Ultimate Guide To Solve All Your Restaurant Staff Issues

1. Recruitment

Hiring the ideal employees for your restaurant is one of the prime restaurant staff issues. Since you invest heavy time and resources into your staff once you hire them, you must employ them suitably the first time. When hiring a team for your restaurant, you must have clarity about your job description. The first step is to create a well-defined job description with clearly laid out roles and responsibilities. Once you have the job description, you can put the word out for the job roles.

i. Hiring Process

The challenging part of the restaurateurs’ entire process is conducting the interviews and selecting the perfect fit. During the interview, you need to look for soft skills, communication skills, and prior experience in customer service, especially for front-end jobs. While hiring your kitchen staff, look for teamwork and leadership qualities.

ii. Training

To effectively deal with all restaurant staff issues, it is crucial to set definite rules and policies. The rules and procedures include health & safety regulations, workplace harassment policy, leave, bonus and increment policies, etc. Furthermore, designing a training program for your staff that guides them about their roles and responsibilities can help them fit into their jobs better. 

Another helpful practice you can implement is employee cross-training. Cross-training means that all your staff members are comfortable and competent to perform all and every task in the restaurant. So in case one of your employees is on leave or quits, the other team members can perform the job without any difficulties.

2. Work Hours and Work Style

Once the staff has been recruited and trained, the next step is to set a safe and motivating work environment where employees can work to the best of their capabilities. Restaurant staff issues arise out of poor work culture, long working hours, poor training, and lack of team bonding, amongst other things.

i. Working Hours

Employees working long shifts may exhaust themselves; as a result, either they will start to work at half their capacity or leave the job. It is vital to ensure that your staff doesn’t over-exhaust themselves. It is also recommended to consider their needs and involve them in the process when you make the schedule. An irregular staff schedule will result in under-utilization of their performance and be detrimental to your business.

ii. Work Culture

A happy team is more efficient. The restaurant business is a demanding, high-pressure work zone for your staff. Poor work culture will deteriorate your employee’s capacity and lead to more restaurant staff issues. To ensure a warm work culture, you need to create an open environment where employees can freely share their concerns and feedback with you. Another tiny yet effective step is providing regular meals to your staff at the end of the day. It may look small but can act as a big morale booster for your employees.

A healthy relationship between the staff and management can bring a sense of belonging to them and make them feel respected. To further improve relationships amongst your team and with control, you can after-work gatherings and internal events.

3. Staff Motivation

Employees quitting their jobs fast is another major issue that restaurants face. It is fruitful to offer them incentives, benefits, and support to hold onto your staff and the staff’s motivation for the job. Offering benefits and incentives shows your team that you value them as individuals.

i. Incentives and Benefits

Employee benefits and incentives can also increase your staff’s productivity as they will feel secure and stable in their jobs. Benefits include life & health insurance, year-end bonuses, and paid time-offs. Extend insurance to your staff’s family to further assure your team. The internal manual can mention all these benefits and incentives to create complete transparency.

ii. Automation

Restaurant automation work minimizes human labor and eases the workload of your employees. Automated processes can save the staff’s efforts ad time. Therefore, investing in a good POS system restaurant to manage billing, inventory, and online ordering can do wonders for your restaurant. Ultimate Guide To Solve All Your Restaurant Staff Issues