As I write this article, companies such as Technomic are reporting the average restaurant in North America is experiencing a 17-per-cent labour shortage. To round up every restaurant, this means every shift is short two out of 10 people. As we transition into the fall season, most restaurants prioritize full staffing for the front of house (FOH), meaning many back-of-house (BOH) operations are missing three to four out of 10 people every shift.
If you’re a restaurateur, I know you’re aware of this challenge as you’re experiencing it every day. The fact is, most restaurants have been experiencing this since re-opening during the pandemic and are getting increasingly frustrated with their inability to fix the problem. In my experience, we can make tweaks to our hiring process that will help attract people to your operation, however, what will fix this challenge is making the changes that need to be made to improve retention. The pandemic did not create this problem; it simply worsened a pre-existing retention challenge in our industry. I can tell you from coaching the top 10 per cent of hospitality operations for the last 15 years — the only way to make a change in your management and staffing retention is to make changes to how you lead, build trust and consistently communicate with your people.
Commitment to communication
Throughout the pandemic, I’ve received dozens of calls from leaders and managers looking to leave their current restaurant or restaurant group. The number-1 reason they were looking to leave is they felt the senior leaders of the company stopped communicating with them and they could no longer see where they fit in the plans for the company.
When people don’t know where they fit in their current tribe, it causes fear, lack of trust and drives their need to find somewhere they feel they belong. The way to build trust is to ensure you communicate the following with the team consistently and relentlessly: the vision for the company; the vision for the team; and how your leaders, managers and staff are needed and contribute to achieving the overall vision and goals.
Recognize, celebrate, reward
The last couple of years have felt like crashing waves of challenge, stress and strain for many in the industry. At this point, many felt we would be rebounding and improving, but the fact is it’s just as challenging now as it was at the peak of the pandemic. One of the ways to change how your team feels is to change what it focuses on. Where focus goes, energy flows — if you’re focused on the negative or the gap between where you are and where you want to be, then that will weigh heavy on you and your team. I’m not asking you to ignore the challenges we’re facing. As leaders we have the opportunity to help our team tweak or change what they focus on by building a recognition-focused culture. Simply put, positive recognition can change your culture in a matter of days if done consistently and in a genuine way. I recommend having someone on your team be responsible and own recognition practices to ensure the team stays committed and focused. They need to answer the following questions: who will be recognized for what, when and how and what is the budget? Then they need to track recognition interactions and ensure the budget, no matter how big or small, is spent every week/month.
Path to leadership
In the interview process — or at the very least in an employee’s first week working for your restaurant — they need to know what is expected of them, how they will be measured, how they succeed and what the average amount of time in each position is. Creating clarity and expectations for new employees is critical to retain top-performing staff.
Here is the flip side of the coin and the real benefit to a path to leadership: It not only ensures that new and existing hires know how they can learn, develop and grow in your organization, it also ensures your leaders and managers are committed to the development of your people. Once you share your path to leadership, it becomes a commitment that should be part of a simple and powerful frequent conversation with your staff.
First who, then what
Nothing kills company culture and the retention of great employees more than holding onto employees that no longer fit the team. Most of us in our careers have held onto a team member when we know they no longer fit the team or in many cases do not want to be on the team any longer. This is what I call the ‘quit and stay.’ They might be doing a good job, but they play by their own rules, or they are no longer doing the job in a way that meets your expectations, but you hold onto them out of fear of not being able to find a replacement.
The challenge is not your relationship with that employee, it’s how the rest of your team views your ability to make the decisions and changes that need to be made. Not making these changes causes top-performing employees to lose trust in their leadership. I know it’s hard, but especially now, we need to focus on the right people in the right position who believe in our vision and goals.
Together, one team
This is a core value for my two companies — a simple statement that ensures we all stay focused on our collective results as a team. If silos start to rise up across departments, between leaders or for a current project, we need to ground ourselves by re-visiting and discussing that we are all on the same team. No matter the position, or the title, we cannot achieve the results we want and deserve if we don’t do these two things: play our positions to the best of our ability every day and stay focused on the collective results we’re achieving as a team
In order for your retention results to change, we first need to make changes in our leadership. You don’t need to do all the steps above — focus on one area, go all in and make the changes needed. If nothing changes, nothing changes and change starts with your leadership team making the commitment to consistent and relentless change that helps your team, your guests and your operation.
Matt Rolfe is a coach, speaker, bestselling author and entrepreneur. For support or more leadership insights, email [email protected]
