by Natasha Reta – Culinary Consultant

 

The restaurant industry has always faced challenges in the field of recruitment and hiring. But having a great team and adequate amounts of staff is essential to great hospitality.  Operators are currently faced with the usual hiring challenges of tracking down serious candidates, streamlining the onboarding process, and retaining the employee for the long term.

Currently faced with the usual hiring challenges or tracking down serious candidates, streamlining the onboarding process, and then retaining the employee for the long term, the issue is further compounded with the newest challenge of the current labor crunch.  Operators will need to make significant changes to the way they hire, focusing on maintaining the retention of quality. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Once you get that employee in the door, how do you keep them there?

 

 

Most frustrated restaurant staff have described leaving good-paying jobs due to a lack of training.  New employees want to feel comfortable in their workplace, yet a lack of systems and training allows for error, confusion, and frustration.  A thorough training program for both FOH and BOH, should be quickly developed and implemented to maintain staff retention. This training should incorporate specific job function training and product training, food safety training, salesmanship, and hospitality.

 

Company Culture: Yes, it’s Really Important

Okay, so you have the best systems and training, but is your company culture appealing? What do your brand and company say to your future internal guests, your employees?  How do you create an environment they want to return to? Lead by example. Your establishment should be treated with respect just as your guests.  The cleanliness and organization of your operations are a clear observation as to how your company cares.  New employees now say company culture is what keeps them returning.  They enjoy a happy work-life balance and feel respected.

 

 

If you haven’t yet, now is the time to assess these areas of your restaurant operations:

1. BOH/FOH operations and safety
2. Overall restaurant cleanliness
3. Job titles and accurate descriptions
4. Training systems
5. Growth opportunities
6. Company culture

This foodservice labor shortage is certainly challenging for operators to tackle. Critically important is making your team feel valued, well trained, and taken care of.  With some attention to these areas, your operation will manage to survive this current hiring crisis.  Don’t have a robust training and operations system in place?  Synergy Sync is a powerful, flexible, and affordable digital training platform for restaurants look to upgrade performance.  Reach out to us to learn more!

By Rita Imerson – Operations & Training Consultant

 

As we all move into a new era of full dining rooms and business as normal, it’s clear there will be remaining challenges when it comes to hiring and staffing.

As we, the leaders, take on the burden of these challenges, it’s important we do everything we can to mitigate the stress it causes for our store-level team members.

 

 

We all understand that retention and low turnover are crucial when it comes to positive guest experience and profitability. So, in conjunction with a strong hiring plan to attract the best candidates, we also need to create a fun, structured workplace with a great work culture.

Some tips for appreciating your restaurant team:

• Distribute handwritten notes with a gift card from the CEO or Owner. A handwritten, personalized thank you goes a long way. Genuine appreciation from the face of the company is something team members can be proud of, and others will strive for.
• Give paid days off for the whole team to enjoy a team-building event. If there is a slower day of the week, consider closing and inviting the team to a fun day at a water park, a night of bowling, or an employee picnic.
• Social media appreciation. Ask each manager to submit a few employees and short bios and photos to be posted on social media, along with a thank you for their hard work.
• Establish a yearly recognition program for employee tenure. Determine yearly benefits that employees will receive on their work anniversary. When these are gifted, they should be publicly among the whole team, so everyone understands the value.

 

Remember that a sincere thank you goes a long way. It starts from the top down, from the CEO all the way to the busser. It’s been a challenging year, and as we look ahead to brighter days, acknowledgment of a job well done is more important than ever.

Nearly every restaurateur dreams of transforming their establishment into a food empire. Multiple locations, international expansion, franchising — these are the stuff of food industry dreams! However, making that dream a reality can be incredibly difficult (which is saying a lot in an industry where 60% of new ventures fail within a year).

While scaling out your business is unquestionably difficult, it is possible to do it successfully. Smashburger, for example, is expected to open 40 new locations this year — even though the restaurant industry took a nose-dive in the face of COVID-19!

How did Smashburger manage to survive the pandemic and come out stronger than ever? The answer is simple: the company invests in employee training.

What Do Workers (and Customers) Want?

Anytime a business explores expanding (restaurant or otherwise), they need to ask themselves two questions: what do their customers want, and what do their workers want? Obviously, customer service is of the utmost importance for every business. Equally critical is keeping your workforce happy to improve work quality and reducing turnover.

Customers primarily want great food, a pleasant atmosphere, and friendly and capable service in the restaurant industry. In the wake of COVID-19 a new requirement has emerged — high safety standards. In a survey from the ONE TABLE initiative, nearly 40% of respondents said they wanted to see safety measures like spaced-out tables, visible sanitation and cleaning regularly, and employees wearing masks and gloves.

And what do employees want now that restaurants are reopening? Many workers are asking for safer conditions, better pay, approved sick leave, and other benefits that prove their worth within the industry. Listening to worker requests and considering these benefits just might be the determining factor for which restaurants survive in the post-COVID world.

How Training Can Help

 

 

Restaurant owners might wonder how to accommodate both their customers’ needs and their workers’, particularly when they’re also trying to expand their business. Luckily, there is one straightforward answer: TRAIN YOUR EMPLOYEES.

Proper training on issues like customer service, food safety, and sanitation will go a long way toward improving your workforce and your business. When employees are properly trained, they are more likely to take pride in their work and perform better on the job. This directly impacts your business; a well-trained and hard-working staff will attract more customers, which will increase your profits and allow you to give your employees the working conditions they deserve!

Investing in employee training and helping your staff learn the skills for success in the restaurant industry is one of the best ways to improve your business in the long run — and we’re here to help make it happen. Contact our team today to learn how the SynergySync app makes training your workers easier (and more cost-efficient) than ever.

Visit us at www.synergyconsultants.com for more information about growing a restaurant.

Despite nearly one-third of hospitality workers losing their jobs during the pandemic, many reports indicate workers don’t seem to be returning to the hospitality industry.

Without sufficiently trained labor to fill in the gaps in hospitality establishments like travel, casinos, cruise ships, restaurants, tourism, and hotels, the entire industry could suffer from a global shortage of qualified workers, but what does this mean?

Causes for Hospitality Industry Labor Shortages

There are many different variables to consider that impact the hospitality industry and the loss of experienced workers.

A major factor is wages. In working roles where tips are a significant source of pay, such as with restaurants, employees may leave to find higher-paying jobs with consistent paychecks.

Consider, too, how quickly technology has become part of our daily lives, including our jobs. In some industries, like hotels, older employees may be forced out if they are not familiar with new technology.

Another variable includes an aging workforce with years’ worth of skills opting to retire from the hospitality industry.

Temporary Actions to Seal the Gap

While some hotels and other industries are trying to fill the gap with technology, for example, using cooking technology like sous vide and pre-portioned vacuum-sealed meals, others are assigning extra duties to available employees.

Still, these are stopgap measures that can only go so far. The best solution is training the new workforce appropriately.

There has always been a high turnover rate in the hospitality industry due to demands like working during holidays, nights, and weekends, difficult or angry customers, and high-paced work settings. However, we see the industry’s current struggle to fill essential roles that provide service and amenities to customers.

The Effects of Labor Shortage on Hospitality

While it’s difficult to predict the future, it’s highly likely that luxury and high-end hotels, restaurants, and services are on the verge of experiencing a monumental change. For example, over the next ten years, hotel rooms might decrease their number of rooms but increase in size to cater to the 1%. This will likely result in extremely expensive and sophisticated hotels, with fewer value-oriented hotels for those with a limited budget.

Still, this depends on a rejuvenated workforce, which likely might rely on the reformation of immigration laws. The hospitality industry is experiencing a record scarcity of employees, mostly due a drop in foreign-born laborers (source: Immigrants, the Economy and the COVID-19 Outbreak).

Guests might find themselves in long lines waiting for front desk assistance, room service, and more. Many hospitality executives are now calling for immigration reform to resolve these issues.

 

The Value of Customer Service Skills

Customer service skills are integral when offering a positive restaurant guest experience. These often include interacting with customers, maintaining a positive and cheerful attitude, and multitasking.

This is why it’s important to have a robust training program that includes standard operating procedures, accountability checklists, and proven methods in place, to enhance the capability of your staff. Our training platform—Synergy Sync— can help you with this. It promotes best practices throughout your restaurant, so training is a breeze. It’s also smartly priced, so you don’t have to worry about cost per user! For $350 a month, you get unlimited users per location and a wealth of industry expertise at your fingertips. Fully trained employees often translate into more satisfied employees. There is no better time than NOW to enhance and invest in your current and expanding team through a comprehensive training program.

By Mike Walls, Operations Consultant & Beverage Certified Cicerone

In a recent conversation with our friends at RASI, an accounting system, and educational service, we discussed the perils of implementing new technology without firmly establishing the fundamentals in systems, training, and operations to put good data into the system to get the results you need.

Many technology platforms can help to build those standards and best practices, and they’re getting better at it all the time, but there are a few issues that we repeatedly see in the field:

1. Wobble: Wobble occurs during growth periods, periods of high turnover, or in businesses with “telephone training” where information is passed from one person to the next without referencing source material or with no system of skills validation and accountability. Over time, the “why” is forgotten, steps are skipped, and what was once a firmly planted brand or practice begins to wobble from its foundation, which turns into more of a hindrance than a solution.
2. Over-reliance on technology: Sometimes, we rely too heavily on our technology solution or process and not enough on the people executing tasks. People + Process = Success. Both are needed, and one doesn’t work without the other. Try to think of your technology resource as 50% of the solution and your team as the other 50%. Train the team, tell them why, and hold them accountable. Make sure they have the tools to exceed your expectations. Refresh training regularly and make sure that no key players are left behind.

 

 

Many symptoms can be treated by addressing the underlying problem that is a lack of training. This should be the top priority of any growth-oriented company. New technology can help get you where you want to go, but to make the solutions long-term, you need to remember the other half of the equation and continuously work to keep your team empowered.

In the restaurant industry, properly training all levels of staff is part of the recipe for success.

Roy Yamaguchi, celebrity chef and owner of award-winning Hawaiian restaurant, Roy’s, admits that his restaurant wouldn’t be nearly the smash hit that it is without a certain level of education: “You don’t go to school to become the best chef in the world right after you graduate. School is always a starting point so what people forget is that you go to school to build a foundation, and you want to build a foundation that’s not going to crumble,” he once said.

 

To that end, restaurant owners should approach training for their employees with the same attitude. With an in-depth onboarding program, they are helping employees build that foundation. As the business continues to grow and evolve, there should be logical continuing education opportunities for employees, similar to the upkeep and maintenance of a building.

 

Initial Training

Initial training is especially important to set the tone for new employees. In restaurants with high turnover rates, it can sometimes be tempting for restaurant owners and managers to want to skimp on the training for new employees. After all, they may see training as a waste of time, especially if they will likely need to train another new employee right afterward to take a recently trained employee’s place. However, some data points suggest that these restaurants are not focused on the right things, and this lack of proper training might be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. A study out of Northern Georgia University found that when a restaurant employee’s satisfaction with their training increased, their rate of wanting to stay with that restaurant increased as well.

 

Onboarding is a unique opportunity for a restaurant to establish its culture, put Standard Operating Procedures into place, and distribute literature like a restaurant handbook that employees can use for continual reference. When an employee feels well-equipped for a job, they are more likely to feel fulfilled by that job and have intentions to stick with it.

 

 

Ongoing Training

While initial training is crucial for building a foundation, ongoing training is just as important. Creating a culture of ongoing learning can help take a restaurant far. Employees who grow to expect ongoing training can also be better at adapting to changes and embracing a growth mindset, which can help in the continuous improvement of a restaurant over time. A study of 137 restaurants in the Canary Islands found that Human Resources Management practices that supported a continuous learning culture had overall better results in effectively training and retaining their employees. This shows the worth of ongoing training in the overall success of an establishment.

 

Online Training

Not all training can happen in-person, especially with recent restrictions and limits in response to COVID-19. Luckily, there are plenty of online training modules that are intensive and employee-focused. These can be used as the backbone of training, or as a supplemental way to fill in educational gaps. Online programs can help save time and resources while getting new employees on board and helping veteran employees adapt to changing policies.

 

 

Responsive Training

It’s no question that the ongoing pandemic has changed the restaurant industry in numerous ways. It has thrown a curveball at many restaurant owners and has shown that even when employees have been thoroughly trained, there can always be more to learn. In response to the pandemic, restaurants had to train employees about intensified cleaning and disease mitigation techniques, following the guidelines provided by the CDC.

 

Implementing These Structures

While many restaurants know the importance of training in theory, sometimes the most difficult thing is putting a training program into practice. Luckily, Synergy Sync’s restaurant training program can help. We have recommended timetables and training modules you can schedule, and as a result, you will have a well-prepared staff embracing a culture of ongoing learning in no time.

By now, your wait staff and workers are well versed in COVID-19 safety protocols: masks, gloves, distancing, sanitizing, occupancy awareness—the whole nine yards. These measures are key to following local and state mandates, no doubt. As more strides are being made in the fight against this unforeseen pandemic, there now seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccine rollouts are here, and people are getting them. With over a year of people feeling stuck and trapped in their homes with not much to do, a phenomenon of “pent-up demand” may be on the horizon.

 

We’ve all been relegated to watching movies at home, eating take-out at home, and experiencing the outside world on their computers at home. People are eager to finally get out and get back to normal. Restaurants should be prepared. No, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to follow health and safety guidelines —in fact, guests now would come to expect it.

 

Guests Returning for the First Time

 

We’ll need to acknowledge those guests who are willing to venture outside their home for the first time in a while, and some will need reassurances. For those who are noticeably anxious about dining out again, you can start by asking, “Are you comfortable with that seating arrangement?” or “Please let me know how we can increase your comfort level.” 

 

 

Starting the conversation will help increase comfort levels and build trust. When you can address the issue when you have the opportunity, you’ll own the situation. Encourage teams to inquire and thank returning guests who may have held off on dining out this past year. This show of empathy will help break down the barriers we’ve placed between us this past year.    

 

Now, when things do go back to a relative “normal,” your restaurant staff will need to brush back up on the basics. Training is key, and below are a few important points you’ll need to cover:

 

• In-person customer service: when food isn’t out on time or a guest has another issue, it’s always good to understand how to handle these scenarios.
• How to handle busy hours like lunch and dinner: brush up on managing orders and lines when there is an influx of guests.
• Managing inventory: it’s always important to make sure inventory is sufficient, especially when you expect guest counts to get back to where they were.
• Employee scheduling: there may be more staff on hand, so it’s important to iron out their schedules.
• How to market promotions: to encourage more patrons, you’ll likely have a promotion as things get back to normal. Training your staff properly to let guests know about certain promotions is vital.

 

Synergy Restaurant Consultants has a cloud-based training program that can be utilized across multiple locations to train staff on best practices. Synergy has honed their 33 years of restaurant consulting experience in one simple-to-use eLearning platform, also available in Spanish.

It’s no secret that the restaurant industry is facing challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, from small family businesses to five-star fine dining establishments. Even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay acknowledged that his restaurant empire is already 60 million Euros behind where they’d be in normal circumstances.

 

In response to COVID-19, most, if not all, people have changed their typical dining rituals. Local 4 Detroit News surveyed its viewers about their dining habits and attitudes before and during the pandemic. The survey found that pre-pandemic, 1,767 viewers ate out 1-3 times a week, and only 29 said they never dined out. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these numbers look quite different: only 583 viewers eat out 1-3 times a week, and 1,201 said they never dine out at all. In fact, 56 percent of viewers said they would not dine out currently.

 

That said, the situation is rapidly evolving, from state safety mandates to the availability of vaccines. These changes have the potential to affect customers’ perceptions of dining out. Here is the current breakdown of what is allowed in each state and some considerations for restaurants to keep in mind.

 

Current Restaurant Regulations, State by State

One useful tool is this frequently updated interactive map provided by the New York Times. The map shows the states where there are mask mandates, curfews, and bans on individual establishments in real-time.

 

Masks

Businesses must uphold mask mandates whenever customers aren’t actively eating or drinking to avoid health code violations. There are currently mask mandates in most Northeastern, Midwestern, West Coast, and Southwestern states.

Curfews

State curfews can affect restaurants’ operating hours. Although it could impact business, restaurants are required to adhere to these curfews. Currently, there are curfews in Virginia and North Carolina.

 

Types of Establishments

Restaurants are allowed to be operational in most states. However, bars cannot be open currently in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, or New Mexico. In Arizona, no bars or nightclubs are allowed to be open. Furthermore, there is currently no indoor dining permitted in Oregon. These regulations change often, and the most up-to-date information can be found here.

 

Social Distancing

CDC regulations dictate that tables should be spaced 6 feet apart to reduce spread from respiratory droplets. Additionally, in any establishment where patrons must wait in line, it would be wise to mark the floor with stickers or other icons to help customers visualize 6-foot spacing.

Future Possibilities for Restaurants

While it is tough to follow the changing rules, there is hope for restaurant owners and operators in the future, including government help, an increasing prevalence of available vaccines, and continued training to keep all staff members aware of updates to safety protocols.

 

Seek Help From the Government

Released in January 2021, Biden’s latest COVID-19 response plan, the White House, outlined a plan to prioritize funds to help small businesses. These funds will go to PPE supplies and construction to adjust their physical spaces to account for social distancing, including adding outdoor seating. The Small Business Administration will also be working with the Department of Labor to disseminate the most up-to-date information on worker safety. Having a training plan in place for employees can help keep staff knowledgeable of the most up-to-date safety practices.

 

Vaccines

As vaccines become more widely available, some patrons who previously felt uncomfortable dining out could shift their attitudes. Another possibility is that restaurants could potentially increase their safety measures and reputation as a safe space by requiring proof of vaccine for entry. In this case, it will be essential to train staff to look at vaccine cards for their validity (similar to training staff to examine IDs for proof of age).

 

Training

As the COVID-19 and state-by-state guidelines are changing daily, restaurants must keep training their staff regularly. Restaurant training is crucial for keeping waitstaff, cooks, and management up to speed while implementing the latest safety measures and recommendations.

 

By Mike Walls

 

In Gino Wickman’s book, Traction, he says, “There is a direct correlation between adherence to core processes and your own ability to let go. Handing over a turnkey system to an accountable leader makes it easier to delegate and elevate. As long as they follow the process and possess the skill set to do the job, you’ll be confident that the job at hand will be handled correctly.”

 

This is a foundational concept in the Synergy Sync Operating System. So much depends on understanding this principle.

 

However, there is a problem we often see when reviewing the systems others have built: You only know what you know. Understanding that you need to develop a system is one thing, creating the system in the most effective way is another. We have spent decades helping people build turnkey systems and have learned a lot while doing it.

 

When we built our online training and operations platform, Synergy Sync, our goal was to give you more than a headstart in your business’s systemization. We wanted you to have a road map, a cheat sheet, and maybe even some performance-enhancing systems at your fingertips.

 

The feedback we’ve received so far indicates that we have achieved many of the goals we set out to accomplish with this program. Clients are opening new locations that are now systemized. Chains are implementing new operating systems across multiple existing locations based on our principles. We’re so grateful for all those involved in this launch and wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has chosen to build better systems with us, to empower their teams, and to free themselves to grow and prosper. We will continue adding valuable content to Synergy Sync and look forward to growing with you.

A recent testimonial “…I found the content to be very precise, detailed, and beneficial in many ways. It emphasizes the importance of having a well-structured system in place…” Neo D.

 

And another, “We have seen a rise in guest check average and feedback on food and service quality and repeat business!” Suzanne B.

 

Ready to build your restaurant training and operations system?  Book a  free 15-minute demo with us!