How does working for you benefit your staff?

Even as restaurant operators are turning to automation to handle more tasks across their businesses, hospitality remains a human business. Restaurants continue to need to be able to attract and retain talented people – and losing staff is a costly, time consuming and persistent challenge, with average annual turnover in the industry near 80 percent. Improving employee benefits can help chip away at that turnover by making restaurant work into more of a career path than it has been in the past. (And offering such improved benefits is becoming more important as brands such as Chipotle make headlines for offering Gen Z-focused benefits supporting financial savings and investment, as well as mental health.) If you are among the 88 percent of operators who say they are likely to hire additional employees this year, consider what people in the demographics you hire tend to value. A recent report from Modern Restaurant Management suggests that workforce education remains in high demand among job applicants, especially support for building IT skills, learning languages, and financial support for earning subject-based certifications and bachelor’s degrees. Fortunately, offering such benefits has also become far more economical for employers with the advent of online education programs. But retaining your best people can also be about keeping communication channels open with staff so you can learn about what they need – whether it’s development opportunities, a prompt paycheck, a flexible schedule, or a supportive work environment.