Always remember that it is your restaurant’s staff who will be directly interacting with your customers and will be the face of your restaurant. This makes it imperative that you have the best ones on board. However, you must remember that all the restaurant staff out there might not be competent or effectively skilled, hence it is your responsibility to transform them and mould them as per your requirements through an effective training program. Even after hiring and training in appropriate ways, if you are unable to manage your restaurant staff well, not only will it leave them disgruntled, it will also sow in them the desire to look for lucrative alternatives in the market.
The restaurant industry in the USA is notorious for high employee attrition rate. It is estimated that the labour turnover rate in the US is almost 70%. As per a recent study from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, the cost of losing and replacing one hourly employee can be as high as $5,864. Considering that the turnover rate is 70%, one can only imagine how much restaurants lose out their money on. Hence, it makes all the more important for restaurants in the USA to have proper restaurant staff management that will help them to retain staff and cut down on the unnecessary expenses.
Useful Restaurant Staff Management Tips that Will Help You to Retain Staff and Increase Efficiency
Considering the predicament of the situation, we are here to provide you with effective tips that will help you to manage your restaurant staff in the most diligent way possible.
1. Hire Well
Have a proper human resource structure and outline the requirements of the restaurants. Sit with the restaurant manager and the Executive chef and ask for the number of hiring required, their role and prepare their JD accordingly. Then let your HR start looking for feasible options, on the job portals. Don’t just rely on the job portals, advertise on local newspapers, and spread the word in the vicinity that you are hiring. Don’t forget to garner recommendations from your well-wishers. In addition to this, you must have a restaurant website, right? So, why don’t you add a career page there and clearly mention your requirements with a clear call-to-action?
If you are a restaurant which is technology driven, then it is advisable that you look for tech-savvy people, who will get in tune with your automated operations easily. Hence, look for young professionals who can be easily moulded and who will have a lot of energy to learn and to try out new things.
2. Train Them
Training your staff is extremely important. If you do your best at this level, then you can be sure, to have a bunch of well-trained staff working for you. From the very first day, organise training sessions, provide each of your employees with a training manual, which must contain their job role in details. This will be a go-to for all your restaurant staff whenever they find themselves in a sticky situation while working. Also, try and train them on the floor. Pair every new employee with a seasoned staff, and let the new employee watch the later at work. You can ask the seasoned staff to further hone the skills of the new staff. This will help you in ways more than one, firstly, it will help you to train the new staff, secondly, the seasoned staff will get a chance to refresh his memory, and he may even learn something new from the junior staff. And thirdly, there will be an engagement amongst the staff which will be very valuable in building the team spirit in your restaurant.
3. Build a Team
Single employees will not be able to run your restaurant successfully. Hence, unless there is a proper coordination amongst your staff, you can hardly expect your team to deliver the expected results. Hence try and bring in interesting team building activities. Make sure that you organise team outings, team dinners, breakfasts and lunch. Over these meals, you can discuss their experience in the restaurant, about the areas where there is a scope of improvement as per your employees. You can even use these events, to discuss your future plan of the restaurant with your employees, you can take their opinion on the matter.
These may seem very simple, but trust us, they do have long-lasting impacts. These events will inculcate a feeling of attachment towards each other and towards your restaurant amongst your staff, which will play a major role in paving the path of your restaurant towards success.
4. Track their Responsibilities
It is essentially important for you to keep a track if all your employees are diligently performing their daily chores. Although one can decide to do it manually, it is recommended, that you take refuge t technology. While manual scope leaves the scope of mistakes and discrepancies, the various listing-maps will help you to have a vigilant eye on your employees. Apps like Trello are a great way to build lists that can be shared with all your restaurant staff. Such an app allows several members of your team to weigh in and update key tasks on the list.
5. Monitor their Attendance
Track your employee attendance without fail. A robust restaurant software generally helps you to track the employee’s attendance. While genuine reasons of taking an off can be considered, if you happen to come across restaurant staff, who on a routine basis is taking days off every alternate day, or coming late and leaving early on a daily basis then, you might think of having a discussion with them. Since, after scheduling the staff as per the need of the restaurant, if a staff doesn’t appear or comes in late, it might put greater pressure on your other employees and affect their performance.
6. Get an Outstanding Manager on Board
Remember that it is your restaurant manager who will drive your entire team, hence give optimum importance and attention on hiring the best one on board. A restaurant manager must not be a one-man army, he should be able to lead a team. He should be approachable, patient, and must have crisis management and multitasking capabilities. A restaurant manager must have a vigilant eye and must be keen towards details, and oversee the activities of all the restaurant staff.
Taking into consideration that hiring, and building a loyal restaurant staff force is a major area of concern for most of the restaurants in the USA, follow the above-mentioned tips to maintain a healthy work environment amongst your restaurant staff. Make sure that you have a proper and a comprehensive restaurant staff management procedure in place, and monitor their performance religiously that will help you to run your business seamlessly.
