Restaurant Hiring and Staffing:
More Complicated (and More Important) Than Ever Before
In 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the annual employee turnover rate for the restaurant industry had reached 75 percent—the highest it had been in five years.
That was in 2018, and we don’t need to tell restaurateurs how much has changed since then. The COVID-19 pandemic turned the restaurant industry on its head, exposing long-buried cracks in the system and completely flipping the script when it comes to hiring and staffing for restaurants.
With an unprecedented labor shortage that has wreaked havoc on restaurant sales—and continues to dominate industry headlines—something we already knew has become even clearer:
The agility, performance and growth potential of a restaurant is closely tied to the strength of its talent.
In fact, a nationwide Popmenu study of 415 restaurant owners and operators found that 71 percent lose $5,000 or more per month due to the labor shortage. 37 percent reported losing $10,000 or more per month. It’s clear that finding (and keeping) talented employees can be a challenge for restaurants—even though it’s one of the most important parts of running a successful business. Ready to learn how to recruit and hire the best?
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Why Restaurants Need Great Employees
Employer Branding
Recruiting
Interviewing
Onboarding and Training
Staffing
Reducing Turnover
CHAPTER: 1
Restaurant Hiring and Staffing:
According to the National Restaurant Association, 90 percent of restaurants in the U.S. have fewer than 50 employees.
Restaurants run on small, tight-knit staffs. That makes every member of your staff vital to your restaurant’s success. From dishwashers to servers to cooks, every employee plays an important role in creating the experience you want guests to have at your restaurant.
It’s important to approach hiring and staffing like the essential parts of restaurant operations that they are. These are just a few of the reasons why restaurants need great employees to be successful.
YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE THE HEART AND SOUL OF YOUR RESTAURANT
Whether they’re greeting guests as they walk through the door, answering questions and taking orders, cooking and plating meals, bussing tables, washing dishes, marking inventory, or planning the restaurant’s long-term goals—your employees do it all, and every job counts in creating a great guest experience.
YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE YOUR BIGGEST INVESTMENT
For most restaurants, labor costs account for at least 20-30 percent of gross revenue. Plus there’s the investment you make when onboarding a new staff member—most new employees actually cost a restaurant money for the first few weeks, because of the time and resources spent training them properly.
In other words, your employees are a major investment, and can heavily impact your restaurant’s bottom line. This makes it even more important to seek out the best job candidates you can find.
YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE AN EXTENSION OF YOURSELF AND YOUR RESTAURANT
As a restaurant owner or manager, you can’t be everywhere at once. Instead, you have to depend on your employees to represent you—both at your restaurant and in your community. The best employees will live out your values and be great ambassadors for your restaurant whether they’re on the clock or off.
CHAPTER: 2
Employer Branding
What Is Employer Branding?
Employer branding is how you influence your restaurant’s reputation among the workforce, which can also include your current employees’ perception of you as an employer. It encapsulates your mission, values, and work culture—and the unique benefits and experiences you bring to current and future employees.
Employer branding is a common topic in the corporate world, and it’s gaining popularity in other industries, including restaurants. It’s how the world’s best companies market themselves to attract and retain top talent—something restaurants can do, too.
Building Your Employer Brand
If your restaurant is missing an employer brand, you can start building one in just a few steps.
Decide on your core values.
Company values and culture are an inextricable part of your employer brand. That’s why the first step toward building an employer brand strategy is identifying what’s important to your organization.
There are two key things to keep in mind as you identify and solidify your values and culture:
1. Your restaurant already has an established culture and values that drive it. Talk to you current staff and capture what already exists. Pay attention to common themes from these conversations; these will help you narrow in on your values.
Tip: Try to keep your number of values to no more than four so you can be dedicated equally to all of them.
2. Respect your culture for what it is. Don’t try to be overly aspirational—that’s how you end up making promises that you can’t deliver on.
The bottom line: “Culture” is like the ambiance of your restaurant; You work with what you have (location, space) and maximize your strengths (service, decor, music, etc.) to create a great experience.
Create an employee value proposition.
At the core of every employer branding strategy is the employee value proposition (EVP)—essentially, an agreement between an organization and its employees about what each is going to provide to the other.
EVP is the balance of give and take between employer and employee—the promise of what the employer will do for the team, and what they can expect from their employees.
When creating your EVP…
Incorporate your restaurant’s mission, values, and culture.
Think about your standard offerings. These are the things that most other restaurants will be providing to their employees. Some examples of these standard offerings include:
- Available shifts and scheduling flexibility.
- Accessibility for all employees.
- Employee discounts and shift meals.
Then, consider what you offer that sets your restaurant apart from others—these are your excitement offerings. Excitement offerings usually require more investment on the employer side, so, you’ll want to choose just a few to be great at providing. Some examples of excitement offerings include:
- Career development and upward mobility.
- Benefits like health insurance and PTO.
- Tuition coverage.
Put your brand strategy into practice.
Crafting your EVP is only half the job—the other half is to actually practice what you preach. Remember that all your employer branding efforts will be for nothing if employees accept jobs and realize your restaurant doesn’t live up to their expectations. Rather than just say your restaurant is a great place to work, you have to actually make it a great place to work.
Tip: Choose 1-2 excitement offerings that you want to do a great job at delivering on for employees and invest in those. Treat your EVP like your restaurant menu—there’s no need to offer every dish possible, be selective and serve the things you’re great at creating.
Restaurants With Strong Employer Branding
For some big restaurant chains, it’s employer branding that helps them stand out.
Take Shake Shack, for example, which has created the “Shacksperience,” an upward career path that’s available to all employees. Using a clear visual, Shake Shack shows the direct path employees can take to progress in their careers with the company. This, along with competitive healthcare benefits and 401(k) matching, makes Shake Shack an example of investing in your workforce as an employer.
A couple other examples:
Chipotle, which has expanded its debt-free educational degree options for employees this year.
Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants promotes a “Culture of Caring,” emphasizing its commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace.
CHAPTER: 3
Recruiting
Employer branding is the first step to recruiting top talent for your restaurant. Once your restaurant begins to build a reputation for being a great place to work, word will spread. You’ll find the best employees coming to you, not the other way around.
But there are other ways you can help maximize your restaurant’s success while recruiting new employees.
BE COMPETITIVE
Other restaurants in your area are hiring, too. Why should the best talent choose your restaurant over the one down the street or on the other side of town?
Employer branding plays a role in this, but it’s equally important to walk the walk—to live up to your core values and make your restaurant a truly great place to work.
LOOK FOR REFERRALS
When it comes to finding talented restaurant employees, you already have a secret weapon: Your existing staff. It’s likely they know other great employees, and can help refer them to your open positions— plus, studies show that referred candidates get hired faster and stay longer than non-referred employees. Offer incentives to your existing staff for referring great candidates, like bonuses or extra perks.
POST YOUR OPEN JOBS EVERYWHERE
When you’re hiring, make sure everyone around you knows it—post your open jobs on social media, on restaurant job boards, and even on signs in your restaurant. Be strategic about your postings; Handshake is a job platform specific for college students, Culinary Agents is a career site for hospitality-specific jobs—think about where your best employees learned about you and be sure to float your job postings through that channel. Also, don’t just set it and forget it; remember to resurface your job postings on a regular basis (weekly is best!).
USE TECHNOLOGY
Your restaurant should already have an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly website. When you’re recruiting employees, use your website to your advantage—make sure you have a clean, welcoming, up-to-date careers page where you list your open positions and make it easy to apply.
Write Great Job Descriptions
One of the hardest (yet most important) parts of recruiting the best employees is writing great job descriptions that get them in the door.
Keep in mind that the best job descriptions keep things short and sweet, while still conveying all the important information about the role. Here’s a template to help you get started.
Job Title
What role is this person applying for? In your introduction, include the job title and an attention-grabbing opener: “Want to work for a restaurant with great pay and career opportunities—and have fun along the way?”
Job Duties
List a few bullet points about primary duties for this role, and what will be expected from the person who fills it.
Qualifications
What skills are necessary for success in this role?
Don’t go overboard with this section. Try to boil it down to a few key buckets (for example, collaborative communicator, adaptable and quick-thinker, passionate and hospitality-minded).
Try to avoid listing things like, “5+ years of experience.” Research shows that adding these types of parameters can make even qualified applicants self-select out of applying for roles. Instead, list experience qualifications in other ways:
- “You enjoy leading teams in a fast-paced environment.”
- “You’ve grown your skills behind the bar and are ready for a new challenge.”
- “You’ve demonstrated your ability to work on a tight-knit team.”
Compensation and perks:
All job descriptions should include information about pay. Be clear about the hourly wage or salary for the position you’re hiring for, and include any other compensation like benefits or on-the-job perks.
About your restaurant:
Briefly summarize your core values from your employer branding. Focus on what sets your restaurant apart and makes it a great place to work.
According to Glassdoor, 76% of job seekers want details on what makes the company an attractive place to work
CHAPTER: 4
Interviewing
Interviewing is an essential part of the hiring process. It helps you get to know your potential new hires, see what they value in a workplace, and how they might fit into your team.
Tips for an effective interview:
The 51% Rule
Meyer wrote about using the “51% Rule” when hiring staff for his restaurants. That means he gave 51% of consideration to a potential employee’s personality, and 49% to their skillset. Meyer’s reasoning is that restaurant skills can be taught, but essential personality traits—things like emotional intelligence, critical thinking, work ethic, and empathy—cannot.
76%
personality
49%
skillset
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT YOU DON’T WANT
Before beginning interviews, sit down with your management team to discuss what an ideal candidate would look like: What qualities do they have? Why are those qualities important? Also think about what you don’t want—sometimes knowing what we are not looking for helps us better identify what it is we are.
BE PREPARED
Sometimes the application process looks like candidates walking through the door and filling out an application at the hostess stand. Make sure you have printed app forms on hand (or a QR code that directs them to an easy application on the website). Also, be ready to jump into an interview with them right away. This ties back to knowing what you want; that way you’re prepared for a conversation at all times.
BE STRATEGIC WITH SMALL TALK
Small talk can be a great way to get comfortable, but try to ask questions that go a bit deeper than “how is your day going?” Ask them how they wound up working in hospitality; what they like about it/what excites them. These questions will lighten the mood and help you get to know more about them.
START WITH LOGISTICS
The first things you discuss in an interview should be compensation, scheduling, & availability. Make sure those expectations are aligned before you dive into why they want to work for you and how they’re qualified.
KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR RED FLAGS
Red flags are usually issues with interpersonal skills vs a lack of hard skills (e.g., knowing a certain POS system). Trust your gut when interviewing. Hospitality is the business of reading people; what you learn through your observation skills counts for just as much as what you learn from the candidate’s interview answers.
FOLLOW UP WITH REFERENCES
A candidate’s references already know about their skills, experience, and work ethic. Ask if they’d re-hire the candidate, and if they say yes, you likely have a solid hire on your hands. If the candidate has few or no references, it’s okay to trust your gut and take a chance.
Sample Interview Questions for All Restaurant Positions
The key to a successful interview is asking the right questions and then going a level deeper. There’s no need to have 15 questions lined up; have 3-5 strong questions with follow-ups that dig deeper into the candidate’s thinking, attitude and behavior.
When deciding on questions to ask, consider the STAR Method to learn more about a potential employee’s values, emotional intelligence, and skillset:
Situation: Outline a situation the candidate is likely to encounter.
Task: Describe a common task that’s part of the job.
Action: Have the candidate explain the action they’d take in that situation or to accomplish that task.
Result: Ask the candidate about the result of them taking that action in a similar situation in the past.
QUESTION
WHAT IT TELLS YOU
Why do you want to work in the restaurant industry?
We know restaurants can be a tough place to work. It takes passion and dedication to succeed. This question helps you determine whether your potential employee truly loves this kind of work.
Follow-up: Why did you choose to interview here/at this restaurant?
How did you start working in hospitality?
Hospitality is at the center of everything a restaurant does. Any potential hire needs to have a strong sense of what it means and why it’s important.
Follow-up: What does hospitality mean to you? How do you demonstrate hospitality to guests?
What is the best FOH/ BOH team you’ve ever worked with?
A restaurant’s staff has to operate as a team. This question will speak to a potential employee’s ability to resolve conflict and work well with other members of your staff.
Follow-up: What did you respect about that team? How did you contribute to fostering that positive relationship?
Who was the toughest guest you ever had to serve?
Sometimes guests behave badly, but it’s still up to your restaurant’s staff to give them the best experience possible. This question will help you see a potential employee’s attitude toward difficult guests.
Follow-up: What made them tough? How did you handle it?
Would you say you’re better at (job) than most people/than other (job) you’ve met?
Ideally, you’ll be able to hire employees who are already well-versed in what your restaurant offers. But asking this question helps you see if, even if they’re not already experts, an employee is curious and willing to learn.
Follow-up: Why do you think that? What is it about you that makes you better?
Additional Questions for Specific Positions
FOR BARBACKS AND BARTENDERS:
What do you do if you see an irate or extremely intoxicated person at the bar?
When the bar is busy, how do you decide who to serve first?
How do you make a (insert a popular but generic drink served at your restaurant)?
FOR COOKS:
What’s your favorite dish to make and why?
How do you respond when a guest sends a dish back to the kitchen because there’s a problem with it?
What do you do if the chef asks you to make something you’ve never made before?
FOR CHEFS:
What’s the first thing you would change about our menu and why?
How do you help manage food costs?
How will your influence make our food better?
FOR MANAGERS:
Tell us about the worst employee you ever worked with and how you helped manage them.
How do you handle conflicts between members of your staff?
Tell us about a time you exceeded a guest’s expectations.
FOR FOH EMPLOYEES (CASHIERS, HOSTS, SERVERS, ETC.):
A guest tells you they have a food allergy. What do you do?
What do you do if your register is short at the end of a shift?
What do you say to guests as they arrive at the restaurant? As they leave?
Tell me about a time you’ve had to work with a disappointed or angry guest.
CHAPTER: 4
Onboarding and Training
Did you know that 40 percent of employees who receive poor training leave their jobs within a year? Onboarding and training set the tone for a new employee’s time on your team. It’s important to spend this time teaching a new hire everything they need to know to perform their job well, but also helping them integrate with the rest of your staff.
These tips can help get any restaurant employee off to a strong start.
ORIENTATION
Orientation gives a new hire a chance to settle in. This is the time to collect necessary paperwork, walk them through your employee handbook, and introduce them to the rest of the team. This is also a good time to give your new employee their training shift schedule and work out any questions about scheduling and availability.
SHADOWING
Pair up your new hire with a reliable employee (preferably one who has experience in the role the new hire is filling). For at least the first week, let your new employee shadow the more experienced one, taking on more of the responsibility with each shift. Encourage them to ask questions and get to know the role as well as possible.
ACTING OUT SCENARIOS
One of the best ways to help a new hire learn their job is by acting out common scenarios with them as a training exercise.
CROSS-TRAINING
Once a new hire has mastered their position, consider crosstraining them for other jobs in your restaurant. Having a crosstrained staff creates empathy between teams and takes some of the pressure off when covering positions if another employee calls out or quits unexpectedly.
Always live your restaurant’s core values.
The onboarding and training process is a great time to let your core values shine. In everything you do, make sure you live up to those values and show new hires that your restaurant really is a great place to work.
Source: b2b-assets.glassdoor.comCHAPTER: 6
Staffing
Since staffing costs take up 20-30 percent of the average restaurant’s total revenue, staffing your restaurant effectively can have a direct impact on your bottom line. Once your dream team is in place, it’s time to make sure your restaurant is properly covered for different seasons and shifts.
Average Staffing for Different Restaurant Types
FAST-CASUAL:
1 cashier for every 12 tables.
1 service staff for every 12 tables.
4 kitchen staff for every 50 guests per hour.
CASUAL SIT-DOWN DINING:
1 host for every 5-6 tables.
1 server for every 5-6 tables.
4 kitchen staff for every 50 guests per hour.
FINE DINING:
1 host for every 4 tables.
1 server for every 4 tables.
1 bartender for every 30-40 guests.
6 kitchen staff for every 50 guests per hour.
How to Make a Restaurant Schedule
BREAK UP YOUR HOURS OF OPERATION INTO SHIFTS
These can be 8-hour shifts, a lunch shift and a dinner shift, or something else entirely—try to find a way to create shifts that work for your restaurant’s open hours, and that won’t require you to change over staff during rushes.
DIVIDE YOUR DINING ROOM INTO SECTIONS
Every table in your dining room should have a number. Divide the numbers into sections that can be assigned to different members of your serving staff. Depending on the type of service and typical turnover time, it’s standard to assign each server 4-6 tables at a time.
SCHEDULE YOUR STAFF
This will include at least one host, and as many servers as you need to cover all the dining sections for each shift, plus as many BOH staff as you need to cook and keep the kitchen running smoothly. When scheduling, take into account each employee’s availability and needs. There’s a lot of trial and error involved here—don’t worry if your schedule isn’t perfect after your first try. Keep collecting feedback from your staff to fine-tune it over time.
CAREFULLY CHOOSE OPENERS AND CLOSERS
Openers will be the first employees to arrive at your restaurant, preparing it for whatever service lies ahead each day. Closers will be the last to leave, cleaning and making sure the restaurant is prepared for the following day.
Openers and closers should be your most trusted employees. They will set the tone for each day’s service and make sure the restaurant stays clean, stocked, and prepped.
Important Considerations for Restaurant Staffing
LEAD TIME
Your employees need enough time to plan for their work schedules. Aim to finish the schedule two weeks ahead of time so your employees can plan for things like appointments, childcare, and class schedules. This will also give you plenty of time to get a shift covered if an employee has a conflict with the posted schedule.
FLEXIBILITY
One of the things restaurant employees love about this industry is it tends to be more flexible than some— that is, the concept of a “9 to 5” doesn’t apply here.
While some employees might appreciate consistency in their schedules, they’ll also appreciate being able to trade shifts with co-workers, request time off, or pick up extra shifts for extra cash. Remember the schedule doesn’t need to be set in stone.
OVERTIME
The Fair Labor and Standards Act (FLSA) dictates that restaurant workers are entitled to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in one week (typically defined by 7 consecutive 24-hour periods). Federal law doesn’t dictate how much overtime pay needs to be, but local laws might. The industry standard overtime for hourly restaurant workers is 1.5x their normal hourly wage, or time-and-a-half.
LOCAL LABOR LAWS
Tell us about the worst employee you ever worked with and how you helped manage them.
How do you handle conflicts between members of your staff?
Tell us about a time you exceeded a guest’s expectations.
FAIR SCHEDULING LAWS
Fair scheduling laws outline the legal rights of hourly workers. These laws vary from state-to-state, but may dictate:
- How far in advance you need to create your schedule
- Whether you can change the schedule after distributing it
- Break time between shifts
- Break time during shifts
How far in advance you need to create your schedule Whether you can change the schedule after distributing it Break time between shifts Break time during shifts
Find your state’s scheduling, overtime, and labor laws at www.dol.gov/agencies/ whd/state.
CHAPTER: 7
Reducing Turnover
Turnover is one of the biggest staffing challenges restaurants face.
The average tenure of a restaurant employee is just one month and 26 days. Meanwhile, the average cost to replace an employee in the restaurant industry is one-third of their annual pay. That means there’s a direct (and substantial) financial incentive for reducing turnover at your restaurant—a 25 percent reduction in turnover could save you more than $60,000 a year.
Why is restaurant industry turnover so high? While there are great career opportunities with restaurants, the industry has a reputation for jobs that are high-stress and low-pay, with unpredictable hours, physically demanding work, generally few benefits (if any), and limited opportunities for career advancement.
To reduce turnover at your restaurant, start by taking a hard, honest look at how those common industry challenges affect your staff. These tips can help you retain the best talent over time, ensuring your restaurant has the best people working for it—and protecting your bottom line.
Keep in mind that even if you can’t implement everything we’ve outlined, starting to address some of these challenges one at a time is a great start in the right direction to hiring and retaining great people!
LIVE YOUR CORE VALUES EVERY DAY
One way to help reduce turnover is to practice what you preach in your restaurant’s core values. Your employer branding was designed to set you apart from other restaurants and show why yours is the best restaurant to work at. But if new hires quickly discover things aren’t as great as you made them seem, they won’t want to stick around.
OFFER GOOD COMPENSATION
Notice we didn’t say “competitive” compensation. One of the biggest drivers behind the labor shortage of 2021 was workers demanding a living wage—not just a wage on par with other low-wage businesses in their area. Today, the businesses that have their pick of top talent are the ones that offer pay and benefits packages that allow their employees to thrive.
CREATE OPPORTUNITY FOR ADVANCEMENT
Another big reason employees leave restaurants is because it can be so hard to rise through the ranks. Your restaurant will retain the best talent if you offer them clear opportunities to advance their careers by staying employed by you.
VALUE WORK/LIFE BALANCE
Why do restaurant workers love the industry’s flexibility? It gives them opportunity for great work/life balance. As an employer, you can make your restaurant a more attractive place to work by recognizing that your employees want to work to live, not live to work.
REWARD AND RECOGNIZE GREAT EMPLOYEES
One way to make sure your employees always feel how much you value them is to make sure to regularly recognize them for their great work. You can also consider something like an incentive system, with bonuses or other rewards, for your best employees.
GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUR TEAM
If you’re wondering how else to make your restaurant the best possible place to work, you already have all the information you need—just ask your team. Regularly collect feedback from your employees on what could make their work experience better, and create a culture where it’s OK for employees to give feedback on things they don’t love about their jobs.
Restaurant Hiring and Staffing Are Tricky Parts of the Business…
But with the right tools and strategies, you can master them.
