Ask anyone in the restaurant biz about the biggest challenge they face, and you’ll get the same answer: hiring staff. It’s always been difficult, and as unemployment rates bottom out in the US it’s only getting worse. So in creating Seasoned, we used these issues as a reverse blueprint to build something that offered actual, sustainable answers. And guess what? The initial results are looking good.
For a bit of background, let’s pretend for a minute. Let’s pretend you’re an average restaurant manager, in an average restaurant, in an average US city, during an average year of business these days. Let’s pretend we know what the future will bring. So what can we expect?
Well, restaurant work isn’t for everyone. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 50.3% of your staff will quit before 12 months have passed, and you’ll end up firing another 19.5%. By the end of the year, less than a third of your current staff will still be with you.1 And some of those empty slots will have to be filled more than once. In fact, the average turnover for hourly employees at casual and quick-service restaurants is 109-145%.2 So on average, you’ll be hiring enough people to restaff your entire restaurant (if they all stayed forever), and more (because some will leave), this year.
Our own data shows that about a third of your annual working hours (600-700 out of 2000) will be spent finding those replacements. But how do you do that? Craigslist, Indeed, and other general job boards. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some referrals from friends. If you’re not, you’ll replace the tape on that permanent “help wanted” sign. You might review 75 applications before filling one job. And for some positions, you’ll end up offering as much as $500 in bonuses.3
That’s the churn. It’s constant, it’s tense, it chews up time and spits out money. The situation has been so bad for so many years, it seems ingrained in the very nature of the business. And it wears managers out (according to industry analytics firm TDn2K, 60.2% of managers at limited-service restaurants will quit within the year, and 37.7% at full-service restaurants).4 The entire industry is burning the candle at both ends, then replacing the candle and lighting it again (and again). They need less candles, and more answers.
Let’s start with what we know: people who succeed and thrive at restaurant work are tough to find. So why don’t we stop working against them, and start working with them? A place for servers, cooks, bar-backs and dishwashers to invest in themselves, and a network structured to meet their job-finding needs. As our very own developers sum it all up, “We put it together to work for them, and because it works for them, we can help it work for managers.”
So far, it seems to be working: the latest data suggests that Seasoned hires are more likely to last. For starters, they’re more likely to survive their first 90 days on the job: 87% for one national pizza chain, vs. 71% hired through other means over the same time period. And Seasoned hires are more likely to continue after 90 days: 68% during the same test run, while fewer than half, only 48%, of other hires stayed on in their new positions.5 The numbers are encouraging, not perfect. Consider them a small-scale improvement to a large-scale problem. But eradicating employee turnover in an entire industry was always going to take some time. And if you ask anyone over here about the early success, they’d all tell you the same thing: this is only the beginning.
References:
- Nation’s Restaurant News, nrn.com/blog/hospitality-turnover-rose-721-rate-2015. Accessed 5/22/18.
- TDn2K, data sourced February 2016.
- Internal data.
- Toast Blog, pos.toasttab.com/blog/restaurant-managers-quitting. Accessed 5/22/18.
- Internal data.