Employees in DDS2 are essential for scaling past the early game. I spent my first 20 hours running everything solo before realizing how much time staff saves. The Steam FAQ guide covers how to get more employees from early-game strategies to advanced methods. This guide covers every hiring method, how assignments work, and the optimal staffing progression.

How to get employees:

There are multiple ways to recruit staff. Using all of them in parallel is the fastest way to build your team:

Steam Community discussions confirm you can ask influencers for workers twice each. After that, notice boards and territory expansion are the primary sources. I recommend completing all available influencer missions before grinding notice boards, since influencers give higher-quality employees on average.

Practical example: First employee hiring sequence

Here is the exact process I follow to get my first employee:

1. Complete the tutorial missions until you have access to your first hideout
2. Build the distributor desk (approximately $2,000 in materials from the hardware store)
3. Open the employee management screen at the desk
4. Visit the nearest notice board (the one in the starting zone is at the market square)
5. Review available employees -- look for one with high "speed" and "reliability" stats for your first dealer
6. Hire the employee and assign them to the dealer role
7. Select a territory where you have completed at least 5-10 deliveries (established client base)

The first dealer typically takes about 30 minutes to set up from a fresh start. The passive income they generate will fund your next round of hires.

Employee roles:

Based on YouTube guides and the Steam FAQ guide, here is what each role does:

Staff assignment strategy:

The Steam FAQ guide and video tutorials recommend this progression, which matches what I found effective:

Employee stats and quality:

Not all employees are created equal. When reviewing candidates at notice boards or from influencer referrals, pay attention to these stats:

A dealer with high speed and reliability will process customer orders faster with fewer mistakes. A guard with high strength provides better raid protection. When hiring through notice boards, wait for employees with at least two stats in the green (positive) range.

Staff limits:

The game limits how many employees you can have based on:

• Street Cred level -- Each level adds capacity
• Number of hideouts owned -- More hideouts = more potential staff slots
• Story progression -- Some missions unlock additional capacity

To increase your staff cap, focus on: completing influencer missions, expanding to new territories, raising your Street Cred by beating gang members, and progressing the main story.

Related Guides:

• Employee Roles Guide -- Detailed breakdown of each role with optimal assignments
• Empire Guide -- How staff enables multi-hideout specialization
• Reputation Guide -- Street Cred leveling for unlocking staff capacity

Where Employees Come From

The basic hire flow is covered in the staff guide. This guide is about the two bottlenecks that stall most players: getting more employees, and making the ones you have efficient.

Employee sources, confirmed:

Reputation Is the Engine

Regional reputation controls how much of this you can access. From the official tutorials: increasing your reputation unlocks new unlocks and business contacts, and improves your relationship with the local influencer - the better the relationship, the more you gain from doing business there.

Three rules that follow:

1. Complete jobs and investments in one region instead of hopping around - reputation is regional, and a high-rep region gives you both better influencer options and better store relationships.
2. Do not steal or burgle in the region you are building. The official tutorial is explicit: stealing and burglaries decrease your reputation.
3. Reputation also feeds store levels. Better store relationships mean more items in the shop offer and higher quantities - that matters for lab equipment and packaging supplies.

Influencer Meetings: Bring Swag

You make appointments with influencers at phone booths. Community guides agree on the key variable: higher swag gets better results from meetings. Swag is the stat that determines how much an influencer likes you, and it directly affects how many employees you can pull out of the relationship.

Practical loop: progress the influencer's missions -> raise swag -> set up meetings via phone booth -> take the referrals. Each influencer gives 2 hires, so the ceiling for staff growth is tied to how many influencers you have access to - which is again reputation.

Making Dealers Actually Sell

A dealer is only as good as their setup. From the official tutorial:

1. Buy the dealer's cabinet via furniture mode in a hideout.
2. Place the employee in the cabinet - this converts them into a dealer for that hideout's region.
3. Assign customers from that region to the dealer.
4. Set the dealer on a dealer spot in the region (spots appear when you use the relevant scan or find them in the world).
5. Leave drugs in the hideout - the dealer pulls stock from the hideout supply.
6. Collect money from the dealer's cut (a safe helps for accumulating cash).

The failure mode most players hit: they assign customers and a spot but never leave stock in the hideout, so the dealer has nothing to sell. Check stock levels before assuming the dealer is broken. For the full role breakdown, see employee roles.

Efficiency Checklist

• [ ] One region focused: reputation and influencer relationships are region-locked
• [ ] Phone booth meetings scheduled, swag maxed before each meeting
• [ ] Info boards checked in every region you enter
• [ ] Dealer cabinet bought and placed in the right hideout
• [ ] Customers assigned and dealer spot set
• [ ] Hideout stocked with product the dealer can sell
• [ ] Money safe installed so dealer cuts accumulate

Related Guides

• Staff and Employee Guide - the basic hire and assign flow
• Employee Roles - dealers vs lab technicians vs distributors
• Cook Meth Recipe - the product your dealers will sell
• Opium Guide - second product line for dealer stock

Not all staff roles are equally important at every stage of the game. The optimal hire order I settled on after testing multiple configurations is: Dealer first (for automated income), then Cook (scales production), then Guard (protects investment), then Distributor (enables multi-hideout logistics). The community guides confirm this priority. This guide covers each role in detail, optimal assignment strategies, and how to unlock every role efficiently.

Role breakdown:

Each role serves a specific function in your operation. Understanding what each does will help you prioritize your hiring order.

Dealers handle customer interactions. The Fandom wiki explains that once you hire a dealer and set them up in any territory, you can assign customers from that region to them. The dealer will automatically fulfill orders from the stock you provide, generating passive income. This was my first automation unlock and it made a huge difference -- instead of running every delivery myself, I could focus on production and expansion while the dealer handled the retail end.

Cooks automate batch processing. With a cook assigned to a lab station, you can produce product without manual mixing and timing. The cook will process ingredients into finished product at a consistent rate. This is most valuable once you have a reliable ingredient supply chain and want to scale production beyond what you can do manually. I noticed my output roughly doubled after hiring my first cook.

Guards reduce raid probability. The Fandom wiki confirms hideout raids are affected by visibility and wanted level. Guards mitigate this by patrolling the perimeter and providing early warning. The exact mechanic is that guards increase the "security rating" of a hideout, which offsets its visibility rating. A high-visibility hideout with multiple guards can be as safe as a low-visibility hideout without guards.

Distributors transfer product between hideouts. Essential for the multi-hideout specialization strategy where each location produces one product type. The distributor moves raw materials from your supply hideout to your processing hideout, and finished product from processing to your sales hub. Without a distributor, you spend a lot of time traveling between hideouts moving inventory.

Assignment strategy by stage:

Practical example: When to hire each role

Here is the exact timeline I follow in a new playthrough:

1. Hour 3-5 (net worth ~$8k): Build the distributor desk. This costs approximately $2,000 in materials. Your first employee will be assigned as a dealer. Choose the territory where you have built the most client relationships through deliveries.
2. Hour 6-10 (net worth ~$20k): Hire your first cook. Install the lab upgrade (approximately $3,000) and assign the cook. Your production capacity will roughly double because the cook processes batches while you continue making deliveries.
3. Hour 10-15 (net worth ~$40k): Hire a guard. Install the guard station (approximately $5,000). At this point your combined hideout value probably exceeds $15,000, making raid protection economically justified.
4. Hour 15-20 (net worth ~$80k): Hire a second dealer for a new territory. Hire a second cook if production is still the bottleneck. Consider a distributor if you have three or more active hideouts.
5. Hour 20+ (net worth $100k+): Full staff across all roles. Expand to all available territories.

How to unlock each role:

Staff limits and how to increase them:

The game limits how many employees you can have based on three factors: current Street Cred level, number of hideouts owned, and story progression. Here is how to increase your staff cap:

• Street Cred level -- Each new level of Street Cred increases your staff cap by 1. Focus on beating gang members and completing influencer missions.
• Hideout count -- Each hideout you purchase adds potential staff slots. You cannot assign more staff than your total hideout capacity supports.
• Story progression -- Certain story missions unlock additional staff capacity. Complete the main questline to maximize your hiring potential.
• Notice boards -- Completing notice board missions occasionally rewards new employee unlocks or increases capacity.

To check your current staff limit, open the employee management screen from your distributor desk. It shows your current staff count and maximum capacity.

Related Guides:

• Staff and Employee Guide -- How to hire employees from all sources
• Empire Guide -- Multi-hideout specialization with staff
• Reputation Guide -- Street Cred leveling to unlock more staff slots