How to Make Your Restaurant More Appealing to Better Employees

Nearly 13 million people work in the restaurant industry today. This makes up more than 10% of the American work force. Your city is full of potential good hires, but attracting and keeping the finest employees can be frustrating. Additionally, turnover is often high, affecting your bottom line.

In this article, you’ll find tips for making your restaurant more appealing to better employees. You’ll learn how to attract them and in turn keep them.

Make a Marketing Plan

Take a marketing approach to your recruitment and retention. (tweet this) Use some of the same tactics you use to attract and keep new customers. If you want the best employees, you’ll need to make your recruitment plan a weekly activity.

Keep your employee recruitment consistent and ongoing. Don’t wait until you need employees. Plan ahead for the best results. You don’t want to scramble at the last minute to find an employee and take a less-than-ideal option because you feel the pressure and have a time crunch. Hiring without a plan can result in a bad hiring decision.

Remember – you can also be proactive. Don’t wait for the best employees to come to you. Go after them yourself. Even if they say, “Not right now,” you have planted the thought, and perhaps they’ll be interested later.

Interview All the Time

You’ll want to develop the reputation that you are always looking for the best talent to compliment your already awesome staff. This keeps the door open for the best employees.

Plus, if your current staff knows you are always open to interviewing someone, they’ll be more likely to provide the referral.

Start an Employee Referral Plan

You’ve already shown you are open to interviewing. Make a conscious effort to involve your current employees in your search and referrals for new hires. Pay your employees to do your recruiting. Who understands your business better?

For example, your best waitress has a friend she knows would love working at your restaurant. She’ll be honest with the potential hire about the demands of the job, the hours, work environment, pay and management. Before the potential new employee even fills out the application, she knows what to expect at your restaurant. The recruiting has already been done for you, and you can trust your best employee with the solid referral.

The employee referral plans works full circle when you find a new employee and encourage loyalty in your current employee.

Participate in Local Internship Programs

Provide internships regularly to establish your restaurant as a key training ground for chefs and also management, marketing and business staff for your restaurant. If you have a local university or other school that offers training programs and actively seeks internship opportunities, make sure to participate in them. This lets you grab the best employees first and train them. You’ll have a ready-made workforce trained to your specifications.

Provide Career Information on Your Website

Today’s busy, hard-working applicants don’t read newspapers. They don’t walk around filling out applications. They use the Internet and apply from the comfort of their own chair. Use your website, but make sure the application process is easy. After you’ve set it up, take a test drive yourself to see how long it takes and if success is readily available.

Take time to provide thorough benefits information on your career/jobs pages on your website. Let potential employees know how great it is to work at your restaurant. Use this page as a recruiting tool. List your employee incentives. Show photos of the management team and happy staff.

Recognize and Take Care of Your Current Employees

Employee turnover crashes through your bottom line. Don’t let a lack of employee retention sabotage your restaurant.

When employee retention is high, the atmosphere at your restaurant will most likely be a positive one. Your top talent is already working for you. Once the word gets out about how well you take care of your current employees, job seekers will seek you out.

Feature employees on your website, social media platforms and even in your restaurant. Show everyone who comes in contact with your business that you value your staff. By focusing on your staff, you create a positive work environment. By sharing this information with the public, you let potential employees know you value a positive  environment where people want to do good work.

Show the Path to Advancement

While employees want and need the salary you are paying them, money isn’t the only thing people are looking for when searching for a new place to work. Many people want to know there is a clear, open path to promotion and advancement at your restaurant. This could mean a path to management, gaining skills that make them marketable or moving up from bus boy to line cook.

Provide a Well-Trained Management Team

Teach your management team to value their employees. Make sure they coach your staff and teach them to succeed. Provide management training that allows them to motivate your employees and create loyalty. Once word gets out about your restaurant’s great team of bosses and the ideal work environment, you’ll have people begging to work for you.

Develop a Great Employee Culture

When a customer dines in your restaurant, you want them to leave loving your food and your service. You also want them to say, “Wow. What a great place to work. I wish I worked for a business as great as that.”

This shows potential employees that you value your staff and treat them like family, plus, you let everyone have a bit of fun. This also let your customers know you run a quality restaurant with staff that are proud to work for you.

Offer the Best Pay and Benefits

Be well known for offering the best restaurant pay and better-than-average benefits in your area. Word will get out, and people will aspire to work for your restaurant.

Be Well-Known in Your City

The companies with the best employees are often the most well-known ones. (tweet this) These are the restaurants people are dying to work for – the ones people go out of their way to work for. If you want the best employees, make yourself prominent in your town. How?

• Be highly visible on the Internet, including social media.
• Provide the best food and service.
• Work with your local media.
• Participate in charity events.

Take Your Team Out

Take your staff out in public a few times a year… go to a ball game, sing karaoke together, dine at another restaurant, do something for the community. Let people see you out treating your staff and having fun.

Consider hosting or participating in a charity event. Provide T-Shirts for your staff and serve the community together. Runs and walks are increasingly popular. Do this together with your staff. You’ll help your community, provide team building for your staff and increase your visibility for potential new hires. Who wouldn’t want to work for you!

The restaurant industry is expected to add 1.9 million jobs by 2016. The National Restaurant Association forecasts that restaurant owners plan to focus more on employee recruitment and retention in the coming years. We hope you’ve found some tips in this article to help you make your restaurant more appealing to the best employees.

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Images: Bryce Edwards & Flickr