Food and hospitality industry is notorious for high employee turnover. It is not uncommon to find annual turnover in excess of 100% for the businesses in this industry. This translates into having an entirely new staff pretty much every year! The toll on your business from this high turnover is very significant. You are constantly looking for new employees and training them while trying to provide excellent customer service expected by your customers.
It is in the best interest of business owners to recruit and retain the employees, especially the best ones. It takes a long time to find good employees and train them. It is not only the amount of time it takes, but also the effort and money you have to spend is very significant. So what can you do find and retain the best employees for your food and hospitability establishment?
Catering equipment specialist Nisbets conducted a survey some ago to find answer to this question. The survey questioned 1,323 respondents and covered range of topics surrounding recruitment and employment in the catering industry. Here is what they found.
Recruitment
Word of mouth was found to be the most effective way to recruit good employees in this industry. 41% of the respondents said that they had achieved great success finding good employees with word of mouth. This was followed by social media at 21% and website at 12%. Business owners should look to use these channels to find good employees. The best part is these channels are essentially free to use. Make sure you ask existing employees about their friends who may be looking for a job. Also, list all your vacancies on the website and promote them via your social media channels.
Training
66% of the respondents said that it is better to train employees on the job as opposed to 34% respondents saying culinary school is a better option for employee training. You can take advantage of this insight by putting together an apprentice program at your business to train the incoming new employees on the job instead of sending them to culinary school.
Work Environment
When asked if chefs entering the trade have realistic expectations of the life in the kitchen, 82% of respondents said no. Only 18% came back with affirmative answer. This has a huge impact on your work environment. To make sure the incoming employees know what it takes to work and succeed in the food industry you should set proper expectations with newly hire employees. If you are hiring employees for your van catering business make sure to have cheap catering van insurance in case one of them gets injured or sick on the job. Make sure you provide thorough job description when advertising open vacancies. After the employees have been recruited take them through the entire process with your existing employees. It also helps to publish a “Day in the life of a chef” so the prospective job applicants understand what to expect.
Finding and retaining best employees can help you provide best product and service to customers, and in turn grow your business. What other best practices have you come across? Share with us in the comments below.
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