Hiring restaurant employees is a necessary, but often challenging and time-consuming process. With restaurant turnover being as high as it is, you need to make sure you have adequate processes for finding, screening, and onboarding applicants efficiently so that you can ensure your labor force is optimized and your employees are taken care of.
Here are a few tips to help you:
1. Automate the Job Posting Process
Job boards are abundant, and posting jobs individually to each requires significant time spent entering duplicate data. While it may seem easy to choose one or two online job posting services to use, by doing so you limit the number of viable potential candidates that view your post.
To solve this, you can leverage technology specifically designed for hiring restaurant employees. Some services allow you to automate the job posting process, and can even allow potential candidates to apply with one click on sites like LinkedIn, Monster, and Facebook. Not only does this make it easier for you to post an opening, it makes it easier for a candidate to apply to it. In a world that values convenience, this could mean the difference between a phenomenal new hire, and a vacant position sitting open for weeks.
2. Leverage Tax Programs
Often the cause for many a headache, taxes are both complicated and laborious. In this case, however, tax programs can offer significant advantages to your business in the form of work-opportunity tax credits (WOTC).
Approximately 35% of all employees in the US qualify for their employers to receive federal tax credits, but they often aren’t taken advantage of. With the right technology, you can easily manage all of the paperwork and file tax credits to receive as much as $9,600 per eligible new hire.
3. Eliminate Paperwork Filing
Hiring restaurant employees requires extensive paperwork. If completed manually, much of this paperwork often needs copied or re-entered into digital systems that can keep accurate records and assist with tax filing and other necessary processes.
For this reason, it’s ideal to look for a solution that provides electric onboarding of all documents. This can include:
- Employee handbooks
- Federal and state documentation like I-9 and W-4 forms
- Direct deposit information
- Nondisclosure agreements
- Contracts
- Custom onboarding documents
4. Reward High-Performing Employees
You could be the best manager in the world, and you would still need team leaders to assist you. Team leaders can provide valuable feedback on day-to-day operations, and can bridge the gap between upper-level management and your general workforce. They can also assist with training when you’re hiring restaurant employees, and set the pace for productivity.
Make sure you incentive and reward your best employees so you can encourage this behavior. Positive reinforcement goes a long way. Your top-performers should have a clear idea of what their potential career path with your restaurant could look like.
5. Develop a Plan for Your Hiring Needs
Don’t get caught short-staffed when you need the most help. If you know that you’ll be busy soon and will need to bring on extra help, you should develop a clear-cut plan for hiring restaurant employees.
Consider the time it takes to train new staff. If you are in the throes of a holiday season or big promotional event, you won’t have the resources to train new hires effectively, and the slower pace could develop severe bottlenecks. Training should be carried out and completed before the start of your busy season so that newer employees have time to get up-to-speed before the rush hits.
Conclusion:
Recruiting and hiring restaurant employees can be challenging, but with a well-though-out plan in place and the right technology at your fingertips, you can simplify and streamline the process. It’s best to develop a solid onboarding plan and invest in the right technology early on, because restaurant employee turnover is a real concern, and the hiring process will be necessary as long as your business is successful. Fortunately, restaurant technology keeps up with needs, so you can access solutions that can address these challenges and make it easier to grow your business.
