Understanding the Exodus: Why Restaurant Workers Are Leaving
- Many are leaving for other industries that can offer more consistent pay and less stress than a typical restaurant environment. Additionally, 15% who left for other industries did so because of culture.
- When schools and daycares closed, many workers had to choose to stay home with their children, and many are still dealing with concerns for their children’s health and school closures.
- Restaurant workers are concerned for their well-being. While COVID-19 is a major factor, so is stress – 78% said their mental health had been negatively affected in the past 12 months.
Many of these staffing challenges existed pre-COVID, but the pandemic brought them to the forefront. Employees now feel empowered to ask more employers to resolve the issues – from restaurant culture to inconsistent pay. The industry is responding to these pressures. We tracked rising restaurant wages throughout 2021, and expect that to continue through 2022, with tipped minimum wage increases going into effect in many areas. But that’s only part of the picture.
The challenges of restaurant employee motivation
While offering hiring incentives and increased compensation for restaurant workers will help attract and engage employees, some of the drivers of turnover are beyond your control. That’s why building and maintaining a strong restaurant culture is so important.
However, managing a restaurant comes with unique challenges that make it difficult to rally employees around a common sense of purpose. Restaurant work schedules are unpredictable and the shift-based nature of the industry can have the unintended effect of making employees feel disposable. When employees feel like a shift can be canceled or cut short, or that they’ll regularly be asked to come in on their day off, they may feel that management doesn’t value their time. And when employees don’t feel valued, they are more likely to put in a half-hearted effort.
Another challenge is a lack of control over consistency. Developing restaurant culture is a top-down effort. For restaurants that operate under a franchising model, it’s difficult to consistently shape the culture at each location. You have to somehow communicate your brand values without infringing on the autonomy of individual operators. Franchisors have to get creative to carry their values from the corporate office to the cash register. The Franchise Workforce Report helps you empower franchisees with metrics and benchmarking that can be used to track their engagement efforts.
Create a culture that delivers on what restaurant employees want
Despite the unique challenges of engaging and motivating employees in the restaurant environment, it’s not impossible. Our survey with Snagajob revealed some important focus areas for building a strong restaurant culture.
Improve manager/employee relations
Nearly half of the survey respondents said that they dealt with emotional abuse from managers. Improve the relationship between workers and leadership so employees feel comfortable sharing their concerns. Provide restaurant managers with training and tools to coach employees and provide constructive feedback. Adjust expectations to relieve pressure on all workers and take their challenges into account when setting goals.
Support restaurant employees in dealing with abusive customers
According to our survey, workers also want support in enforcing masking and social distancing rules. This support can extend further to helping employees deal with any type of disrespect or noncompliance from guests. A large majority of employees said they regularly dealt with disrespect and abuse from customers. To build a restaurant culture that makes employees feel like you have their back, provide managers and employees with guidelines for dealing with unruly customers and enforce them consistently.
Offer restaurant employees incentives to perform at their best
A reward-based culture can help motivate employees to deliver high-quality service, even when they’re dealing with frustrations caused by unruly customers, lack of supplies, or long hours. These incentives can come in many forms. Some workers will appreciate restaurants that give employees free food or other perks that make their day-to-day lives a little easier and demonstrate their appreciation. To save costs, explore out-of-the-box restaurant staff incentive ideas like guaranteed days off or exchanging gift cards with another restaurant.