Your staff is the most integral part of your business: They’re the face, hands and lifeblood of the company.

1. Invest in Developing Your
Staff
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 150% for QSRs alone
according to the 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics, it makes sense that
building an efficient team is even more critical for restaurants than it is for
other small businesses. Investing in the professional development of your
workers is in your best interest because employees, especially those in the
younger generations, overwhelmingly prefer jobs that in some way benefit
their professional development. They’re interested in gaining skills that will
foster an upwards trajectory throughout their career.
This drive is valuable to you as well and is a fantastic jumping off point to
begin mentoring them in their personal and professional development.
You’ll end up with better workers who can in turn teach new hires the
ropes; investing in this kind of cyclical improvement is especially good, if
you can achieve it, because it helps you hang on to employees for longer.
In an industry plagued by turnover, that’s difficult to achieve and precious
to have.

2. How exactly can management invest in developing
their staff?
1. Set goals
Employees can’t improve if they don’t know the standard to which they’re
meant to aspire. When they have a tangible goal, they focus on that and
become more productive as a result. Thus having relevant, achievable
endgames are hugely beneficial to a restaurant. If you can identify the
areas that need the most improvement within your establishment, you can
begin to set applicable goals to remedy those situations.
Your objectives can have any time frame, although typically smaller is
better. For this reason, quarterly reviews are more beneficial than annual
reviews because it’s easier to track progress and see whether these goals
are being met, and reassess, reassign goals if necessary, or try alternative
strategies for meeting them if the current system doesn’t work.
Monitoring progress is a careful balance of giving staff time and space to
improve but still checking in often enough to track and give feedback on
their performance.
It can be helpful to develop a hiring plan to ensure that these standards
continue to be evaluated and met, even years into the future. This will help
keep your business fair and on track throughout its duration, even ten
years down the line.
2. Value individual growth
In 2014, Glassdoor found that 63% of employees want to learn new skills
and train on the same because they consider it one of the most important
factors for advancement. Coaching, mentoring and other developmental

3. activities are extremely valued amongst employees as it shows your
personal investment in them, which leads to mutual trust and respect.
Setting a culture of growth and productivity goes a long way because it
gives employees the tools they need to perform well. You can guarantee
that these methods work because they’ll have already been vetted by
employees who used those tools to find success themselves. Mentorship
can come in many forms from having senior employees train new hires,
offering regular training (and follow-up training sessions to brush up on
their abilities), or bringing in industry professionals to host seminars and
workshops on applicable pathways to success.
You can also try to encourage outside development in employees’ own
time by playing on their desire for professional improvement, though this
one is admittedly more difficult to sell. To foster career skills without
monetary compensation, employees typically need other incentives, which
also come in a variety forms. Team building is often a good place to start,
because close bonds with coworkers breeds a better company culture and
naturally makes team members want to try harder so as not to become a
detriment to the group. Outside reward programs are also effective, such
as offering prizes for top sellers in the group or hosting a dinner to show
your appreciation for the best shift team. Creativity goes a long way here
because it depends on the specific wants and values of the individuals
you’re trying to motivate.
Typically, employees put in as much effort as they’re paid to care about. It’s
harsh but true. Minimum wage employees—or sometimes less than
minimum wage employees, since tipped workers can make as little as
$2.13/hr—just won’t care much about professional development without
proper incentive. Raises and benefits remain the best motivator out there.
3. Review, review, review

4. Setting goals is meaningless without follow-through. Only 2% of employers
give ongoing feedback to employees which is unhelpful because it doesn’t
tell them whether they’re doing well on a regular enough basis; progress
takes a really long time because they can only change their tactics or
strengthen the approaches that work once or twice a year. Especially in an
industry with turnover so high, most employees probably won’t even last to
see a review.
Take that into consideration with the fact that most people dread yearly
reviews, and it’s actually more beneficial to have more informal, frequent
reviews. Focus on development, not evaluation, as that only leads to fear of
judgement rather than centering on improvement which isn’t the same
thing. Asking targeted questions will help to this end, such as, “How can I,
as a manager, help you improve?” or “What are your goals and what tools
do you need to reach them?” or “How has management helped or
hindered your work and success?” This puts the power of
self-improvement in their hands and helps you set goals together, while
also teaching employees to determine their own areas of professional
development that need improvement—which is a skillset in itself,
recognizing weakness and taking steps to do better.
Creating collaborative, frequent reviews breed happier, more productive
and more successful employees.
Staff are one of the most important, if not the heart, of any restaurant.
Respect and personal investment in their development are the keys to
building a great staff who will have as much vested interest in giving back
to a company who has put so much into helping them grow critical
skillsets.

5. This is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, since you likely
have more time to invest in cross-training your employees and building a
stronger business in the future when the world reopens. All of this will
hopefully lead to lower turnover rates and a more cohesive and agile staff,
working together to make your restaurant the best it can be.