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Strategies to Reduce Rapid Turnover

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Chef working in kitchen

The effects of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation are still being felt throughout the service industry.  Short-staffed or not, the show must go on.  Though high levels of turnover are standard in the industry, they should not be debilitating.  We’ve rounded up our top 6 tips to mitigate turnover. It is possible to retain the talent you have while fostering an environment that is attractive to new hires.  Let’s jump in!

Tip 1: Be Patient & Fair

There are many responsibilities to juggle as a manager.  As a result, being consistent and empathetic can be challenging.  It is vital to remember that things familiar or second nature to managers are often foreign concepts to new employees.  Be patient, as some of your best employees might take longer to learn.  Be fair.  How you treat your employees directly impacts retention.  Try your best to remove your personal preferences and manage from a brand standards perspective.

Tip 2: Effort Trumps Talent

There is a saying by Dave Weinbaum, “If you can’t excel with talent, triumph with effort.”  Managers must be able to recognize continuous effort.  These types of employees are valuable.  Find small, yet meaningful ways to identify the efforts of your team.  Finding each employee’s strengths will increase productivity.  Keep in mind that some employees may not be suited for certain roles.  Help your employees improve and find their place to shine.

Tip 3: Optimize Operations

There always seems to be a never ending list of tasks to complete during a shift.  Prep work, stocking, cleaning, etc.  Help your employees be more efficient by automating tasks when possible.  You can also make sure processes are streamlined to avoid the same task being completed multiple times.  Communication is key.  

Tip 4: Flexibility

Job flexibility is so attractive to potential employees.  Many remain at a job because their employer offers flexible work options.  In our current job market, if a position stops offering a flexible schedule, there is no shortage of jobs elsewhere.  You would rather be short-staffed for a few shifts than lose a valuable employee long term.  Remember that the next time an employee is seeking an accommodation.

Tip 5: Train Right the First Time

Training should lead to confidence.  As with learning any new skill, there will be bumps along the way.  Avoid constant correction and keep in mind that employees have different learning styles.  Try to accommodate when you can.  Managers must be aware of who will be working each shift training the employees.  You want to make sure that person is capable of leading the new hire to success.  While there are many reasons an employee may leave the workplace, don’t let a lack of sufficient training be the culprit.

Tip 6: Motivate Your Team

Keep your team around by completing standard reviews and raises.  This is one way to show team members that they are valued.  After all, employees come to work to get paid.  An excellent time to evaluate the employee’s goals with the company is during the review process.  It will also give you a chance to assess if a promotion would be a good step.  You are not promoting every employee to management level.  However, many companies have roles like “team lead” that can show the employees value without moving them immediately to a management position.  These accomplishments can lead to high satisfaction keeping your current team members around.  And the ability to promote within is appealing to potential new hires.

4 Tips to Attract More Candidates During the Labor Shortage

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Waiter carrying drinks. Photo by Kate Townsend from Unsplash

When will the labor shortage end?  This is the question on everyone’s mind recently.  There is a sense of urgency when it comes to hiring right now due to business growth demands.  But, as an employer, it is nearly impossible to find workers.  Monster.com data found that about one in four (26%) employers hiring are currently having trouble filling roles.  You are not alone in your struggle.  People can’t or won’t go back to work for a variety of reasons.  Health and safety seem to be one of the top factors impacting the hiring processes.  There are also many working parents who have chosen to put their career on hold to stay at home and take care of their children.  And frankly unemployment benefits are quite attractive.   Candidates are pickier than ever about the job they want.  Here are 4 practical ways you can widen your talent pool and attract more candidates right now.

1. Increase Pay

“If you build it, they will come.”  This misquoted line is spoken by Ray, played by Kevin Costner, in the film Field of Dreams.  While wandering in a corn field, Ray hears a strange whisper: “If you build it, he will come.”  Build what?  In our case, an attractive salary. Wages are already building as the reality of the worker shortage sets in.  And when it comes to jobs, it’s no secret that money talks.  Candidates often rank salary as the ultimate deciding factor when considering a job change; even a change from collecting unemployment to collecting a paycheck.  Offering a competitive salary could put you on a candidate’s radar.

2. Opportunities for Advancement

Gen-Z is the youngest generation hitting the job market.  They are coming out of college eager, inspired, and searching for more than a dead-end job.  Vital to this generation is a career path.  According to a Monster survey, 78% of new grads want to get a promotion in the first year, while 86% of non-college grads say the same.  Marketing a job as one with training and growth potential is imperative.

3. Cross-train Current Employees

Take this opportunity to invest in your company through learning and development programs for your employees.  The skills gap is widening and it presents a challenge for hiring managers.  Finding qualified candidates with the skills to get the job done is becoming more difficult as workers pursuing trades is rapidly shrinking.  Cross-training your employees is an excellent way to maintain productivity while mitigating risk.  The answer to your labor shortage may already be on your payroll!  Large companies such as Walmart have already started to cross-train employees as a way to create more flexibility in the workforce and allow for more predictable schedules.  This might be a long-term solution to a growing problem.  

4. Use Your Resources

It has never been more important to get the qualified candidates you need quickly and on budget.  There are so many resources at your fingertips; employment websites, social media, and staffing companies/recruitment agencies.  After thirty years in the business, Pacific Coast Hospitality absolutely knows the hospitality industry — from boardroom to break room. We’ve worked at all levels of the restaurant industry. We speak the language. We know the people. We know where the openings are. We know how to find good people who care.  The restaurant business is about people and relationships. Lasting relationships with friends, clients and job seekers. That makes us a little different from “hard sell” recruiters. We take pride and real joy in building long term relationships that make life and work a real pleasure.  Reach out with questions or to start a conversation…steve@pacificcoasthospitality.com

Restaurants Have Felt the Pressure

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With Labor Day come and gone, restaurant operators continue to wrestle with a tight market for employees, especially for back-of-house positions, a recent survey indicates.
More than two-thirds, or about 67 percent, of operators cited increased competition for workers as a key driver in rising costs in a recent survey.
The U.S. unemployment rate slipped to 3.9 percent in July and has hovered between 3.8 percent and 4.1 percent during the first seven months of the year.
Restaurants have felt the pressure.
Respondents of the survey, which represented all major restaurant segments, ranged in size from one unit to more than 500, and had employee bases ranging from fewer than 100 workers to more than 15,000.
Key findings of the survey included:
Turnover rates: Nearly half of the surveyed operators, or 46 percent, said turnover increased either “significantly” or “somewhat” over the past year. Nearly the same amount, 43 percent, said their turnover rates remained the same. Only 10 percent said turnover decreased somewhat or significantly.
Recruitment and retention challenges: Back-of-the-house workers were especially difficult to find, surveyed operators said, with 59 percent of respondents saying kitchen staff was the primary recruitment and retention challenge. Front-of-the-house roles were a distant second, with 28 percent of operators citing filling those as a difficulty.
Kitchen hiring challenges: Respondents reported the most difficulty finding line cook candidates (72 percent), followed by prep cooks (36 percent) and dishwashers (33 percent).
Dining room hiring challenges: In the front-of-the-house, servers proved most challenging to find, with 54 percent of respondents citing that position, followed by unit managers at 37 percent. “Respondents also commented on other jobs not on the list,” the survey noted. “These write-in jobs included bartender, cashier and, presumably because of the delivery phenomenon, phone operators that handle carryout and delivery orders.”
Worker motivation: “The vast majority of respondents, or 70 percent, said wages provide the most influential factor in motivating employees,” the survey found. “What does not motivate employees is the ability to get ahead in the company.” Only 11 percent of surveyed operators cited the potential for advancement as a motivational factor.
Promotions: Asked what percentage of their workers are promoted to larger roles within the company, nearly half, or 46 percent, said they promote up to a quarter of their current employees. Only 32 percent said they promote 26 percent to 50 percent of their employees, and 22 percent said they promote more than half their employees.
Time for training and onboarding: Half of the respondents said they spend more than 16 hours in training and onboarding of new employees, with another 30 percent investing eight to 16 hours.
Written harassment policies: Ninety percent of respondents reported their operations have a written policy on workplace harassment, and an additional 6 percent said they would soon have a policy.
Tipping: Two-thirds, or 66 percent, of surveyed operators, said they would not consider a no-tipping or service-included model.

Your Most Loyal Customer? Your Employee.

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restaurant kitchen
Step back for a moment and think about who delivers your highly sought after, dreamed about and prized guest experience time and time again? It’s not your customers who bring that on for themselves… It is your employees who make the customer’s loyalty a reality for your business.
 
Facts show that employees spend half of their lives at work and that when employees are unhappy at work, the service and experience guests receive suffers.  When you start to realize how your employees are truly your greatest customer, you quickly begin to evaluate the areas that they draw likes and dislikes about your business from:
 
  1. The physical environment in which an employee works.
  2. The support and tools an employer provides to effectively do the job.
  3. How an employer takes an interest in the well-being and success of employees.
Let’s break it down.
 

The physical environment in which an employee works determines their morale about the work.

What’s it like in the back where your guests don’t dare see? Well lit? Ample space for employees personal belongings? How you offer your employees space to start and end their work day shows how greatly your value their role. Because in the end, you can’t expect top rated customer service from employee’s who feel distrusted and discounted. Successful businesses focus on creating memorable employee experiences to keep their staff engaged and happy which always overflows into their customer experience and bottom line.

In the heat of the moment, having tools and training that don’t really apply to guest needs, creates great frustration for employees.  

Each employee is at the forefront of using the support and tools you provide. When was the last time you asked for feedback on the effectiveness, ease of use and enjoyment of those tools? Everything from POS to menu displays, your employees are your most valuable resource in gaining feedback to better your business.

How can you ensure you’re treating your employees as your most loyal customer?
 
Engage with them and take an interest in the well-being and success of them, beyond your business walls. 
 
No one knows how to upgrade the employee experience better than your employees themselves. Ask them what they love about working in the company and what they would want you to do differently to reduce frustrations and improve work conditions. And after you’ve listened, listen again to hear about their personal likes, interest and status. You might just find out that you’ve got the most eclectic, interesting and exciting team in town!

A New Year… A New You!

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The ball has dropped, we rung in the New Year… and now what? Your inbox has likely been full of top New Year’s Resolutions that involve weight loss, spending habits, goal setting planners, etc.
 
Once you’re done with your year-end reflection for 2017, it’s time to look forward to the year that has begun. What will you write for the next chapter of your life? It’s entirely up to you. Take the first step to making sure that it’s a great chapter by making some changes for YOU, and only YOU.
 
This year only 8 percent of people will actually keep their New Year’s resolutions, according to one commonly cited statistic. There are many reasons people can’t stick to their resolutions, from setting too many of them to getting derailed by small failures.
 
If you made a big, career-related New Year’s resolution this year, we’re betting it’s one of three things: finding a new job, getting a big promotion at your current company, or finally venturing out on your own.
 
What are you waiting for? Here are our two best tips for getting started and to not make your resolution harder than it has to be.
 

Get your resume back in shape.

First things first, it’s time to dust off that hardcopy resume and freshen it up.  Sure, the basic facts will always remain the same. Your last employer will always be your last employer and that alma mater is never changing, but there are some key things that should.
 
You should determine what skills and experiences from past jobs to highlight based on the job description of the position you’re applying for. Maybe they’re looking for a kitchen manager with leadership experience? Be sure to highlight that specifically on the resume you submit for that opening.
 
Include your latest volunteer works, career advances and reference contacts.
 
For your resume be sure and slim it down to be only one or two pages – gone are the days of multiple pages jammed packed with every detail of your past.  Offer a summary to employers and bring more detailed examples and information to your first interview.
 

Network like it’s your day job.

If you do anything to get your job search started this month, do this.  While looking for any new career opportunities, the more people you can connect with the better.  Networking can be hard for many, but the benefits far outweigh the uncomfortable moments of having to meet someone new.
 
Step away from the computer and get out there! You won’t regret it.

What’s the Best Gift You Can Give Yourself This Christmas?

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If you’re making a list and checkin’ it twice… don’t forget about a gift for YOU too. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice… we have multiple top-level career positions available to treat yourself with as 2017 closes out.

Often times the myth is that job searching and hiring slows down during the Holiday season. But in many ways, it really heats up as so many candidates back off their intensive search; your opportunities for gaining an interview are heightened.

What’s it take to stand out among other applicants?

Showcase your skills.
A cover letter and resume can only describe what you can do and limits showcasing your skills to potential employers. To offer an expanded view of your skillset and experience develop an online portfolio. This will give employers immediate access to see all you have done and are capable of doing.

Your portfolio then becomes a tool that helps you land the interview, instead of something you showcase at the interview.

Demonstrate your value.
In addition to an online portfolio, be sure to include supporting documentation and information about yourself and how you will solve the problems the company is facing and will bring it to the next level. What does the company need? Why are they looking to hire a candidate with your skills – consider those questions and develop supporting documentation around them.

This approach will demonstrate not only your knowledge of what the company needs but also your ability to realistically meet those needs.

Request a few LinkedIn recommendations.
Before you apply, ask a few key people to write a LinkedIn recommendation for you, and don’t be afraid to be specific: Tell the person precisely what you’d love showcased and offer specific examples. By having a few recommendations, recruiters and employers alike can gain insightful information about your performance and abilities just from a quick glance.

Losers and Winners: High Minimum Wages

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From minimum wage to salaries, compensation for employees is a never-ending topic for business owners to research, discuss and work through. With a rise in the conversation of wages in recent years, including law changes to minimum wage rates, there’s a lot of confusion left for sorting through when it comes to cutting a paycheck.

Let’s set the groundwork for why the minimum wage battle has both business owners and employees uptight.

As a whole, the goal of any minimum wage increases can be seen as both good and bad. When you stop and consider the goal, minimum wage increases are set to help reduce income inequality and to increase the earning of middle-class households.

On the flip side, if your goal for an increase in wages is to help the least experienced and most needy job seekers find their place in the workforce, then the minimum wage increase can truly hurt them and your business.

Recall the 2014 analysis of the effects of increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour from $7.25, where it has been since 2009. It was found that the boost would increase the earnings of millions of workers by a total of $31 billion. It also found that the increase would reduce employment by hundreds of thousands of jobs, and that less than one dollar in every five of that $31 billion would go to households living in poverty.

So, what is the lesser of two evils? Higher pay for employees, or less employees in the workforce?

Following the federal wage increases, individual cities and states have stepped up to raise those minimum standards even greater. Take Seattle for example, the Seattle city council voted in June 2014 to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour over a period of a few years. Seattle’s minimum wage hit $13 last year (on its way to $15), and the consequences aren’t pretty.

A team of researchers at the University of Washington found that the number of low-wage jobs in Seattle declined considerably as a consequence of the $13 per hour mandate. They also found that the number of hours worked by low-wage labor declined by 9 percent, while wages increased by only 3 percent. Since hours went down more than wages went up, the net result is that the amount of money earned by low-wage workers actually fell.

So, what’s the workforce and business owners supposed to do about the good, the bad and the honest stats from minimum wage increases?

We’d propose one thing: there may not be a perfect blanket solution for all employees in every industry and in every city across the United States. Perhaps it’s more of a city by city or industry by industry standard which should be set.

We want to hear your feedback. What ways has the change of wage requirements affected your business or career search? Are you running an establishment on less employees but paying more?

When Is It Time to Promote?

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When is it time to promote an employee? That question could cost you a lot… a lot of time, money and energy. The reality is, not every employee wants to be promoted, even if you can see their leadership skills developing. Plus, for the ones that want to move on up, there’s no sure path to working with hourly employees to develop their leadership skills and get them to the place you’d feel comfortable offering up a promotion.

Staffing is one of the biggest challenges a business owner overcomes. There’s a lot of juggling between interviewing, training and maintaining employees. The stats are in favor of promoting current employees when hiring managers with exceptional characteristics and work ethic.

The less time as a business owner you may have to spend seeking out new management, the more time you’ve got to begin hiring and training hourly employees to grow with your business.

So, what does it take for an hourly employee to look and act ready for a promotion into management?

They’re self-managed.

There’s a lot to say about an employee who arrives on time, takes care of business and is always solving problems for themselves in a professional manor. From the get go, it’s usually easy to see what standout individuals are a part of your team.

They lead in a way they’d want to be led.

Among the restaurant industry, there can be a lot of personalities which sometimes result in some unpleasant moments in the back of house. An employee ready to manage carries themselves in the way they’d want their own manager to handle conflict and works to keep themselves clear of causing personal conflict. Whether it’s getting along with every employee or you use her or him as an example of patience, performance and productivity – employees working towards promotion lead by example.

They invest their time with quality employees greater than themselves to learn.

It’s been said that you are the cumulative sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Outstanding team members tend to hang with people who they can learn from and look up to.

They set goals and achieve them.

Leaders set goals and develop a roadmap to accomplish them. And when they need help to accomplish their goals? They ask! Look at your timecards… who is putting in the hours during the busy days and during the times it is somewhat inconvenient to work, whether that be holidays or evening. The best future manager you can hire is the one who puts in the time today.

Working to identify and continue developing leaders within your staff who can grow with you and become a manager is one of the most stressful yet rewarding roles of owning a restaurant.

What’s been the top way you’ve been able to identify todays leaders that will be tomorrows managers?