As the title suggests this is just a quick guide to help you get those employees working.
A Lot of people have been posting bug reports (myself included) claiming “employees are not working” when really it's just a simple usually overlooked detail causing the issue (not a bug). So here we go.

This is your central hub for communicating with those employees. The table itself is broken down into tabs; Hire, Training, Manage, Unlock, and Info. The table also displays how many employees you have/can have. As well as the hours the workers will be present and your vault for that store.

Let's Start with Hiring. In this tab you will see a list of available candidates and their skills. You will only see candidates with skills you have unlocked (more on this later). When you select one of the candidates you can see their skill level in each skill and their hourly rate. If the employee meets your needs click hire. If none of them are to your liking you can spend a bit of cash to reroll and a new list of candidates will show up. Don't worry too much in the beginning about not having all the skills you can train them later.

Training can be very helpful to get the most of your employees. The courses available to your workers are dependent on what's unlocked as well as a few stat upgrades. Each course has a cost, (depending on how much it will give) and time to complete. Keep in mind that the employee will not be available till the course is complete. To start the training, pick a course then the employee you want to train and hit start training. Once the time has passed (it shows time left when an employee is selected) you can hit “Finish Training” and the employee will return to work with the new skill/levels.

Basics of (skill(s) here) - this will teach your employee the very basics of that skill. Waste of money for someone with high skill already. Only use it if they don't already have the skill.

Intermediate (skill(s) here) - As suggested it will give a slight boost to skills the total levels gained is dependent on the selected employee but always gives some boost.

Advanced (skill(s) here) - This is the highest one giving a big boost to skill.

Work longer - This “skill” makes it so your employees can work longer by reducing their energy burn rate.

Get Comfy - This “skill” makes it so your employees don't need to sit down as much by reducing their comfort burn rate.

Some courses are offered at a discount and some are fast courses. Just keep in mind you still have to bring them back from training by selecting the finish training button.

This tab shows all the workers for that store. As well as the employees info, schedules, inventory and skills. If their name is in green they are currently working.

With the employee selected go to overview. This will show the skills that the worker has and will do tasks as needed in the store based on this. If the employee has a skill you don't need just move it to the unassigned skills and they won't use that skill.

Each employee has their own skills and levels the better the skill the faster the task is completed.

Cleaning - this is the first one available and for good reason, customers are so very messy. With this skill as the name suggests allows the worker to mop and pick up trash. Don't worry about giving them a mop they brought one from home, but you do need to give them access to a trash can place a few around the store to keep things tidy.

Haggling - this allows them to run the register. Keep in mind the boost in sales for register type only applies to your sales, not theirs. The employee will not stand at the register unless there is a customer there (they will wander around even if it's their only skill/priority). The modern register is the best for this, check outs are very quick. I would also suggest that you have at least two registers (sometimes a guest will get stuck somewhere but their place in que remains, so have multiple registers to keep things moving. I use a modern and a self check, some guests don't like the self check so I have one of each.

Restocking - here is where your inventory management skills come into play. Employees will only sell out of storage containers that are marked sell AND are on either a store plot or employee only plot (not sure if it is? Use your hammer and see, use “E” to cycle through) and make sure it's within the store Plot, the brown border around your store, employees will not work past this. To see if the container is naked to sell or not click on it then on the left side of its inventory you will see an apron icon. Click that and you will see three options; input, sell, and output. For now just make sure the sell slider is on (red). The other two options are coming up next. The employee will now take anything/everything from that storage and place it on displays that are on store plots (only put displays of store plots. If something never seems to sell or get stocked on a display use your hammer to see that it's a store plot. Also make sure it's accessible to everyone you can lift it up one quarter wall and everyone will still beagle to get to it provided that it is far enough forward. I like this method so I can put storage under the displays and guests don't “trip” on the displays.

Gathering - A Lot of people myself included seem to have trouble with this one. Wail looking at the employees info (overview) you will see the gathering skill (if they are trained or hired with it) depending on the skill level will determine how long that worker will take to gather that material. For example I have a maxed level gather that takes 10s to get between 6-12 stones. They will only get one item type at a time. So this worker I have is gathering stone and plant fiber, another for wood and coal, one for copper etc. the point is more hands make less work and they are only getting that item. You can use the location selector to collect from anywhere you own a shop. I can go into detail if needed but for this guide we'll leave it at that. The gatherer will leave the plot (go to just outside its border and disappear) when they return they will have the selected item in hand and will bring it to any storage container that has input turned on. You can (and should) filter your inputs otherwise they will put the stuff everywhere even the trash cans. If you want them to collect the stuff for you to use, make sure the “sell” is off, otherwise your displays will be full of stone before you know it. If it's something you want crafters to use, mark the “output” (more in a bit). And of course make sure it's on a store or employee only plot.

Crafting - If your goal is for full automation here's where you need to be. Workers will take items from storage and craft what you have marked and place the finished item into storage. Let's start with storage, you need to have the storage marked for “output” for the crafter to use it. Next get to the workbench and turn on “output” then que or do continuous of what you want them to make. Then make sure you have somewhere for them to put the item. Go to a storage and mark it “input” and filter it for the item you are having made. If you want this item to be sold mark it “sell” as well.

As far as I can tell this is just cosmetic and they could help during those night raids but personally I let my turrets take care of that.

At the start employees will only work for about 4 hours before needing rest. That doesn't mean they will only work 4 hours a day, it just means you need to add to the schedule. So depending on the hours you are open you can have employee A come in at 6am-10am and employee B come in from 10am-2pm then bring A back in from 2pm-6pm and B 6pm-10pm then bring A back one more time from 10pm-2am and B 2am-6am. Meaning that with only two employees you can stay open 24 hours. Now keep an eye on the total hours at the top IDK why this is even a thing obviously if I'm scheduling someone to work I want them to be there but if the total hours are less then 24 hours than employees will not come in during those hours if if they are scheduled and the store is open (again why is this a thing) so just make it 24 hours and schedule what you need. Also in this tab you can fire and ping the workers location.

In this tab you can unlock more skills, employees and training. It's really self explanatory. First row is how many can be trained at a time. Second is how many courses you have to choose from. Third is the skill your employees can have. And the last one is how many workers you can have.

This tab just tells you a more simplified version of everything I just told you.

Here's where people often run into problems so let's see if I can help. As mentioned before your workers will only work about 4 hours (more with training) so you need to divide up their work day so they can have a break(look at work schedules for help). Next is comfort just like your guest, your employees need time to just sit down, so make sure you have enough seating for both the guest and employees. If you don't take care of both of these things your workers will just stand around and collect their paychecks. Keep them happy and they will keep working.

Hope this guide helps. It's my first one so I hope it does the trick.