When opening a new restaurant, it seems as though there are countless things to consider. You have to identify the right location, create and develop a delicious menu, begin the marketing for your business to create a buzz, and hire restaurant staff to make your restaurant perfect. Your people will be what make or break your restaurant, and it is never too early to begin setting expectations and planning the new staff for your new place.

The right staff is always a key element to any business. In a restaurant, the people you hire should create the right image, attitude, and environment that you plan to nurture through every other aspect of the business. They will cook the food, greet the guests, and be the face of your business to the outside world. It is important to decide in advance how many people you will need, what positions to fill, and how much of your budget you should be allocated towards staff salaries.

1. Define Your Hiring Strategy

Having the right restaurant employees could make or break your business. My team and I are currently conducting research on what restaurant customers like and dislike. Although we don’t yet have the final results, I’ve seen some patterns in the data that show me that the reason most of the customer’s complaints come are related to restaurant employees.

Develop a hiring strategy aligned with your restaurant’s goals and values

Defining your hiring strategy is essential to finding the right candidates for your restaurant. A well-thought-out strategy will help you attract qualified candidates and build a cohesive team. Here’s how to define your hiring strategy:

• Set Clear Hiring Goals: Identify your hiring goals, whether it’s filling a specific role, increasing staff numbers, or improving the overall quality of your team.
• Identify Your Target Audience: Determine who you want to attract and hire for your restaurant. Are you looking for experienced restaurant workers, recent graduates, or perhaps individuals with a specific skill set?
• Develop a Recruitment Plan: Outline the methods you will use to attract candidates. This could include job postings on traditional job boards, social media campaigns, or employee referral programs.
• Offer Attractive Benefits: Consider the benefits and perks you can offer to attract top talent. Competitive pay, benefits, and training opportunities can make your restaurant more appealing to job seekers.

By defining your hiring strategy, you can attract qualified candidates, reduce turnover, and build a strong team that meets the needs of your restaurant.

Understand Your Hiring Needs

Managing people in your restaurant is a difficult task, but it is necessary for a successful business. To start, you need to analyze your current staff. This will help you to identify the gaps and to determine exactly what skills and qualifications you need for each position.

Start by looking at your daily operations and take a close look at your restaurant to see where you need more people. Is it in the kitchen, the front-of-house, or management?

Next, think about the competencies you need for each position. Do you need line cooks with expertise in a particular cuisine? Do you need servers who can provide excellent customer service?

These are the things you need to know when you start recruiting.

Also, think about the specifics of your restaurant. How big is it? What type of restaurant is it? Who is your target audience? What kind of menu do you have? All these things will define the profile of the people you need.

Finally, create a staffing plan that will define your needs and expectations. This plan will help you to define your hiring strategy and will be a guide as you build a team for success.

2. Define the Right Roles of Restaurant Employees You Will Need to Fill

Restaurant Managers

Perhaps the most important position in any restaurant, your manager, will be crucial when starting out. He or she should essentially be an extension of you as the owner and be able to handle situations as you would. The manager needs to appropriately reflect the image and style of your restaurant. Restaurant managers have dual responsibilities in hiring employees and managing daily operations.

You want someone with at least two years of restaurant managerial experience as well as food manager certification. Your manager should have great leadership skills and the ability to supervise workers at every level of the restaurant, including servers, chefs, hospitality, and all others.

Chef

The main attraction of your establishment is that you will want a chef who can develop and enhance your menu as well as be flexible to any changes. Creativity, experience and work ethic are important qualities in the right chef, but talent is the most important aspect here.

Additionally, knowing how to hire restaurant employees with the right skills and experience is crucial for building a reliable and dedicated workforce, which is essential for your restaurant’s success.

Line Cooks

The backbone of the back of the house, you will want cooks who are hard-working and flexible. They should be able to handle multiple tasks at once and communicate well with other staff members. Salary will depend on a number of factors, and experience is usually the key element. Hiring restaurant staff with the ability to handle multiple tasks and communicate well with other staff members is crucial for enhancing the overall guest experience and operational efficiency.

Servers

The servers will be the face of your restaurant, as they may be the only direct contact your customers have with your staff. The number of servers you need will vary according to a number of factors, but it is better to be over-staffed than the alternative. Personality, work ethic, flexibility, and experience make for a good server. Effective restaurant hiring is crucial to enhance the overall guest experience and operational efficiency.

Hosting staff, bussers, bartenders, and others may be required, depending on your establishment. As your business grows and develops, you may need to bring on more people at additional positions, but the staff listed above are a must for any new spot. The success of your restaurant will be in their hands, so choose wisely.

3. Determine the key skills and qualities required for each role

Now, you must respond to one important question about the skills. So, what skills and qualities do you need for each role in your restaurant? Besides all the obvious ones, you also need to think about soft skills like communication and teamwork, which are key in this industry.

When hiring restaurant staff, you need to identify the skills and qualities that will make your business successful. So, look at everything you have researched in the previous steps and think about skills. Yes, you have the goals; you have your hiring needs and the types of personnel you will need. Now, for each type, you must define appropriate skills. Be careful with this step because you must ensure that the skills for each role in your restaurant business will be something that will ensure a competitive advantage for your restaurant.

Here are some to consider:

1. Communication Skills: Communication is key for customer and team member interactions.
2. Teamwork: Can work well with others for a smooth and efficient work environment.
3. Customer Service: Good service is key to customer experience and loyalty.
4. Flexibility: Ability to adapt to change according to each situation and schedule in a quickly changing industry.
5. Attention to Detail: Precision in tasks like food preparation and order taking to prevent errors and quality.
6. Work Ethic: Willingness to do duties diligently and consistently.
7. Problem Solving Skills: Can handle unexpected situations and find solutions.
8. Time Management: Can manage time to conduct multiple tasks and stay productive.
9. Culinary Skills: For kitchen roles, cooking skills, and food safety knowledge.
10. Presentation: Can keep professional even in chaos.

You can use the table in the image below to describe the skills for each role:

Determine Size and Cost of the Staff in the Restaurant Industry

Obviously, the size of your staff will depend on the size of your restaurant. You want to hire the kind of people you’ll feel comfortable representing and running your place. You will clearly need people with experience, but personality is also important. This is not only true with the front-of-house positions; you also want back-end people who can get along well with the rest of the staff and properly represent your company.

As far as the cost of your staff, it can vary. However, there are some basic guidelines you can go by that will remain constant, no matter the size of your establishment.

Generally, your staffing costs should be around 25 to 35 percent of your total gross sales. This includes the costs of managers and your own salary if you plan on taking one. High turnover among restaurant employees can significantly increase these costs due to the expenses associated with recruiting, hiring, and training new staff.

The exact number of people you need to hire will vary according to the size of your restaurant, and it may change as the business evolves. Even if your restaurant is relatively small, there will be some specific positions that you will need to fill right off the bat for the restaurant to run smoothly.

4. Understand the Restaurant Industry’s Hiring Challenges

Each industry has its own challenges when it comes to hiring. The same is true for restaurants and hiring restaurant workers.

Identify the unique challenges of hiring in the restaurant industry

High employee turnover rates are a significant challenge in the industry. You can calculate your rate using the following formula.

According to the National Restaurant Association, there has been some slowdown in labor market turnover. However, it is still more than 60%, whereas some other resources estimate it at more than 70%. With high turnover, it’s hard to maintain consistent, quality service, which impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty. Restaurant managers also struggle to find qualified candidates in a tight labor market, which makes the whole process even harder.

Diversity and inclusion are also key challenges in hiring restaurant staff, as they must attract a diverse pool of candidates. A diverse workforce brings more creativity and innovation to the team. Seasonal hiring and varying staffing needs add another layer of complexity to the recruitment process and require flexibility and planning.

Many restaurant owners and managers don’t have recruiting experience themselves, so you need to think and plan for this, too.

Related: Essential Human Resources KPIs: Key Metrics Every HR Team Should Track

Determine the impact of high turnover rates on your business

High turnover rates in this industry can lead to substantial costs, especially the most visible ones, like those associated with hiring and training new restaurant employees. Each time some of your team leaves your business, you will need again to go through the whole process for new hires.

However, this is not the only problem because it also can negatively affect your customer satisfaction and loyalty. Why? This is because maintaining consistent, high-quality service becomes more challenging when you need to bring in new restaurant workers every several months.

Additionally, frequent changes in restaurant staff can negatively impact employee morale and engagement, making it harder to retain good employees and attract talented candidates.

So, you must ensure that there are in place specific employee retention strategies you will use to make them satisfied with their job. Also, try offering growth opportunities, even in the application process, in order to improve the retention rate. Employees are more likely to stay with your restaurants if you invest in their training.

Consider the importance of diversity and inclusion in hiring

A diverse team is a stronger, more resilient team, and that’s key to the success of any restaurant business. A welcoming and inclusive work environment is the key to attracting and retaining restaurant staff. A diverse workforce brings more creativity and innovation, better customer experience, and higher operational efficiency.

To promote diversity in hiring, try some specific strategies like blind hiring and diversity-focused job postings. These will attract skillful candidates from all backgrounds and create a more dynamic culture in your restaurant. By prioritizing diversity, as a restaurant owner or manager, you can ensure your teams reflect the communities they serve and, therefore, better service and customer satisfaction.

Related: What To Look At Applicant’s Resume

5. Write Job Descriptions

Now is the right time to think and develop several variations of job descriptions your strategy will require from your restaurant business.

When you write job descriptions, it’s important to use clear and concise language if you want to attract top talent. You can highlight your restaurant’s culture and values, as these are key elements that potential candidates look for.

Also, provide a realistic job preview in order to set expectations. This will ensure that potential candidates understand what the role entails. To improve the visibility of your job postings, you must also use relevant keywords such as “restaurant industry,” “hiring process,” and “restaurant workers.”

6. The Interview Process

The interview process is another important component of your hiring process. It gives you the opportunity to assess candidates’ skills, experience, and fit for the role.

Here’s how to conduct effective interviews:

• Prepare Relevant Questions: Develop a list of questions that are relevant to the job and the restaurant industry. For example, ask about their experience in restaurant management or how they would handle a difficult customer.
• Use a Standardized Evaluation Process: Implement a standardized evaluation process to assess each candidate’s skills and experience consistently.
• Conduct Multiple Rounds of Interviews: Consider conducting multiple rounds of interviews to get a better sense of each candidate’s fit for the role. This can include initial phone screenings followed by in-person interviews.
• Sell Your Restaurant: Use the interview process to sell your restaurant and the role to the candidate. Highlight the benefits, job security, and opportunities for growth within your restaurant business.

7. Evaluate and Select Candidates

After you’ve done with the interview process, now is the right time to evaluate everything you have collected for each candidate and select the best for your restaurant hiring.

Let’s look at what you must do at this stage:

Check professional references and verify candidate credentials

Checking references can help you verify candidate credentials and ensure potential employees have the experience and skills they claim through the resume and interview. Reference checks provide insights into a candidate’s work history, work ethic, and fit within your restaurant’s culture.

Incorporating reference checks into your hiring strategy can significantly improve your whole recruitment process. Remember that making mistakes or evaluating and selecting based on wrong data can be costly for your restaurant.

Assess and evaluate candidate skills and experience against job requirements

To assess your candidate’s skills and experience against your restaurant’s job requirements, you must ensure you have a clear and structured evaluation process.

If you want to have a structured process, you must have your own algorithm to make the final decision regarding your hiring process.

What does this mean? This means that not all required and defined skills will be the same important for each role. For example, if we take communication skills, or better said, soft skills, will be required for all employees, however the more important will be for managers and servers. Cooking skills will be more important for people who will work in the kitchen.

So, for each position and role, you must specify an algorithm for how you will assess the candidate’s personality and skills. First, define specific weight based on the importance of each skill regarding each position:

When you have such criteria to evaluate the skills for each role, you can easily evaluate, compare, and select according to your restaurant needs and your company culture. For this, you need first to assess the candidate and then multiply the assessment for each requirement with the specific weight for each role (see the image below).