The Current State of Restaurant Staffing Restaurants are finally getting to reopen for good this summer. Unfortunately, a labor shortage struck at the same time. As dining out picks back up in the next few months, these businesses need to quickly rehire all the staff they lost at the beginning of the pandemic. The labor shortage comes from three main places, which restaurants need to address if they want to gain back a strong workforce. The inherent danger of working in perso

Mental Health and Morale The restaurant industry is tough on workers. Especially during a global pandemic, ongoing health concerns coincide with the overwhelming grief and worry that’s surrounded us all. Mental health care for your overworked employees now matters more than ever. The labor shortage only exacerbated all these problems; as customers return to dining out, staff spread themselves thin to meet the rise in traffic without extra helping hands. Focusing on mental hea

The Perks of Staff Communication The restaurant industry wants to improve employee satisfaction and retention. Turnover in the industry is famously rampant, and they’re experiencing a labor shortage right now because of COVID-19. All of this affects the productivity of those still employed. To solve this tangled web of problems, restaurants are looking at improving their staff communication. Employees who like each other, work more effectively together, especially during a st

Your restaurant functions best when your front and back of house staff work together to maximize productivity. Team building exercises and communication workshops can be one mode of bringing them closer together. Still, it doesn’t have to be much trouble: Restaurant managers all around are discovering the benefits of daily pre-shift meetings. Unfortunately, putting so many different personalities together can cause interactions to get quickly out of hand or mean-spirited. It

Line cooks: The unseen heroes of foodservice. No restaurant could run effectively without them, but they’re sequestered in the back of the house where it’s easy to forget their vitality, especially when so much effort gets poured into providing superior, face-to-face customer service upfront. When you’re getting ready to hire your back-of-house staff, it’s essential to recognize the different line cook types you might need. There are six basic line cook positions to consider

Your servers have some of the most important responsibilities in your operation. They’re the face of your company, the ones who actually interact with customers; they’re the go-between for the restaurant and its profits. For servers, day-to-day responsibilities change depending on the crowd, the day of the week, and all those other mercurial factors that go into any customer service job. If you add some stability to your server’s lives and make their jobs easier, then your op

When it comes to tips, servers rely heavily on what little extra money customers give them to scrape by. Most restaurants rely on either tipping out or pooling tips to manage everything that waitstaff gets in a night, and the method they choose determines whether servers keep what they make or combine all of it for even distribution amongst staff. What counts as a tip? This is the first thing you need to determine before handling the money. Service charges don’t count toward

Your staff is the most integral part of your business: They’re the face, hands and lifeblood of the company. This is true of any small business, but low-level employees are especially crucial to the food service industry which relies on customer service and quality attitudes to really make a customer’s experience great—though of course, you need good food, too. Considering the high turnover rate in the restaurant industry, which averages around 75% across the board and nearly