FIVE REASONS WHY RESTAURANTS CANNOT FIND EMPLOYEE'S
By Cliff Bramble, Hungry Hospitality
After reading endless articles on why restaurants cannot locate employees, I thought I would give my five reasons restaurants may have problems attracting people.
First, this is not a new issue. There have been many cycles throughout the years where this has occurred. (Heck, there was a time where I used to pick up my staff at 5:30 in the morning, so I knew they would be at work!) The glamor of serving in a restaurant used to be because of the immediate cash related to the front of the house or the guaranteed forty hours in the kitchen. Plus, cooks got to work closely with chefs. While the latter can still be attained, the former cannot. Most of the tips are placed on the employee's paycheck and claimed nightly, therefore becoming a legitimate income stream for the employee; however, it's not a fast-cash position anymore. People can blame it on "safety" or fewer people, but this has become the main deterrent for many employees in the front of the house. When you look at the back of the house, yes, a back-of-the-house employee may receive forty hours or more a week, and they probably average $14 per hour (In Georgia). Still, there are fewer and fewer individuals looking to work in the "environment." Perception is that they can earn more elsewhere. But where?
The second reason is due to training. Poor training will scare potential employees away. Currently, there are online areas where employees can post negative reviews about the restaurant or the management. It's not going away. So, what is the solution? The solution is better training that will give the new employee a reason to be excited to be involved in the restaurant. If the poor training continues, the new employee will be poorly trained, and attrition will continue.
Wondering why the training is poor? Take a look at the number of independent restaurants out there. There are close to 800,000 of them, and they employ 15.6 million people. Many may be one-off restaurant brands doing excellent and staying consistently busy. Is it possible that the particular brands have ownership that were never appropriately trained themselves? Sure. So, what happens? Now, the restaurant owner hires a manager/chef who has not been adequately trained, and they bring them into their concept and teach them how they were trained. For example, "here are the keys, and this is how you open and close. Have a great time." They do not receive any HR training, no leadership training, no kitchen training, and they are placed in a management role and trained on how to open and close the restaurant. Does this happen at all restaurants? Absolutely not. There are many highly qualified management and owners who have excellent programs and train their positions well. Those may be the restaurants not having hiring issues. (But at this point, the finding employee issues are everywhere.) It's because they were trained correctly and have training systems in place. (The key is retaining current employees.) So, the main takeaways here are training and maintaining. If you train the same, things will remain the same. If you are already doing a great job at training, then keeping those employees is critical. Make training your number one goal, and become the best at retaining every position.
Thirdly is the professionalism within the operation. Why is this one of the reasons? Why not? We need to treat the employees professionally at ALL times. The days of the chef screaming at an employee at the top of their lungs are long gone. They have been gone for years now, but they have allowed the yelling to continue because employees need to make a living. So, where does the professionalism training start? Typically, this is a human resource area, and the management is taken through pages and pages of information on hiring, professionalism, fairness, and employee practices. Without this training, it may set the entire organization to fail. Create the standards of professionalism for your company, and maintain them at all times. Enforce it amongst everyone. No excuses. If a manager is treating an hourly poorly, speak with them and discipline them accordingly. If a manager is drinking on the job, terminate them. Some allow management to stay in positions while the hourlies watch and know what is happening, setting up the management team to fail. The bottom line is simple. If leadership is disrespectful to employees, why would the employees respect the leadership? So, maintaining a professional atmosphere is of the utmost importance in retaining a loyal base of employees.
Oh, and do you want to know where you can find this information? Ask the hourlies. Most of them NEED their job, and they want to see the restaurant be successful. Sometimes, the hourlies know more than the owners do about what is happening within their operation. One last item to ponder about this. If you hire high school kids, and it's their first job, you will either set a good impression on them or a poor one. Setting a poor image on them may reduce their future involvement in restaurants and set up poor word of mouth amongst the parents. If that happens, you lose employees and prospective customers too.
Fourth is the growth of an organization. Face it; restaurant jobs have always been a transitional position. The employees have been students working their way through high school or college, and once they graduate, they move on to their profession. Many of these employees are not looking for growth. They are simply working through college. What they are looking for is security for their four years in college. If they see that they have security, they may stay the entire four years. (Nobody in college wants to look for a job every six months.) But, for management positions, the leadership wants to continue to learn and grow with the organization. They want to grow into the next job and hopefully be able to open their restaurant one day. If there is no growth, sooner or later, the management will depart and move onto another growth-oriented company. It's that simple. So, what can a single operator do?
Having a five-year vision plan for the company and searching for the next opportunity is highly important. Involving the management is even better. When management sees this, they get excited and want to be a part of the growth. It's natural for someone to be excited about the next opportunity. It reflects that the leadership will continue to have an income and hopefully continue with their profession.
The fifth reason is hiring. Properly hiring the correct individuals for the respective positions shows that the management is hiring qualified candidates. They are not simply hiring any person walking off the street. They hire quality. The nice part about hiring quality people is the current employees see the person hired as qualified. As a result, they want to work with others just as qualified as them.
In the kitchen area, this is an opportunity to hire and train individuals for continued growth. The reason is simple. The less qualified person will get hired as a dishwasher or pantry person. Once they master those positions, they will move on to the next station in the kitchen. It may be the plancha or the fry station. Their goal will be to learn every station in the kitchen. Who's responsibility is this? The Sous Chef or the Exec Chef are the people who should be walking these people from station to station. There should be training system in place, and it should be adhered to. If this is available, and the new employee sees that there are systems in place, then their perception of the organization will be positive, and that person may be thinking, "these guys run a tight ship."
You may have noticed that money was not mentioned. If an employee is managed, trained, and respected accordingly, money may not be an issue. Money may be an excuse, but it's typically not the main issue of employee turnover. It's typically the systems, training, professionalism, and growth that will keep the employee. Once that occurs, the staff's longevity may continue for years.
Cliff Bramble owns Hungry Hospitality and is the author of The Business Side of Restaurants (On Amazon) and has just launched Coursini, a Restaurant industry Academy that offers restaurant business courses for business professionals. www.hungryhospitality.com – www.coursini.com
By Cliff Bramble, Hungry Hospitality
After reading endless articles on why restaurants cannot locate employees, I thought I would give my five reasons restaurants may have problems attracting people.
First, this is not a new issue. There have been many cycles throughout the years where this has occurred. (Heck, there was a time where I used to pick up my staff at 5:30 in the morning, so I knew they would be at work!) The glamor of serving in a restaurant used to be because of the immediate cash related to the front of the house or the guaranteed forty hours in the kitchen. Plus, cooks got to work closely with chefs. While the latter can still be attained, the former cannot. Most of the tips are placed on the employee's paycheck and claimed nightly, therefore becoming a legitimate income stream for the employee; however, it's not a fast-cash position anymore. People can blame it on "safety" or fewer people, but this has become the main deterrent for many employees in the front of the house. When you look at the back of the house, yes, a back-of-the-house employee may receive forty hours or more a week, and they probably average $14 per hour (In Georgia). Still, there are fewer and fewer individuals looking to work in the "environment." Perception is that they can earn more elsewhere. But where?
The second reason is due to training. Poor training will scare potential employees away. Currently, there are online areas where employees can post negative reviews about the restaurant or the management. It's not going away. So, what is the solution? The solution is better training that will give the new employee a reason to be excited to be involved in the restaurant. If the poor training continues, the new employee will be poorly trained, and attrition will continue.
Wondering why the training is poor? Take a look at the number of independent restaurants out there. There are close to 800,000 of them, and they employ 15.6 million people. Many may be one-off restaurant brands doing excellent and staying consistently busy. Is it possible that the particular brands have ownership that were never appropriately trained themselves? Sure. So, what happens? Now, the restaurant owner hires a manager/chef who has not been adequately trained, and they bring them into their concept and teach them how they were trained. For example, "here are the keys, and this is how you open and close. Have a great time." They do not receive any HR training, no leadership training, no kitchen training, and they are placed in a management role and trained on how to open and close the restaurant. Does this happen at all restaurants? Absolutely not. There are many highly qualified management and owners who have excellent programs and train their positions well. Those may be the restaurants not having hiring issues. (But at this point, the finding employee issues are everywhere.) It's because they were trained correctly and have training systems in place. (The key is retaining current employees.) So, the main takeaways here are training and maintaining. If you train the same, things will remain the same. If you are already doing a great job at training, then keeping those employees is critical. Make training your number one goal, and become the best at retaining every position.
Thirdly is the professionalism within the operation. Why is this one of the reasons? Why not? We need to treat the employees professionally at ALL times. The days of the chef screaming at an employee at the top of their lungs are long gone. They have been gone for years now, but they have allowed the yelling to continue because employees need to make a living. So, where does the professionalism training start? Typically, this is a human resource area, and the management is taken through pages and pages of information on hiring, professionalism, fairness, and employee practices. Without this training, it may set the entire organization to fail. Create the standards of professionalism for your company, and maintain them at all times. Enforce it amongst everyone. No excuses. If a manager is treating an hourly poorly, speak with them and discipline them accordingly. If a manager is drinking on the job, terminate them. Some allow management to stay in positions while the hourlies watch and know what is happening, setting up the management team to fail. The bottom line is simple. If leadership is disrespectful to employees, why would the employees respect the leadership? So, maintaining a professional atmosphere is of the utmost importance in retaining a loyal base of employees.
Oh, and do you want to know where you can find this information? Ask the hourlies. Most of them NEED their job, and they want to see the restaurant be successful. Sometimes, the hourlies know more than the owners do about what is happening within their operation. One last item to ponder about this. If you hire high school kids, and it's their first job, you will either set a good impression on them or a poor one. Setting a poor image on them may reduce their future involvement in restaurants and set up poor word of mouth amongst the parents. If that happens, you lose employees and prospective customers too.
Fourth is the growth of an organization. Face it; restaurant jobs have always been a transitional position. The employees have been students working their way through high school or college, and once they graduate, they move on to their profession. Many of these employees are not looking for growth. They are simply working through college. What they are looking for is security for their four years in college. If they see that they have security, they may stay the entire four years. (Nobody in college wants to look for a job every six months.) But, for management positions, the leadership wants to continue to learn and grow with the organization. They want to grow into the next job and hopefully be able to open their restaurant one day. If there is no growth, sooner or later, the management will depart and move onto another growth-oriented company. It's that simple. So, what can a single operator do?
Having a five-year vision plan for the company and searching for the next opportunity is highly important. Involving the management is even better. When management sees this, they get excited and want to be a part of the growth. It's natural for someone to be excited about the next opportunity. It reflects that the leadership will continue to have an income and hopefully continue with their profession.
The fifth reason is hiring. Properly hiring the correct individuals for the respective positions shows that the management is hiring qualified candidates. They are not simply hiring any person walking off the street. They hire quality. The nice part about hiring quality people is the current employees see the person hired as qualified. As a result, they want to work with others just as qualified as them.
In the kitchen area, this is an opportunity to hire and train individuals for continued growth. The reason is simple. The less qualified person will get hired as a dishwasher or pantry person. Once they master those positions, they will move on to the next station in the kitchen. It may be the plancha or the fry station. Their goal will be to learn every station in the kitchen. Who's responsibility is this? The Sous Chef or the Exec Chef are the people who should be walking these people from station to station. There should be training system in place, and it should be adhered to. If this is available, and the new employee sees that there are systems in place, then their perception of the organization will be positive, and that person may be thinking, "these guys run a tight ship."
You may have noticed that money was not mentioned. If an employee is managed, trained, and respected accordingly, money may not be an issue. Money may be an excuse, but it's typically not the main issue of employee turnover. It's typically the systems, training, professionalism, and growth that will keep the employee. Once that occurs, the staff's longevity may continue for years.
Cliff Bramble owns Hungry Hospitality and is the author of The Business Side of Restaurants (On Amazon) and has just launched Coursini, a Restaurant industry Academy that offers restaurant business courses for business professionals. www.hungryhospitality.com – www.coursini.com