How To Reduce Turnover At Your Restaurant

Kevin Kang 5 min read

In the food service industry, the average turnover is 75%, meaning that in a company with 4 employees, 3 leave each year. Not only do turnovers result in lost productivity and repeated training costs (upwards of over $3500 per employee), it also affects the morale of other employees, who may have enjoyed working with them.

Being involved in the food industry first-hand and noticing turnover, here are 3 ways you can retain employees for longer. Prevent talent from leaving—all at zero cost to you.

1. Mention growth opportunities

For example, if you own a ghost kitchen, talk about opening another brand, or talk about opening a second location soon.

Be transparent about both employee and company growth opportunities—that there’s a sequence to being promoted, or that future locations will open up in a busy area. However, don’t give hard, set-in-stone timelines. If plans don’t work out or you change your mind, your staff won’t lose hope and they’re still curious about growth opportunities. When it comes time to expand, you’d be surprised by how supportive they are.

2. Build a culture where employees feel important

A compliment once in a while goes a long way, especially when people in the food industry usually hear 1 star customer experiences.

Praise when the business is successful — an example is when you say “we got another 5 star review on Google the other day, keep it up guys!” Give them with important titles sometimes, such as “Kitchen Hero” for the Dishwasher. It might seem silly at first, but remember, people love feeling valued. If you want to start somewhere, mention how customers love your location. Staff members love hearing that where they work is a great location.

3. Have a strong mission 

Have a strong mission that your workers can fall back on each day. It can be as simple as: “We want to be the #1 late night munchies in our city” or “We want to be the most reliable Nepalese food in our city.”

This motivates your team to see the mission to the end, and when that happens, you can your mission even bigger. Because if it’s not pay that separates you from competitors, it’s your team, your culture, your mission. And people want to be a part of that, so you’ll have no trouble hiring talent as well.

If you’d like to reduce turnover even further, learn more about rev sharing.