Updated: Jun 21, 2020
People quit continually, this is a sad reality in the restaurant industry that we need to battle every day as restaurant owners and managers.
We need to have a retention strategy in place to keep our employees in our company, especially the top-performing ones.
First, we need to understand why people actually leave their jobs.
There are 6 main reasons why restaurant workers abandon their posts:
1. External factors - it is not because you are a bad leader or manager, some factors are not in our control such as health issues, graduation, personal matters, etc.
2. Poor compensation and benefits - they found a different place that pleases them more.
3. The schedule - they may not be happy with the number of hours they are getting, perhaps too many or too little.
4. Conflict with team members and managers - some may not necessarily be getting along with their colleagues or managers.
5. Career advancement - this is a challenge for small businesses like us, we can't offer them career growth that maybe some of them are hoping for, they feel stagnant with the jobs that they are in.
6. They don’t feel valued and appreciated - a lot of statistics show that most employees, in general, don't feel valued and appreciated, and by that we've done a poor job communicating the fact that we value our people.
Do you know that these issues can be solved by one strategy that you can implement to your company?
The one thing that can reduce your turn over, and increase your retention rate is PULSE MEETINGS. This has been our top strategy when it comes to improving our employee's retention rate.
Pulse meetings are short team status meetings wherein the Project Management Team gathers project performance information about the activities that they have initiated.
These meetings should occur frequently and can be done either in person or virtually that last for only a few minutes in duration.
By conducting Pulse Meetings, you can achieve the following benefits:
👉 Build rapport with your team members - you must build a deeper relationship with your people.
We know that the restaurant is busy, people are on the clock so we can't just get in and chat with them.
If you lead and create a culture where folks on the clock just stand around and talk too much, it will not be healthy, especially for your labor percentage.
Pulse meetings are a great way for you to steal and systematically create pockets of time that are very focused and concise where you can utilize those times to build relationships with your people.
👉 Check in to make sure the team member is doing well personally - you can measure if you have a healthy relationship with your staff by constantly checking how they feel and think.
👉 Gather specific intel so we can serve our team better - you can ask specific questions to get definite answers.
👉 Re-engage the disengaged by identifying why they are disengaged and come up with a counter plan - Statistics show that 70% of employees in the US are disengaged.
A disengaged employee is somebody who doesn't care anymore about the success of the team.
As soon as you identify people who are disengaged, work on bringing them back to focus, understand and figure out how you can help them, especially if they think of quitting.
To run an effective Pulse Meeting, you must consider these 7 quick tips:
1. Keep it concise. The meeting should only last from 5 to 10 minutes so that it would not hold too much time, make it quick but worthwhile.
2. Do it in a semi-private place. The dining room or the office are ideal places to have it.
3. Do it once to twice a month per team member. Having it one to two times a month for each team member is the ideal frequency, and if you sense tension or disengagement, immediately preside over so things would not get worse.
4. Be purposeful. You must communicate the vision and the purpose of the meeting up front, for instance, you can tell a team member, “Hey, the reason I am meeting with you is to simply check-in and get some feedback we can work together better and be a stronger team.”
5. Ask specific questions. Don't beat around the bush, to get specific answers, ask specific questions.
6. Formal but casual. Be formal by being objective and staying professional, but make it in a manner that your team member would feel comfortable by showing a friendly attitude.
7. Document/log details. You need to record important points that you and your team members have talked about so you can refer to it later.
How do you conduct daily Pulse Meeting to specifically target the 6 main reasons why restaurant employees quit their jobs hence increasing your retention rate?
Here are some factors to consider and specific questions that you can ask your employees:
1. External factors - You may have done everything to keep your people content, however, there will always be some of them who will quit because of factors that are out of our control like having low grades in school, a shift in their priorities, health issues, personal reasons, etc.
Observe if any possible changes are happening in the team members' life so that you can anticipate change before it happens by conducting Pulse Meetings.
✔ What are their plans after graduation?
-If they are in college, ask them about their plans after graduation because this will give you an idea which month are they most likely going to quit in reference to their graduation day.
-This will give you enough time to prepare someone else to take on that position so the operations will not be affected.
✔ How are they doing in school? What grades they are getting, etc.
-You need to know how many credits do they have in school, how many classes they attend, what is their grades, etc.
-Gather intel to figure out if they are not doing well in school, then they must be thinking of dropping school or their jobs, or they might reduce their hours of work.
✔ Is football season coming up?
-Since we hire mostly high school students in our restaurant who are into football, so football season becomes a huge deal for us.