This is part of a regular series of MJBizDaily interviews with major THC industry players. To be considered for an interview, contact editorial@mjbizdaily.com.
Mskindness Ramirez doesn’t accept the idea that front-line cannabis workers are expendable.
As the founder of Kind Works, a California-based nonprofit dedicated to workforce development in the regulated cannabis industry, Ramirez has spent years building the training infrastructure that most operators don’t have.
She develops training models, apprenticeship programs and credentialing frameworks specifically for cannabis operators. Her methods are grounded in the belief that the employee behind the retailer counter is the most important person in the building.
“During COVID we called them essential, but we don’t offer the training every other industry requires,” Ramirez said.
She’ll bring that argument to MJBizCon Dec. 1-4 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where she’ll lead a session titled “Staffing for Sales: How Retention Drives Dispensary Conversion.”
Why is it important to provide cannabis workers with transferable skills?
Ramirez’s philosophy centers on one core idea: Workers deserve training that follows them.
That means skills that give cannabis workers leverage in their careers, whether they stay in the industry or move on.
Kind Works runs a regulated retail management program registered with the state Division of Apprenticeship Standards.
The curriculum covers the practical skills budtenders use daily: hospitality, compliance, inventory management, conflict resolution, customer service and customer education.
Graduates can earn credentials as inventory specialists or compliance managers.
Ramirez also adapted existing lab technician standards to fit regulated cannabis products, so Kind Works graduates can take those foundational skills into any ISO-certified lab.
The result is a tworker who isn’t locked into a single dispensary or operator. They have credentials, documented skills and a career path.
“It’s about gaining skills that you can use to evolve in the industry or take elsewhere,” Ramirez said.
“They leave with skills that are transferable. Hospitality, compliance, inventory management, customer service management, consumer education and working well with others – the soft skills needed to be a successful employee.”
The portability of skills is intentional.
Ramirez believes workers who see a genuine future in cannabis stay longer, perform better and represent their employers more effectively.
Why is employee retention key in the cannabis industry?
The training protects operators from the problems created by employee turnover.
Ramirez works directly with cannabis businesses, and she’s watched the same patterns play out repeatedly.
Operators hire fast, train minimally and lose people before any return on investment materializes. Every departure drains experience and knowledge from the sales floor. The remaining staff absorb extra responsibilities, productivity drops, and the hiring cycle starts again.
“I can’t give you a number,” Ramirez said of the cost of losing a trained budtender. “But it can be exponentially more expensive to not train your workers and to not provide that opportunity for growth.”
She’s equally direct about retention. Ramirez said pay alone doesn’t keep people. Even lower-paid employees stay when they feel valued and see a path forward.
But most operators, she said, misread where their revenue comes from.
“That front-line worker is the first person your customer sees, the first person your customer must trust,” she said. “That’s where operators should be spending the most energy and investment.”
In tight-margin environments like cannabis, operators routinely ask one worker to cover multiple roles, Ramirez said. The result is burnout, poor performance and more turnover.
How does a cannabis apprenticeship program help operators?
Ramirez’s answer to the industry’s workforce problem is a rigorous, federally registered apprenticeship that pairs classroom instruction with structured, paid work experience.
The program includes:
- 160 hours of classroom training
- Lab time and required visits to three cannabis retailers
- 2,000 hours of on-the-job training, broken into occupation-specific modules
- Core modules covering point-of-sale (POS) systems, compliance, inventory management, customer service, consumer education and conflict resolution
The program follows a federally required wage schedule. Apprentices start at a lower hourly rate, and wages rise as skills grow.
After completing the 2,000-hour training, pay can climb from $19 to $27 an hour, Ramirez said, noting that employers rarely resist the increases because they witness the worker’s capabilities develop in real time.
By the end of the program, many apprentices are functioning as managers.
Cannabis operators hiring out of a training program is “kind of a no-brainer,” she said.
Ramirez doesn’t just want operators to voluntarily adopt better training practices. She wants states to require it.
She compares it to food service workers who must complete ServSafe certification before handling food.
“Dispensary staff sell a federally restricted product that causes intoxication, overdoses can occur, and we don’t even give the basic customer service skills,” she said. “It’s a public health issue if we don’t have trained workers.”
“It’s a public health issue if we don’t have trained workers,” she said. “It’s harm reduction, too.”
How will marijuana rescheduling shape worker training?
Ramirez is a self-described “deschedule-or-bust” advocate on federal cannabis policy who views rescheduling as inadequate. Still, she expects full adult-use marijuana rescheduling to carry legislative requirements for employer investment in job training.
She’s positioning Kind Works to meet the demand.
The organization has launched an initiative to partner with labor unions and connect workers with credentialed training institutions.
Because Kind Works operates as a nonprofit, it can access federal workforce development dollars and apply for grants.
Before redesigning a training program or hiring a consultant, Ramirez recommends asking the people doing the work what they want.
Start by:
- Surveying your workforce: Assess education levels, what employees already know and what they want to learn.
- Asking about challenges: Find out what obstacles workers face and how they’d like to contribute.
- Building solutions with them: The people closest to the problem are often the ones closest to the answer.
The key, Ramirez said, is making workers feel valued.
“Ask them what they need and give it to them.”
Conversations like this will continue at MJBizCon, where cannabis executives, investors and policymakers gather to examine the trends shaping the industry’s future. Register for the conference here.
Margaret Jackson can be reached at margaret.jackson@mjbizdaily.com.
