The restaurant industry often has a high staff turnover rate. It can be challenging for many restaurant owners to locate qualified employees who also want to work for them for an extended period of time. Due to the heavy strain and job uncertainty, many restaurant employees decide to shift occupations.
In 2018, restaurant employees stayed with their employers for an average of 1 month and 26 days. The National Restaurant Association reports that the industry's overall turnover rate increased to 74.9 percent in 2018 from 72.5 percent in 2017. After reaching a cyclical low of 57.1 percent in 2010, the turnover rate reached its highest level since the Great Recession in 2018, according to the data.
Attracting and Retaining Staff
Restaurant owners and managers must continually invest time, effort, and money in recruiting and hiring staff due to the influx and outflow of restaurant workers from industry employment. Restaurants today are finding it harder and harder to retain their skilled staff members.
Here are some tips to recruit and retain employees at your restaurant:
Creating Employee Development Opportunities
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Despite a lot of young people entering the restaurant sector for work during their summer vacations, you will find many skilled people intending to stay in this field. Offering opportunities for professional growth to your restaurant workers is crucial. By being receptive and attentive to the aspirations of your workers, you can help them develop. Your personnel will feel seen and valued as a result, and your restaurant will gain from the change. You can also mention this in the job description when hiring.
Importance of Reputation
The quality of your restaurant is irrelevant if your employees are unhappy or are receiving poor treatment. A poor reputation often spreads amongst the employable demographic faster than one might think. For positions where it is commonly known that the staffing isn't treated well, very few skilled and experienced candidates apply. On the other hand, the likelihood that more individuals will apply to work at your restaurant is greater if you have a positive reputation in the industry.
Marketing Your Restaurant
Make sure you are active on social media. Creating a LinkedIn profile and emphasizing your personnel there can help attract skilled staff. This can boost your chances of drawing in new customers by emphasizing on your social media how content and happy your staff are while working at your establishment.
Staff Administration
Point of Sale (POS) systems can help you and your staff save time and effort. They aid you in keeping track of when the staff has clocked in and out, personnel costs, overtime done by employees, and many other useful features without having to invest a lot of manual labor into these duties. We highly recommend wise small business's restaurant pos systems guide to find the best suitable option.
Employee Benefits Program
You can retain your top employees while attracting new ones with the aid of an employee benefits package for restaurants. Working professionals want nothing more than safer working conditions, comparable restaurant benefits, and better compensation.
Service is severely damaged if you don't have team members to fill in for your most crucial tasks. Delays in food preparation, slow service, and long wait times result in a bad visitor experience, discouraging them from visiting your establishment again.
One of the best methods for a restaurateur to build a nice workplace is to offer a consistent salary and restaurant perks. Your employees will be more inclined to stick around if you offer benefits like professional development opportunities, health insurance for restaurant employees, and transit stipends since they will know you care about their long-term careers and personal well-being.
According to Toast’s 2019 Restaurant Success Report, 31% of restaurant owners offer health insurance to their workforce.
It's not uncommon to see excellent individuals leave the business for a more secure wage and benefits.
Some of the employee benefits programs that you can give your employees include:
Healthcare
Healthcare is currently one of the most important necessities for low-wage workers. By providing health benefits to your staff, you can increase loyalty among your restaurant employees. However, if you own a small establishment with fewer than 50 full-time employees, health insurance is not necessary.
The restaurant business still has some of the highest numbers of uninsured workers, which causes financial instability and frequently leads to employees quitting the sector to earn a stable salary that comes with benefits.
Education Assistance
The majority of low-wage workers still prioritize healthcare, but other benefit packages are still very important. Many businesses have promoted school help as an approachable benefit for their employees during the last few years.
Some businesses are increasingly reducing traditional perks in favor of more modern ones like elder care, paid parental leave, and professional development.
Paid Parental Leave
Paid parental leave has gained attention as a crucial employment perk. According to the U.S. Labor Department, just 48% of employees in the service sector currently have access to paid sick leave. More people still don't get paid parental leave. However, several restaurant businesses have jumped on the parental leave bandwagon right away, changing the course of the industry.
Professional Development
Additionally, professional growth is starting to gain popularity as a perk. Fortunately, both companies and employees benefit from professional growth at work. And it turns out that operators have access to a variety of development resources.
The benefits of appropriately funding employee training and development extend to operators. Businesses that provide new hires with four hours or more of orientation saw a lower hourly turnover rate than those who provide less time.
Work/Life Balance
In most workplaces, work-life balance is a difficult notion to achieve, but this is especially true in the restaurant business. Burnout on the job reduced productivity, and a lack of interest in the profession are other aspects of working in a restaurant.
Restaurateurs are learning that they must allow their staff members time to rest and recover if they are to keep their top performers and sustain peak performance.
Don’t Forget about Compensation.
Bonuses
The ability to earn more money elsewhere is currently one of the leading causes of voluntary termination in the restaurant sector. It's hardly unexpected that management turnover rates are still climbing given the recent decline in bonus payouts in restaurants.
Long-Term Incentive Programs
Long-term incentive programs have also seen a sharp fall in usage. The utilization of incentive stock options, non-qualified stock options, and performance shares has dropped when comparing long-term incentive programs.
Minimum Wage
To put it all in perspective, the state-mandated minimum wage for restaurants is gradually rising. Hourly employees' basic wage has long been a target of activists, but there has recently been considerable movement in this direction, especially in major cities and states. However, if unemployment falls and other businesses start to provide more competitive pay, restaurant business owners will undoubtedly feel increasing pressure to raise salaries.
Sum Up
While the above list contains several ideas that are attainable by the average restaurant, make sure to work within your existing budget to accommodate changes without going overboard. Should the need for additional funding arise, consider looking at funding options that offer low-interest rates and accommodating repayment plans.
Offering innovative solutions and perks to fulfill these demands, together with work flexibility, a sense of purpose, belonging, and a clear career path that employees need may be more beneficial in the restaurant sector than raising wages. For those looking to explore comprehensive benefits solutions tailored to the unique needs of the restaurant industry, OysterLink offers a range of services designed to enhance employee satisfaction and retention. More than ever, workers want to feel like they belong and have a purpose, and this may be achieved through business culture rather than by providing pricey benefits.