Employee is the most important resource for any organization. Restaurant industry in the whole world constitutes economy’s greatest employer of teens (Ton, 2008). Every 1 amongst 3 teenagers are employed in restaurants as examined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Due to the seasonality of the industry, staffing levels greatly vary as during summers staffing needs gets added, which significantly gets reduced during other months of the year. Almost as high as 31% workforce within restaurant industry is part-time or seasonal in nature. Inspite of all these conditions employee retention is an immense issue that is experienced across restaurants of the world. Employee absenteeism and employee leaving is high compared to total number of retained employees. The scope of this report analysis the issue of employee retention with ways of overcoming it in restaurant businesses.
Employers control various aspects of an employee’s work at a restaurant but employees due to certain dissatisfactions leave jobs. Employee turnover is expensive and can results from various issues of the management (Alonso, 2009). While U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics attach 33 percent of employee turnover issue to compensation as benefits and wages. But other factors as employee morale immensely impacts negatively employee effectiveness and efficiency. Employee turnover can have serious consequences on any restaurant impacting their operations and cost factor in various manner. Most integral impact of employee turnover is cost related to lost productivity and replacement costs. When an employee leaves the organization, there needs to be advertisement, recruitment, selection, interview procedure and then subsequent training and induction. These costs add up to a substantial amount that restaurateurs have to bear regularly as their attrition rates are high. Moreover when an employee leaves, immediately that position is not fulfilled leading to loss of productivity. In restaurants, customers might prefer a particular chef’s or cook’s preparation compared to another. Customers might prefer services of some waiter compared to another, when the waiter or chef leaves it creates a negative impact on the customer. Customer is either hesitant to visit the restaurant again or order the similar dish that he ordered last time. Hence, affecting productivity, loss of revenue and profitability for the organization.
Employee turnover can lead to loss of valuable talent pool for the restaurant, which might be difficult to fulfill. In case a restaurant experiences high levels of turnover, then they might lose out on talents that are difficult to acquire. When a restaurant loses talent it leads to lowering of quality service which in turn affects customers (Camillo, 2008). Once customers starts losing their confidence in the restaurant it leads to negative impact within the competitive space. It might impact losing out on valuable customers and hence revenue for the restaurant.
Employees that work within the organization are aware regarding organization practice and technology prevailing. Some restaurants might use grills other might make use of electrical ovens for making certain preparations. These trends largely vary across restaurants and employees are aware of the technology. They are well equipped to maintain the competitive edge and deliver preparations according to such standards. When a restaurant loses employees, they need to retrain their staffs regarding such technology and preparation standards. It leads to losing out on the competitive edge, which might be exploited by a competitor (Samuel, 2009). Therefore, it can be understood from this, employee turnover in restaurants can impact customers as well as competitive edge in a negative manner.
When a restaurant loses out on employees, it becomes difficult to maintain corporate vision and mission statement. The vision statement might get blurred when an organization faces high turnover, as it becomes impossible to maintain a specific organization culture. When an organization experiences continuous flow of new employees, it become difficult to maintain corporate vision in an intact manner. Therefore leading to losing out on the corporate identity as new stream of employees are unable to accustom themselves with job role catering to corporate vision.
Employee turnover is a serious issue across restaurants, hence owners and managers needs to take adequate steps that helps retain employees as well as overcome the process related to employee turnover (Harris, 2010). Loss of employee can be loss of revenue, profits, culture as well as corporate identity. Therefore, reasons behind employee turnover has to be analysed and then adequate steps has to be taken. There are several reasons for high employee turnover in restaurants as pay hours, internal conflicts and lack of opportunity. Pay levels of employees in restaurants is lower compared to other industry wage rates levels. Absence of adequate rate of pay or inability to earn money through tips is major reason employees leave jobs. Primary reason for employees leaving an organization is when they do not receive raises or promotions. Maximum restaurants that are family run or small outlets serving snacks and foods have no planning related to succession planning. In fact in such cases roles of employees also remain undefined causing chaos and employee dissatisfaction from the job role. Employee dissatisfaction over their wage rate as per their standards of work input makes them either absent or leave their jobs. In order to retain employees, restaurant owners and managers needs to provide a growth related compensation policy with rewards. Intrinsic motivations will allow the organization and employees to benefit from the situation. It will increase commitment, reduce absenteeism and also create impact on employee turnover. Therefore, a pay structure that is related to work or productivity has to be designed by the human resource department of the organization.
Second factor is internal conflict amongst staffs and employees within a restaurant make them leave their job roles. Staff management is an integral factor that forces employee leave an organization. Employee misalignment in which employee mind set does not match with cultural goals of the organization creates a misfit (Bufquin, 2017). This is especially true in case of teenager staffs at restaurants, who are mostly students have very little understanding related to food and beverage business. Most of these staffs take up seasonal jobs for the purpose pocket money and have very little interest in learning the actual job. This misfit often leads to employee misalignment leading to internal conflict, where employee leaves the organization or remains absent. Employees while being absorbed within the organization has to be clarified regarding rules, regulations and expectations. There needs to be elaborate description of roles for every employee that helps prevent negative revelations within the restaurant. This will help bridge match between employee expectations and job role that he performs, creating lesser impact on the turnover ratio.
Working at restaurants offers limited opportunity for waitress or waiters. Restaurants hire staffs and employees mostly for purpose of serving customers. A small number of staffs are hired for the purpose of assisting Chefs or Head Cook, Head Chefs and Cook more or less are retained as valued staff member by restaurant owner or management as the case may be. Therefore, committed and good talents working at the restaurant can easily get lost or feel trapped within the position. Individuals, who feels talented or capability to achieve higher generally keep changing from one restaurant to another as there is immense opportunities within the restaurant industry (Koutroumanis, 2015). Studies reflect that only a small number of restaurants offer development of newer responsibilities and skills for individuals future advancements within the organization. Employees within the industry face stagnation in job roles and compensations, only those receiving opportunity for growth are inclined to remain. Restaurants need to thus undertake succession planning. This will help generate positive association of employees with the company. Employee will be able to visualize their roles in the future that will reduce their mindset from leaving a particular job.
Employees within the restaurant business face rude behaviour regularly that impacts their productivity in a negative manner, resulting in employee leaving. Rude behaviour, blaming, talking behind back are major reasons for aggravating employees to leave a job. Mistreatment and feeling of resentment does not lead to good work environment and affects employee morale in a job negatively. This can create an impact on work-life imbalances with enhanced economic pressures. Organizations especially restaurants during high seasons puts pressure on employees, this is also the case in case of organization downsizing or restructuring impacting weekend and long hours at job. In such cases employees unable to bear pressure of personal life and work gets compounded (Schlosser, 2015). Level of stress or employee burnout leads to employee being absent or leaving the organization. This pressure often gets built up further when the job does not meet their expectation levels. Sometimes pressure mounts up immensely at restaurants, where employee has to play role of waiter along with helping the chef at the restaurant. In case an employee is qualified to cook but serves role as a waiter at a restaurant, it is bound to create stress and mistrust regarding the work environment. It also makes an employee feel undervalued. Employees want to feel rewarded and recognized for their job role, which is non-monetary in nature. A sincere appreciation can help provide recognition to an employee by communicating positively through behaviours and action. In case such feedback and coaching lacks employees feels devalued. Restaurant owners or managers need to create a positive ambience and work culture that allows employees to cater to their roles effectively. An organization that is unable to adapt a suitable organization culture often fails to generate satisfied employees.
Employees have been seen to attach positive values to positive behaviour and feedback from management or owners. Restaurants that does not reply positively to employees and staffs related to their productivity often f aces high attrition rates. Employees do not feel to be a part of the organization also lacks decision-making capability. Employees do not feel they are a part of the restaurant or belong to it hence leaves dissatisfied. An organization need to instill a positive ambience of work culture and feedback to its employees such that they are able to perform better. In absence of such work culture or effective employee engagement ambience, there is bound to be negative attitude amongst employees.
The above analysis of restaurant industry reveals a number of issues that causes employee retention issue. Restaurant owners and management has to devise strategies that motivates employees and prevents them from leaving the organization. Below are some recommendations that might help restaurants to overcome tissues related to employee turnover.
Conclusion
Restaurateurs can successfully overcome issue of employee turnover and apply employee engagement strategies. Contemporary organizations today are accommodating employee engagement strategies in order to overcome issues related to employee turnover and apply employee motivational strategies. Employee engagement strategies as motivation, training and other development programs helps employee feel a part of the organization, increases their commitment levels. This has be shown to affect employee motivation in a positive manner reducing their absenteeism and turnover.
References
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Alonso, A. D., & O’Neill, M. A. (2009). Staffing issues among small hospitality businesses: A college town case. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(4), 573-578.
Bufquin, D., DiPietro, R., Orlowski, M., & Partlow, C. (2017). The influence of restaurant co-workers’ perceived warmth and competence on employees’ turnover intentions: The mediating role of job attitudes. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 60, 13-22.
Camillo, A. A., Connolly, D. J., & Kim, W. G. (2008). Success and failure in Northern California: Critical success factors for independent restaurants. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 49(4), 364-380.
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Koutroumanis, D. A., Alexakis, G., & Dastoor, B. R. (2015). The influence organizational culture has on commitment in the restaurant industry. Small Business Institute Journal, 11(2), 27.
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Moncarz, E., Zhao, J., & Kay, C. (2009). An exploratory study of US lodging properties’ organizational practices on employee turnover and retention. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 21(4), 437-458.Samuel, M. O. (2009). Employee retention and turnover: Using motivational variables as a panacea. African journal of business management, 3(9), 410.
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Schlosser, F. (2015). Identifying and differentiating key employees from owners and other employees in SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(1), 37-53.
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