manages to be covered in filth all the time.
Influencer: [Employee] is a trend-setter and their happiness (and unhappiness) spreads to others nearby.
Messy: [Employee] has a particular tendency to leave a lot of mess behind.
Night Owl: [Employee] prefers night shifts, working between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM makes them unhappy.
Not Your Puppet: [Employee] suspects this is all just a quirky simulation and does not like when someone micro-manages them. (Note: giving direct orders to this employee makes them unhappy.)
Quick Burner: [Employee] moves and works much quicker when fully rested but slows down more as the day wears on.
Slowpoke: [Employee] is moving and acting rather slowly.
Squeamish: [Employee] doesn’t like yucky stuff like vomit and bugs.
Ticking Time Bomb: [Employee] seems quite normal in between the randomly occurring violent outbursts.
Wants to Sleep in Darkness: [Employee] hates sleeping when there’s light around and will become unhappy.

As with Stress Reactions, there may be more Traits we haven’t seen or more added in a future update; still, this list should help you understand the gist of how they work. Employees can have anywhere from 0–6 Traits based on my experience, but it may be possible for Employees to have more than that.

Some Traits don’t mesh well with certain Worker Roles. For example, a Janitor who has the Messy Trait would be less productive, and a Janitor with the Squeamish Trait would be constantly unhappy. Use your judgment when hiring employees for certain Worker Roles; it’s possible to get a very bad combination of Traits on a prospective employee.

Stats

There are three stats for your employees which can be seen by clicking on them and looking at the bottom center of the HUD. These stats are:

Happiness: A measure of an employee’s Happiness. Critically low unhappiness will cause an employee to have a destructive Stress Reaction.
Energy: A measure of how tired the employee is. Low Energy will cause the employee to not be able to work as well.
Movement Speed: A measure of how fast the employee can move. This is affected by their uniform, their Traits, their immediate environment, and any actions they are currently performing.

You can hover over the stats of any employee to see an exact measurement of these stats and which buffs or debuffs are contributing to their current rating.

Skills

Skills show how good an employee is at a particular Worker Role. There is one skill for each of the four core Worker Roles:

Server Skill
Chef Skill
Janitor Skill
Dogsbody Skill

Skills can be buffed or debuffed depending on an employee’s current uniform or other factors; hover over the skill to see the details of their current rating.

Skill Bonuses and Dislikes

Some employees — especially unique employees in scenarios — have bonuses or dislikes for their Skills. For example, a Janitor might have the «Cleans to a Polish» skill bonus, which gives a 50% chance for an item that was cleaned to automatically gain the «Polished» trait (which protects against future dirt.

Skill bonuses are rare, but skill dislikes are somewhat common; you’ll see a frowny face next to certain roles. That employee does not like working that role and will be unhappy if they’re assigned to it; obviously, you should avoid doing this.

Hiring Cost, Daily Wage, and Bonuses

Naturally, employees want to be paid. There are three factors to consider when it comes to your employees and money:

Hiring Cost: This is variable and is usually anywhere from 1.5x–2.5x an employee’s Daily Wage. For example, an employee with a Daily Wage of 10 gold will usually have a Hiring Cost anywhere between 15 gold and 25 gold.
Daily Wage: This is how much it costs to pay this employee. The Daily Wage of all of your employees will automatically be deducted from your funds at midnight. You can easily see all of the Daily Wage costs by hovering over the tooltip of the «Pay» event on the event tracker at the top of the screen next to the calendar.
Bonus: You can pay an employee a bonus of 2x their Daily Wage. This will give them +10 to Happiness for 12 hours, but you won’t be able to pay them another Bonus for 48 hours after that. Some employee Traits can affect the cost of a Bonus or disable this feature altogether.

Staffrooms

Staffrooms are where your employees relax, sleep, and get ready for work. Every one of your employees lives at the tavern, so you’ll need to provide them with a bed and a room. Employees of higher Tiers require better Staffrooms and sharing a room with fewer people; Expert employees want a room of their own.

Most employees want to be away from any noise, so the Staffroom shouldn’t be too close to the Taproom (or anywhere else that makes noise). Some employees prefer darkness, too, so they may require their own separate Staffroom to sleep in if you want to keep them happy.

Worker Tiers Expectations

As discussed above, there are three tiers of employees: Unskilled, Skilled, and Expert. Higher Tiers perform better at their Worker Roles, but they also demand better pay and better accommodations. Here’s a breakdown of each type:

Unskilled Worker

Unskilled Workers are cheap to hire, cheap to pay, and aren’t very demanding; you can cram 5 of them in a room and they’ll be happy. They are also willing to work for 14 hours a day.

Expectations

Atmosphere

Does not like when it’s too dirty.
Does not like when it’s too cold.
Does not like to be in darkness.

Downtime

Sleeping Arrangements

Happy to share a room with no more than 4 others.
Wants a quiet place to sleep.
Wants a bed to sleep in.

Work

Does not like to work more than 14 hours per day.

Skilled Worker

Skilled Workers are a little better than Unskilled Workers, but they have greater demands. You can only have them in a room with 2 other people, and they want a 2-Star Staffroom to sleep in. They’ll also want a 2-star Staffroom with a Staff Table, whether it’s their own or a separate, dedicated breakroom.

Expectations

Atmosphere

Does not like when it’s too dirty.
Does not like when it’s too cold.
Does not like to be in darkness.

Downtime

Wants a 2-star Staffroom with a table to hang out in.

Sleeping Arrangements

Happy to share a room with no more than 2 others.
Wants a bed to sleep in.
Wants a quiet place to sleep.
Expects a 2-star Staffroom.

Work

Does not like to work more than 12 hours per day.

Expert Worker

Expert Workers are the best of the best. That commands a high salary and a nice room; they want a 2-star Staffroom all to themselves. As with Skilled Workers, they also want a 2-star Staffroom with a Staff Table in it; having a common «breakroom» of sorts that’s rated with a Staff Table is a good way to meet this requirement.

Expectations

Atmosphere

Does not like when it’s too cold.
Does not like when it’s too dirty.
Does not like to be in darkness.

Downtime

Wants a 2-star Staffroom with a table to hang out in.

Sleeping Arrangements

Expects a 2-star Staffroom.
Wants a bed to sleep in.
Wants their own bedroom.
Wants a quiet place to sleep.

Work

Does not like to work more than 10 hours per day.

That’s the end of our Tavern Keeper Employees Guide — check out our other guides below!

More Tavern Keeper Guides

General Guides

Starter Guide | Beginner Tips and Tricks
Map Guide
Unlocks Guide
Cooking and Drinks Guide
Employees Guide | Hiring Staff
Building Guide | How to Build a Tavern
Story Book Guide | Random Events

Walkthroughs

The Harvest Festival Walkthrough Guide
Orcish Ambitions Walkthrough Guide

Challenge Guides

Best in Show Challenge Guide
Accountant Challenge Guide