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How to Attract and Retain Top Talent in the Hospitality Industry

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Setting table at a restaurant

Excellent customer service and a high standard of professionalism are requirements in the fast-paced, dynamic hospitality sector. Although it can be difficult to find and keep excellent personnel in the hospitality sector, doing so is crucial for any company to succeed. Here are six excellent guidelines to remember when looking to hire.

1. Develop a deep understanding of the hospitality industry 

To be successful in hospitality recruitment, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the industry, its trends, and its unique challenges. Invest in ongoing training and development to stay up-to-date on the latest industry developments.

2. Build a strong network

Building a strong network of industry contacts is essential for hospitality recruitment firms. Attend industry conferences and events, participate in online forums, and cultivate relationships with industry professionals.

3. Use data to drive decision-making

Data can be a powerful tool for hospitality recruitment firms. Use data to track industry trends, identify skill gaps, and measure the effectiveness of recruitment strategies.

4. Emphasize quality over quantity

In hospitality recruitment, it is essential to emphasize quality over quantity. Focus on finding the right candidates who have the skills, experience, and cultural fit needed to succeed in the industry.

5. Provide exceptional customer service

Customer service is key in hospitality recruitment. Provide exceptional service to both clients and candidates, and build a reputation as a trusted partner in the industry.

6. Leverage technology

Technology can be a powerful tool for attracting and retaining top talent in the hospitality industry. Use technology to streamline recruitment and hiring processes. Consider offering online training and development opportunities, and always provide real-time feedback and recognition.

#1 Tip to Encourage Innovation in Your Restaurant

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Chef holding a plate of food

Chef Christ Kimura from Lee Kum Kee (Hong Kong-based company specializing in Chinese and Asian sauces) says, “. . . innovation is one part creative, one part operational,”  To sustain your restaurant, the dishes have to have interest or connect with the customers, AND it has to be executed consistently.  The solution?  Rethink pantry staples.  Finding simple ways where one ingredient can be added to create a signature sauce or dish solves many challenges.  First, it reduces the ingredients a chef needs to order.  In addition it simplifies prep and streamlines the cooking process.  Implementing this simple solution goes along with the already shrinking menus and the financial need to purchase fewer ingredients.

Food costs are continuing to rise.  Whether it be supply chain challenges or inflation, everyone is feeling the effects.  As an individual, this affects your wallet and as a restaurant, you feel those effects with less foot traffic.  People are having to stretch their budgets, and often that means decreasing restaurant visits each month.  Mix this with the continual struggle to find hourly staff and the weight to keep the doors open is almost unbearable.  

Today’s chefs are constantly interrupted and their time is split in the kitchen and other day-to-day tasks.  Focusing on both innovation and execution is a challenge. However, a huge part of being a chef is creativity.  Being able to play in the kitchen and create new recipes is a vital part of the job.  And equally important, it keeps patrons returning.  So, how is a chef to innovate new recipes that attract customers while protecting the bottom line?

Take a look at your menu and find areas where you are using ingredients for only one dish.  Remove or tweak those recipes so that the ingredients are used all over the menu.  The fun part?  If done well, your patrons will never know that the star of your appetizer is also used in your signature dressing.

Maybe innovation is just one ingredient away?!

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.

PCH: 3 Tips for Restaurant Employee Retention

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Chef holding a plate of food

Turnover in the restaurant industry is notoriously high, but has recently escalated.  And increasing compensation is no longer enough to retain employees.  Burnout, long and unpredictable hours, lack of benefits are driving top talent out of the industry.  Quick fixes have become the norm; sign-on bonuses, increased wages, etc.  But none are proving effective at bridging the labor gap.  As the restaurant industry continues to shift, it’s time to take an in-depth look into your retention strategy.  How do you measure up in these three categories? Maybe it’s time to rethink your current strategies.

1. Tools & Technology

    Technology is too often connected with desk-based jobs.  More and more digital tools are becoming vital for frontline workers.  Yet, it seems such a small percentage of workers are equipped to effectively utilize the technology.  Mix that with outdated training modules and you have a recipe for high turnover.  Help mitigate burnout and boost operational efficiency by offering tools and technologies that set your restaurant employees up for success.  A digital workspace platform will allow for real-time communication and digital training modules.  It will also provide a place for employees to easily fetch information to complete day-to-day tasks.

    2. Hiring Strategies

      Do you seek external hires when looking to fill positions?  A more cost effective and easier way to hire is internally.  The perfect hire might be right in front of you!  You already know the potential candidate and they already know the business standards.  Avoid starting from scratch and seek the ideal candidate from within.  Businesses with internal mobility have employees that are more likely to remain with the company longer.  Consider offering training to those employees interested.  Career advancement opportunities are enticing to both internal and external hires.

      3. Employee Benefits

        Workers desire flexibility, an engaging work environment, and respect.  If all you are offering as an employer is higher wages, then you are missing the mark.  Flexibility is essential in our post COVID-19 world, but is difficult to offer when restaurant jobs require workers to be on-site.  So you have to be creative in your approach.  Consider using a digital workspace for scheduling so that employees can pick up extra shifts.  This gives workers control over their economic well being.  You can also offer a standardized digital training that can be completed outside of a scheduled training time.  Offering more flexibility for employees will make your company more appealing from the start and will entice long-term employees to stay.

        Training With Your New Hire in Mind

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        training

        It is no surprise that the key to retaining younger employees is quality training.  But what may surprise you is what training is most effective for millennials and Gen-Z.  With the National Restaurant Association’s “State of the Industry Report 2022” revealing that 78 percent of operators report not having a fully-staffed restaurant, it is imperative that your newest hire is one that stays.  Gone are the days of 100-page employee handbooks.  But where do we find the time to complete in-person training?  And with quick turnover and uncertain staffing, how do we avoid inconsistent training? 

        Here are 3 quick tips to help successfully onboard your newest, and youngest employees.

        •  Keep Lessons Short

        In an ideal world, employees would enter training with laser focus, soaking up hours of information without pause.  However, the average adult attention span is approximately 20 minutes.  Keeping this in mind, course duration for any type of training would be most effective if kept shorter in length and specific in topic.  This will help your new hire avoid feeling overwhelmed.  Consider pinpointing current employees to train new hires in specific areas.  This will keep training consistent and will give managers the ability to see areas of training that need improvement.     

        • Blend Digital and In-Person Training

        Many businesses are looking toward learning management systems (LMS) to solve their training woes.  These systems digitize 100 percent of training and claim to eliminate the need for in-person training.  The problem is that digital systems do not do a good job of simulating the realities of frontline work.  In-person, practical training is necessary and should be embraced.  Creating a blended learning method, you can offer engaging on-the-job training while moving necessary, yet simpler skills training to a flexible digital training platform.

        • Offer Translations in Preferred Languages

        Many digital platforms offer users the option to select a  “preferred language”.  Sites such as YouTube have a few simple steps to make the selection.  However, this is not yet the case with digital training videos.  Being able to offer your new hires learning in their preferred language will aid them in their education and absorption of your systems.  If a new hire knows how to perform confidently then they will feel like valued, productive employees.

        3 Ways to Save Your Business Amid the Great Resignation

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        restaurant worker

        Have you found yourself a victim of the latest round of resignations?  It has been an uphill battle for businesses both large and small.  No company seems to be exempt from the “great resignation.”  When you started your company or took a promotion to manager you may have envisioned an environment where you would establish roots, build a career.  But having a revolving door of employees and customers has made it challenging to keep things afloat.  So how can restaurant operators protect their business amid the great resignation?  It starts by pinpointing problem areas. 

        Here are three areas where things often go unchecked.

        1. Repetitive Tasks

        Recent research by Zenput found that, on average, daily operational and safety tasks in restaurants, supermarkets, and convenience stores take anywhere from 11–14 minutes each to complete.  With tasks like cleaning being performed multiple times a day, the time adds up quickly.  Before you know it 7-9 hours a day are consumed with repetitive tasks.  And unfortunately, many operators are less than confident these tasks are being completed correctly, or on time.  Identify the tasks that are repetitive, mundane and take the energy out of your employees.  These tasks that are tedious and manual could possibly be done faster, more efficiently, or even eliminated.  Consider streamlining or automating these tasks.  Your employees will thank you for making their job easier and you will accomplish more with fewer people and less effort.

        1. Productivity Tools

        It is vital to identify error-prone tasks.  These are often tasks completed with pen and paper.  Short-staffed or not, teams still have to maintain operations at the same quality of standards.  Consider providing your team the ability to be as productive as possible.  Consider integrating tools and apps to ease the workflow.   By having your employees use digital tools and apps to complete pen and paper tasks you can reduce the possibility of burnout while keeping operations running smoothly.  And at the same time, you are attracting a new generation of employees, who as digital natives will seamlessly ease into their new role.

        1. Customer Satisfaction

        In an industry that is all about service, customer satisfaction must be factored into the equation.  When talking about doing more with less you need to start by asking: what tasks get set aside when the staff get busy?  It is important to know if tasks get delayed, not performed properly, or ignored completely.  Gain visibility into the operations of your business; get your hands dirty. Or maybe schedule a meeting with your boss; make known the tasks that are inhibiting the effectiveness of your job, and ultimately their business.  The goal is to focus on higher-value work, like interacting with customers. By understanding what services are suffering, you will more frequently meet or even surpass customer satisfaction.  You will be able to keep consistency within the service which will aid your employees and bring customers back through the doors time and time again.

        The Time Between an Accepted Job Offer & the First Day: A Guide to Success

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        What does your pre-employment onboarding process look like these days?  You desire your new employees to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors in order to become effective organizational members and insiders.  But how effective are your current practices? 

        As the competition continues to heat up for employers, pre-employment onboarding is more important than ever.  Niki Jorgensen, a Forbes Councils Member, says “The time period between an accepted employment offer and the first day on the job is not only critical to extending the company culture, but also in helping to ensure new hires remain with the company for the formal onboarding process and beyond.” 

        Building and maintaining your successful company begins with effective recruitment practices.  Avoid being ghosted by a top candidate and consider revamping these four areas of your pre-onboarding process: support of key personnel, the welcome, communication, and expectations.

        Start by looking into your support of key personnel.  This is where the onboarding process actually begins.  Who are the people that play an integral role in remaining connected to new hires before the formal program begins?  For you, this might be a hiring manager, recruiter, or even direct supervisor.  Consider providing your key personnel with communication templates that can be personalized.  This will result in consistent messaging that supports the culture and strengthens your brand.

        Second, make a fantastic first impression and offer a friendly welcome.  You can establish an inviting environment for your new employees which sets the tone for positive company culture.  Consider creating a personalized welcome video that will make new hires feel appreciated and part of the team.  If possible, feature future co-workers in onboarding videos.  This will help new hires put faces with names before day one.  

        Next, identify and implement a process for ongoing communication to remain in contact with new hires.  If you can continue communication with a candidate after a job is accepted, this will help to alleviate any doubts and enable them to feel a more immediate connection to the company.  Try a brief weekly phone call or e-mail.  You can share new information as well as ask additional questions.

        Finally, set and communicate expectations.  Let your new hire know exactly what to expect the first week.  Consider sharing a clear, written agenda, including introductions to key personnel and team members, required training sessions, completion of online forms, etc. This may all seem routine for you.  However, you can use your knowledge to set your new hire up for success.  Providing an organized schedule of events in advance not only helps new employees, but also results in more engaged new hires.  And that will lead to less employee turnover.

        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