Five Ways to Improve Your Restaurant’s Hiring Process

Recruiting and retaining the right staff members for your restaurant can be challenging, especially for busy business owners. You need dedicated employees to ensure that your restaurant runs smoothly, but it’s often time consuming to interview and train them. Still, it should be a high priority, and something that you aim to improve over time.

Here are  five ways you can enhance your hiring process, which will ultimately allow you to recruit better employees.

Ask Current Employees for Referrals

Do you have an all-star employee who goes above and beyond? Ask them if they have friends or acquaintances who would be a good fit for open positions at your restaurant. Since they are an outstanding employee, you can trust that they’ll recommend worthy candidates. To give them an incentive to help with recruiting, offer them a bonus if they recommend an individual who remains an employee for a certain length of time (for instance, if they make it to the six-month mark).

Avoid Job Hoppers

Employee retention matters, especially at restaurants. If there is quick turnover, you’ll have to focus on filling open positions, instead of improving other aspects of your restaurant. With hospitality staff turnover rates at 70 percent, this is a serious issue for restaurants nationwide.

When reviewing resumes, you should take notice of major unemployment gaps, or a pattern of remaining at a job for a short length of time. Of course, there will be exceptions, such as personal matters or an oversaturated job market. Still, you should attempt to hire people who have had consistent jobs in the past. This will hopefully indicate that they’ll work at your restaurant for a significant period.

Delegate Hiring Responsibilities

Running a restaurant requires a myriad of responsibilities. Between placing inventory orders, providing customer service, and ensuring that operations are running smoothly, taking on another task can be overwhelming. That’s why you should delegate hiring tasks to your restaurant’s manager, or another reliable employee. Of course, as the business owner, you should still be involved in making final decisions, but you’ll benefit from having help during the initial stages. In addition, your employees will appreciate that you trust them with this responsibility, and will likely motivate them to continue working hard.

Hire a Recruiter

If you don’t have time to review resumes and conduct interviews, or employees who can handle it, consider paying a recruiter to do this for you. Of course, you’ll need to review your budget to confirm that you can afford this service. If you can, research professionals that specialize in recruiting for positions in the restaurant industry. Once you select a company, meet with the recruiter and tell them about the roles that you’re hiring for. Then, they can start the search to fill your open positions.

Provide Thorough Training

Once you fill open positions, it’s time to train your new hires. If you don’t invest in on-boarding employees, you could have worse turnover rates. In fact, according to a recent survey, 40 percent of employees that receive inadequate training leave their position within a year. Clearly, job training counts, so be sure to provide new hires with clear instructions. It can be tempting to rush training sessions so that you can focus on other tasks, but this will hurt your business in the long-run. Train your employees thoroughly, and you’ll set them up for success.

Five Ways to Improve Your Restaurant’s Hiring Process posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com