There is a Staffing Crisis in the Food Industry

If you look around, there are a lot of “HIRING NOW” signs in just about every restaurant and food franchise.  It is a contradiction to the reported levels of unemployment in the country.  So, why is it that if there is so much unemployment we are consistently so short-staffed?

There are 2 problems:

1. Business leaders do not address the job of recruiting, interviewing, hiring and on-boarding their team in the same consistent, methodical and committed way in which they execute the operations of their business.  As a matter of fact, the important job of “finding the right people” is all too often delegated to people that don’t have the training, tools or experience in doing it right, and they just hire the first body that comes through the door to fill-up an application and then proceed to throw them in the fire (put them to work) as quickly as possible with very little training or guidance.
2. Once those poor people are in the organization there is a lack of leadership and the team is left to fend for themselves but still being held accountable for results that they may not be quite sure on how to deliver.

50% of turnover happens within the first 30 days on employment and a large amount of those in the first week.

How to solve this crisis?

• Hire the right people.  This needs to be done through proper selection, interviewing, background check and if possible, real job tour before you extend the job offer.
• Have them feel welcome from day one.  If you make sure that their first hours and days of interaction with you, the team and the organization are positive, they are more likely to stay.
• Provide a complete and supportive on-boarding.  Give them a written plan of what their first week or two will look like, including what they are going to learn, when and with who.  This way they will know exactly what to expect and their level of stress from starting a new job will go down.
• Train them so well that they feel capable and confident. If you do a great job at preparing your new employee for the job that they are expected to do, they will enjoy the job that much more and this will provide the opportunity for them to be able to do a great job for you!
• Check on them to make sure that everything is going OK.  Even with the best of plans, things happen whether we like it or not.  It is important that you, as the leader, check-up on your new employee often, especially in the first few days.  This way you will find out right away if they have any questions or they are having any issues.
• Provide a safe, nurturing, fun and stable work environment. If you make the effort to provide such an environment, why would anyone want to leave?  This does not mean that you let everyone do what they want.  To the contrary, great employees like structure, order, discipline and they like to work with people like them. 

Even if you do all of the right things, people are still going to leave.  They move away, they find something better, they go to college, they finish college, etc.  There are many reasons people leave jobs.  But if you do all of the right things, they won’t leave because they are unhappy with the job and that will significantly cut your turnover rate which means that you will be fully staffed more often than not.

Wishing you great success!

Aicha Bascaro is a 30-year veteran in the franchise industry and the author of the #1 Amazon Best Selling book “The Franchise Fix”. Aicha offers a few complimentary Consultation Sessions every week. If you are interested, schedule your session here: Aicha's Calendar