Just like your customer retention strategies, you need employee retention strategies that enable you to keep your valuable staff and attract the ones that best fit your working conditions and vision.

You’d think that the hardest job is to find the right staff and we all agree it is especially in the restaurant sector where the turnover rate might be as high as 80% and even more during a stable and prosperous economic environment where job opportunities almost multiply and young employees haunt better opportunities where they can build their career.

Why should employee retention be a top priority?

Do you care enough about your business growth?

If yes, then you should formulate an employee retention plan because keeping the same good employees and retaining them is simply for your benefit.

Having to advertise, interview, hire and train employees constantly is so expensive and it portrays you as the restaurant that cannot keep its employees either because you don’t pay them well or your environment is not a healthy likable one that attracts a good caliber.

Do you want to be perceived as this kind of employer?

I don’t think so!

Besides this, your experienced staff who has spent years at your restaurant is better at serving your guests and knowing their preferences, and offering consistent service. The familiar faces of your long-existing employees bring happiness and comfort to your guests.

Your existing employees become more familiar with work processes and can occupy multiple positions when needed, especially in times of shortage.

The labor shortage is a problem hitting many industries but particularly restaurants that already suffer from high turnover rates due to many reasons and a majority of restaurant operators are expecting this shortage to continue through 2023 despite the growth of the workforce in the restaurant sector that occurred after the end of pandemic and more specifically in 2022.

So, what you need to do is retention strategy that decreases the turnover rate.

What are the employee retention strategies you need to apply to decrease labor turnover?

Investigate data from the POS

The data you get from the POS can help you retain your employees. The information you get about sales helps you with staffing and scheduling so you don’t overload your employees. Get data about daily sales, your peak times during the day and the busiest days of the month in addition to the number of customers served during shifts so you can estimate how many employees you need during the shift according to your sales and your forecasts.

If you do so, you avoid understaffing and overloading your employees and at the same time, you are protecting yourself from staffing shifts with more employees than you need.

Pay attention to employee burnout

Paying attention to employee burnout is essential so you don’t lose them. Job burnout is defined as work-related stress which is a physical or emotional exhaustion that involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and personal identity.

There are several reasons for work burnout such as long hours, lack of control over their job, poor communication between management and employees, and being undervalued by their employer if WHO recognized it as occupational phenomenal then you should be concerned about not burning out your employees.

Why should you worry about employee burnout as a restaurateur?

• Decreased productivity
• Higher job turnover
• Negative health impacts such as headache and dizziness
• Frequent absenteeism
• Low employee engagement

A 2013 study found that burnout and stress negatively impacted performance and there is a negative correlation between burnout and productivity.

What you need to do is look out for signs of cynicism, irritability, mood swings, frequent absenteeism, and frequent physical issues such as digestive problems or headaches and investigate the reasons to fix things with your employees before you lose them and you get yourself into a costly replacement trip.

Keep a close eye on company culture

You might think that the reasons for employee turnover are restricted to wages and benefits but it’s much more complicated.  

Many employees have reported emotional abuse from their managers forcing them eventually to quit their jobs without even reporting the abuse incidents. Make sure you have a clear policy prohibiting these kinds of behaviors and clearly state all verbal and physical abuse forms including their consequences.

Collect feedback from your employees

Hearing your employees’ opinions about their job, training or any other job-related issue is very important. Meet with your staff once every quarter to collect data about their progress, identify ways of improvement, and set new goals with them.

At the time, give them your feedback, let them know their weaknesses and strengths, and equip them with means to overcome these weaknesses and progress.

Employee retention should be your biggest concern because it directly impacts your restaurant's performance, productivity, and therefore profits. Along with offering fair wages and tempting benefits, create a healthy environment and offer work-life balance to your employees.