Staff shortages in the restaurant industry – Part 1: How many do you need to hire?
Before you hire – can you reduce the workload?
The most important thing to start with is to figure out what the actual staffing needs are. The cheapest and fastest way to solve your restaurant's staffing shortage is to make do with the staff you already have.
Only open when it's really worth it
Take your opening hours for example. You surely know when the restaurant is full, but what does it look like the rest of the week?
If you haven't done the analysis before, pull reports on your sales over time and see if there's a reason to reduce opening hours, or reallocate.
Will you be open all days of the week, or can you manage with the same staff if you close on Mondays?
I Google Maps One can often find a general overview of opening hours and when customers visit, but the best approach is to use analysis tools from, for example, one's cash register or POS system. scheduling tool.
2. Schedule staff better with smarter tools
To have the right conditions to fully optimize the schedule, you need to be able to track the expected personnel costs in relation to the company's sales.
It might sound like many hours in front of Excel, but there are smarter tools.
Restaurants that use Personnel check (over 2500 in Sweden) can, for example, see expected occupancy in the future and ensure that only the necessary staff are scheduled. With the help of integrations with table reservation systems like The table book You can see both historical sales and future table bookings directly in the schedule.
A factor that is also important to consider in planning is having a balanced schedule and not scheduling staff with insufficient diurnal and weekly rest.
A well-developed scheduling program is an inexpensive investment to get help and support to achieve the most efficient scheduling possible based on the existing conditions. Lina Andersson, marketing manager at Personalkollen, has seen this in many restaurants:
– Both during and after the pandemic, many have needed to work as efficiently as possible with the staff they have. In these situations, it's crucial to know which days are most critical and which days don't require as high staffing levels. Smart scheduling is essential here.
3. Let guests order and pay themselves
Restaurants are still very analog compared to most other industries. But in recent years, digital ordering and payment solutions have spread not only in Sweden but all over the world.
Service staff are needed and important for providing a personal touch and creating a rich guest experience, but a lot of time is spent taking orders and payments.
Just like in many other areas, the trend is clearly pointing towards guests preferring to do it themselves, especially if it saves them time.
Many restaurants have already understood the benefit this provides them. Instead of staff running back and forth between tables, the register, and the kitchen, they can focus on serving and talking to guests.
Restaurants and pubs that have switched to primarily offering guests the option to order themselves via a table app that WEIQ tell them they save about 30% of time for the service staff.
So, you can reduce the staff from six to four and still get everything done without stress, or keep the same staff and have 30% more time to make the service even more personal.
That it has also turned out to increase turnover by 10-15% by making it easier to order is just a bonus.
4. Reduce training time for new staff
High staff turnover also means a lot of training time with new personnel. If your employees need to spend a lot of time training and coaching new colleagues, time is consumed that could have been used in the kitchen and serving.
Things you can do to reduce onboarding time:
- Write down work procedures or create short films and let new staff learn the theory on their own
- Shorten the menu so that new chefs can become proficient at preparing the dishes more quickly.
- Let guests order themselves so new service staff can start by just bringing out food and drinks before they learn to handle orders and recommendations.
Summary
If you are having trouble finding enough new staff for your restaurant, start by thoroughly reviewing how you schedule staff today and what tasks take up their time.
Get a good overview of:
- Opening hours and which hours and days you have the best, and least, sales.
- The scheduling in comparison to your sales and number of booked tables for the coming days
- If you can let guests place orders and pay themselves, so you can save 30% of the time required for table service
- How you train new staff, perhaps you can create materials that help them to study on their own and get started faster
Don't miss the next part in our article series: