Owning and managing a restaurant has always been a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. Restaurant managers must constantly adapt as the industry evolves and customer preferences change. Running a successful restaurant depends on a lot of different factors, such as hiring exceptional talent, training effective workers and managing inventory, kitchens and customer service staff on a daily basis. Recently, mounting labor shortages and ongoing pandemic concerns have created new challenges.
Luckily there are countless tips and tricks to help ease the burden and better equip restaurants to succeed. Many of them involve implementing efficiency-boosting technology, like digital platforms and updated restaurant POS systems. Additionally, restaurants must continue to prioritize health and safety guidelines as well as accessibility considerations in order to cater to all comfort levels.
At the end of the day, however, your team is your most valuable asset. This article explores numerous ways to better engage with and invest in your restaurant staff. Because there isn’t just one key attribute that makes a great restaurant—it’s the combination of great hiring techniques, training efforts and effective management.
Attracting and retaining top talent has always been crucial to a restaurant’s success. Just think about how much the dining experience can be influenced by the quality of the customer service your guests receive. Unfortunately, labor shortages continue to impact businesses across the U.S., making it especially difficult to fill open positions. Despite this, restaurateurs should still be discerning when hiring staff, as great customer service remains a key driver of repeat business.
Attracting and retaining top talent has always been crucial to a restaurant’s success. Just think about how much the dining experience can be influenced by the quality of the customer service your guests receive. Unfortunately, labor shortages continue to impact businesses across the U.S., making it especially difficult to fill open positions. Despite this, restaurateurs should still be discerning when hiring staff, as great customer service remains a key driver of repeat business.
What factors should restaurants consider when sourcing and managing talent? First, look for candidates who identify with your restaurant's brand. Given the current labor shortage, it can be tempting to fill positions with anyone who wants the job—but in an industry where customer service plays such a vital role, finding the right fit is critical.
Next, think about the employee experience. Giving your employees more responsibility allows them to develop a sense of ownership and commitment to the job. Prioritizing their safety shows them that you care. Consistently listening to and incorporating their feedback makes them feel valued and heard. Finally, nurturing an inclusive environment and offering specialized incentives for great performance creates staying power, helping your restaurant retain great talent for a long time. Here are some more helpful tips for attracting and keeping great restaurant talent.
Pandemic-induced safety concerns and the ongoing U.S. labor shortage have forced restaurants to consider new, creative ways to attract quality employees. Emphasizing staff safety in your job description is one way to draw candidates. Offering incentives, such as signing bonuses, is another. You might also want to consider simplifying your application process and eliminating any lengthy, unnecessary parts to keep the ball rolling once you’ve identified a good potential hire. Like real estate, the job market is hot right now. You’ll have to move quickly to lock in great talent.
You can also leverage social media to your advantage as a form of inexpensive advertising. Sharing posts of your restaurant staff having fun can help you build a reputation as a great place to work. And don’t forget to tap into your greatest resource—your existing team. Sometimes the simplest and most effective way to source great candidates is to ask your current employees for referrals. Implementing a robust referral program that rewards employees for new hires they bring onboard certainly helps.
Interested in learning more about attracting great talent to work at your restaurant? Read the full feature here.
The kitchen may be the heart of your restaurant, but your POS system is the soul. Long gone are the days when they were just simple order processors. Today’s POS systems have evolved into strategic hubs that serve as the central core for all business needs and activities of the modern restaurant. But there are three key main points to consider when choosing a POS.
Processing orders and payments tableside also enables more efficient customer turnover. With limited resources available, your restaurant might consider offsetting a lack of front-of-house employees by leveraging a contactless order and payment process. This puts the power in the hands of the customer and allows your existing team to cover more tables, which can be critical with limited staff.
If you’re hiring more people, investing in a universally known POS system with multiple training resources can streamline and simplify the onboarding process for new hires.
Discover more here on leveraging technology to help run your restaurant more efficiently.
As the pandemic persists, so do the ever-evolving challenges it has created. Restaurant owners and managers everywhere continue to grapple with staffing issues created by the labor shortage, health and safety concerns and economic insecurity felt by restaurant workers.
Investing in employees’ well-being to retain high-quality talent may be the solution you've been searching for. What does investing in well-being mean? It could involve open-book management, experimenting with the restaurant’s structure and increasing employee benefits. Leveraging an open-book management style shows your employees that you care about them and offers transparency into decisions being made by managers. This makes employees feel valued and helps generate long-term "staying power" for your restaurant staff. Take a closer look at how you can develop strategies to combat your staffing challenges.
Successful restaurant hiring starts with a great job description, so it’s worth it to put some effort into writing an effective one. Think about what exactly the position entails, what skills a candidate should have to be successful from day one, whether you require a certain level of education and how much you’re willing to compensate the employee (including non-monetary benefits). Clearly laying out these components of the job will provide clarity from the start, helping you narrow the candidate pool to those most likely to be successful in the role.
Your team is the face of your brand, and hiring exceptional restaurant staff opens up a world of possibility for your business. Read more tips on how you can take your hiring process to the next level.
One of the leading characteristics of a great restaurant today is exceptional customer service. Great service is about more than offering a smile and a friendly “hello” when patrons walk through the door—it's about curating a memorable dining experience. Prioritizing customer loyalty is a great place to start. This can be tricky, so it's important to continually gather and incorporate customer feedback in order to make sure you’re giving guests an experience that keeps them coming back.
Of course, there are many other reasons to consider tableside payments. They provide additional layers of safety and security—areas of great concern—for you and your customers. And since the credit cards never leave your customers’ possession, the chance of fraud or payment mistakes is drastically lower than when you have several servers running checks to the stationary POS system at the same time.
Brainstorm ways you can foster customer loyalty by attracting new patrons, like offering personalized perks based on the extensive customer data available to you through your restaurant POS system. Today, restaurants have so many great resources at their disposal to inform an exceptional customer experience—read more about delivering a superior customer service here.
The skills needed to excel as a restaurant server today are different from those that were needed two years ago. First and foremost, it's imperative that your servers are committed to providing exceptional customer service. Health and safety is also a priority for today’s restaurant diners, so good servers should be aware of COVID-19 safety guidelines and should work hard to comply with them when serving customers.
Being knowledgeable about the restaurant’s menu and handling pressure well are keys to success when it comes to waiting tables and creating a positive customer experience. Servers should also have a firm understanding of the restaurant's POS system in order to process orders and payments accurately and efficiently. Finally, having a positive attitude and being committed to working hard are perhaps the most important traits a restaurant server can bring to the job in 2022. Read more here.
It’s not always easy to keep your restaurant staff motivated and in it for the long haul, but we have a few suggestions you can implement to keep your team happy.
It starts with communication. Ask your employees what they love about working at your restaurant and what could be better. Don’t be afraid to enlist a staffing company to help source good managers—after all, they’ll be key to the success of your restaurant and your staff.
It may seem obvious, but paying your staff well and incorporating raises over time can definitely help reduce turnover. Streamlining tasks and taking non-essential duties off their plates is another way to keep them from leaving for greener pastures. Get more tips on how to reduce your risk of employee turnover.
Many employees have decided to leave the food service and hospitality industries for various reasons following the pandemic. But your restaurant can thrive despite this labor shortage by leveraging technology that makes your kitchen more efficient. When it comes to technology, having a good kitchen production system will let you load-balance your orders by routing them to underutilized food stations or showing which orders are takeout and delivery. Advanced restaurant software also lets you handle contactless delivery with a smaller worker footprint. Read more here.
Maintaining a high-performing team requires people who can help you deliver great experiences, keep operations running and complete set tasks and responsibilities efficiently. But having the right staff isn’t enough. You also need great management. Adding these four things to your management approach could help you build a positive, high-performing team.
Contactless payments have risen in popularity during the pandemic, making mobile and tableside technology more desirable than ever. Not only do mobile and tableside transactions serve as efficient payment methods for both customers and staff, but they also shorten the payment process and reduce congestion around your restaurant’s core POS. Additionally, they’re more resistant to fraud, as the payment methods never leave customers’ sight.
Contactless payments have risen in popularity during the pandemic, making mobile and tableside technology more desirable than ever. Not only do mobile and tableside transactions serve as efficient payment methods for both customers and staff, but they also shorten the payment process and reduce congestion around your restaurant’s core POS. Additionally, they’re more resistant to fraud, as the payment methods never leave customers’ sight.
Mobile and tableside technology is also incredibly adaptable. During the pandemic, restaurants were forced to scale back their menus due to food shortages and heightened customer demand. Many pivoted to contactless payment and curbside delivery—the perfect scenario to use mobile POS.
Above all, mobile POS can be more profitable for your restaurant. As any restaurateur knows, table turnover is an opportunity—the faster you can turn over a table and seat diners (while still providing a wonderful experience, of course), the more revenue your restaurant can generate. Read more about leveraging mobile POS in your staff’s hands to boost growth.
