At this time last year, it would have been unthinkable: During the first three quarters of 2021, sales for DoorDash and Uber Eats have plateaued, after a steady rise in 2000. To be sure, off-premise solutions are still needed and not going anywhere – particularly after the lockdowns made restaurant takeout and delivery the only means of getting restaurant food. But even as consumers have been enjoying a gradual return to in-restaurant dining this year, the stagnation in sales for third-party delivery providers does demonstrate the need for restaurant operators to be nimble in response to fluctuating demand from different sources. When you are faced with changing conditions – be it the weather, supply hiccups, foot traffic outside your storefront or something else – how quickly can you adapt? Lean on forecasting tools and information on historic sales to schedule staff and predict traffic, along with a Kitchen Display System that can help you streamline and prioritize orders from different streams. On the lower-tech side, consider approaches including cross-training staff in a range of tasks and using more speed-scratch ingredients in the kitchen in order to free up staff to take on different tasks as demand requires.

Are you using old-school techniques to attract potential hires? Like so much else in the industry right now, tech tools can help you reach the right people. If you’re already harnessing data to target your best customers and predict what they will want to buy, you can use the same approach to find staff.  A recent report from QSR Magazine suggests taking the profile data of your best staff and setting out to find others with similar characteristics by creating “look-alike audiences.” Is there anything you are doing to attract and retain customers that can be adapted to potential employees? 

​Restaurant work, reinvented
As with so many other aspects of the restaurant business throughout the course of the pandemic, restaurant work is experiencing a period of reinvention – and it’s not all about raising wages. At its heart is the need to manage the work involved in the business so restaurants can offer meaningful roles and flexibly respond to turnover. A recent New York Times report describes how at a number of restaurants around the country, the kitchen hierarchy is being scrapped in favor of a more egalitarian system. This is playing out in a range of ways: At some restaurants, long-time employees are being given profit-sharing opportunities or even a stake in ownership so they have more incentive to commit to the business and help it thrive. At others, responsibilities are being shared more evenly, with employees being cross-trained in functions ranging from events to finance to food preparation – and being given opportunities to contribute ideas regardless of their rank. These steps – which many restaurants took during the pandemic in an effort to survive – are actually good long-term strategies that may make it easier for these businesses to roll with the challenges that come. This will make restaurant teams look different in the future – a smaller crew of higher-skilled employees who can recreate a recipe, manage incoming orders, interact with guests and make financially sound decisions, vs. a larger, more hierarchical team with different skillsets. By elevating the skills of its team, a restaurant can spread its risk more thinly – it won’t buckle if one employee leaves (though employees with meaningful roles are less likely to leave in the first place). Looking at your current staffing approach across your business, have you reverted to pre-pandemic approaches that need to be refreshed? Are there any roles that could be recast for improved post-pandemic resilience?

​In recent months, the Covid vaccine has become political – and therefore a heated topic of conversation. Across the country, a restaurant’s (or a municipality’s) decision to mandate vaccines for employees and/or guests has resulted in some unpleasant confrontations – between operators and employees and between guests and employees – and all at a time when restaurants are already struggling to attract and retain staff. While some of these confrontations have been difficult to avoid, a restaurant can decrease the likelihood of conflict by taking steps to communicate clearly, and in advance, with employees about vaccine mandates. A recent report from Human Resource Executive provides some tips. It’s most critical to get out in front of the mandate by discussing it with employees, listening to their concerns and providing them with ample lead time to act. If people are resisting, understand their concerns and personalize your communications around them – they may need to hear the message from someone they can more easily relate to. Also appreciate that an employee may have a valid reason to not get a vaccine, so speak to your legal advisor about how to frame communication about that with staff. In advance of a mandate, determine the consequences of not complying – this goes for employees as well as guests – and find gentle ways to communicate about it. Again here, it helps to get out in front of the mandate and avoid surprising a person with a consequence wherever possible. Finally, while President Biden’s rule about vaccine mandates has made this a more urgent topic of conversation at restaurants, try to keep your conversations with employees politically neutral and focused on the well-being of your team, business and the industry overall.

Is it finally time for big changes when it comes to restaurant pay? After years of restaurants testing the waters with no-tipping policies and, in many parts of the country, having to adapt to new minimum-wage requirements, the pandemic (and the unruly diners it has brought with it) may be providing an industry-wide time of reckoning. Many operators are finding that making adjustments to the compensation they offer – whether through their hourly wage, tipping policy, or health benefits – has become a must at a time when the industry is losing workers to other professions. The operators who have found ways to make it work are reporting some early success: According to a recent New York Times report, operators who have changed their compensation structure to ensure a steady living wage – or even simply offering other quality-of-life benefits like flexible schedules, lower health premiums and student debt-reduction programs in its place – are attracting staff. Providing income and scheduling stability stands to help restaurants retain their staff too (and minimize the high costs of employee turnover). Of course, it takes a strong business model to make it work financially, and operators are making such money-saving moves as streamlining menus and adding a service fee to checks to make that possible. As you consider your operation’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to employee compensation, where are there opportunities for you to improve your staff’s quality of life in meaningful ways? If raising wages isn’t an option, are there ways for you to make your existing positions a better long-term fit with your staff’s personal lives – and minimize your turnover costs in the process?

The restaurant industry is still trying to climb its way back to pre-pandemic employment levels. According to research from the National Restaurant Association, the industry is still about one million jobs shy of the 12.3 million jobs it offered before Covid-19 hit. Throughout the pandemic, many news stories have said the high rate of restaurant employee turnover was due to staffers’ unemployment benefits surpassing their restaurant earnings. But according to a recent report from Restaurant Dive, the reality is more complicated than that, and a combination of factors are responsible for escalating employee turnover: Among them are a shift of workers into other professions, a shortage of people with cooking skills and increasing reports of abuse on the job. But there are steps restaurant operators can take to help mitigate some of those problems at their own businesses. Restaurant Dive suggests adopting tech tools like on-demand pay apps, which tend to offer more flexibility on pay schedules. Further, it advises operators to be clear in job postings about wages, schedules, benefits, room for advancement, and incentives such as employee referral bonuses. Overall, put yourself in the shoes of a potential employee, who wants to work in a safe environment, understand their responsibilities on the job, be paid on time for shifts completed, and be granted some flexibility if and when their personal lives require it.

​The pandemic has been a time of reckoning for restaurant employees – and, since labor is scarce, also a time of empowerment. Bit by bit across the country, more restaurant workers are taking steps to unionize, whether in an effort to improve the current working environment at their restaurant or to normalize and spread the employee-friendly culture they already experience at their restaurant. It’s a trend that industry analysts expect to continue. In the U.S., just 1.2 percent of the estimated 11.9 million people working in restaurants and foodservice belongs to a union, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That makes the industry one of the least unionized of any employment sector, despite its reputation – fairly or unfairly – for instability, low benefits and pay, and abuse from managers and guests. Many new efforts at unionization, such as those at Pavement Cooffeehouse in Boston, have been employee-led. In other cases, restaurant operators are going so far as to encourage the unionization of their business at the outset. In Rochester, N.Y., Meghesh Pansari, the owner of the Indian restaurant Nani’s Kitchen, encouraged his employees’ decision to unionize – perhaps because his restaurant already has an employee-friendly culture that he would like to serve as a model for other operators. Workers there share tips, make $15 an hour, get a week of paid sick leave annually, and the company covers half of the monthly payment for the health care package it offers full-time workers through the Healthy New York EPO plan, according to the Rochester City Newspaper. One shift leader said, “We had to unionize at Nani’s because we already had very good conditions, and we think that it’s important to kind of try to start pushing this and encouraging other restaurants to unionize.”

At a time when restaurant operators are scrambling to find staff like never before – and perhaps lowering standards to do so – Chipotle managed to attract nearly 24,000 applicants through an online job fair recently. This occurred a week after the brand announced it was raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour. It’s no coincidence: Restaurant workers are demanding greater financial stability. While not every restaurant has the resources to raise hourly wages, it’s still a good time to scrutinize labor expenses and address weak points. Even before the pandemic, the turnover rate in the hospitality sector was higher than the turnover rate in nearly all other sectors. According to The Restaurant Technology Guys even an $8-per-hour employee can end up costing a company around $3500 in direct and indirect turnover costs. The more you invest in recruiting and retention up front can minimize your costs in recovering after an employee leaves. Even if you’re unable to raise wages, taking steps to prevent payment inaccuracies and ensure employees can access their wages and tips right away can boost morale and retention.  Restaurant Dive report says, 31 percent of financially insecure workers have quit a job because of a lack of financial wellness. On the flip side, more financially stable employees (87 percent) are likely to remain in their job in the next year, as opposed to workers who are financially unstable (58 percent). Every little thing you can do to promote financial stability can help you keep the people you hire.

At a time when labor challenges are at an all-time high in the restaurant industry, a number of brands are taking a look at the experience of restaurant work and improving the aspects that need help. One of the areas moving to the forefront right now is employees’ mental health, which has been hit hard during the pandemic. Historically, the restaurant industry has not been known for its focus on employees’ mental health needs – and to be sure, mental health has been a growing concern for employers across industries during the pandemic – but now a number of restaurant brands are trying to change that as a means of attracting and retaining staff. Last fall, Noodles & Company added free in-person and online counseling sessions to its benefits plan. In May, Chipotle, which already offers in-person, phone or virtual visits with a licensed counselor for employees and their families, announced it was also bolstering its support of mental health via a new virtual platform called Strive. A Restaurant Business report says the Strive platform provides one-on-one coaching and support, and according to Chipotle, “gamifies each employee’s wellness experience” by giving them an opportunity to win gift cards and save money on health insurance, among other benefits. While such benefits aren’t widespread across the industry, they may gain momentum as restaurants vie for staff and need to think of creative ways to enhance the working environment for employees. Further, mental health benefits aren’t the only ways restaurants can improve upon a culture that needs a boost. As this Restaurant Dive report indicates, restaurants that have simply communicated clearly and considered employees’ home situations and financial concerns throughout the pandemic have had an easier time retaining people.

Even before the pandemic, labor recruitment and retention was a major challenge for restaurant operators. Now that we’re in a position where business is suddenly ramping back up and all restaurants are looking for staff at once, that challenge has ballooned. It’s causing operators to create new talent pipelines, rethink roles and find ways to automate more tasks. Along those lines, the fast-casual chicken chain PDQ is expanding upon its relationship with Best Buddies International, a nonprofit organization that seeks to create opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the chain has set a goal of hiring at least one person from the organization to each of its 45 locations in Florida. Wage increases aren’t feasible for all restaurants, but some brands are trying that too, in addition to taking steps to recast restaurant jobs as careers: Chipotle, for one, is raising its hourly wage to $15 and also creating a new career path for aspiring restaurateurs that allows managers to earn salaries of $100,000 in as little as three and a half years. Finally, operators are assessing ways to speed up or automate tasks so they are less reliant on labor fluctuations. Robin Gagnon, co-founder of We Sell Restaurants, told Modern Restaurant Management that robotics are being tested at every position at a restaurant, ranging from cooks to table service, and that we’ll see more ordering via app and kiosk now that consumers have grown accustomed to it. In the kitchen, Gagnon predicts that more concepts will look to get food out more efficiently by preparing items in advance and assembling them rather than offering full service.