Restaurant Management: Stop Losing Your Top Performers

Why do hospitality employees – including top-performing talent – feel the urge to flee? The top two reasons cited by industry experts are:

  • They don’t feel valued by their employers, and,
  • They feel underpaid as well as underappreciated.

Well, that explains a lot. But the good news is if you are in restaurant management: You can avoid losing your superstar performers by keeping them as engaged and motivated as possible. This directly translates into higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty.

Studies have shown that higher levels of employee retention equate to better guest satisfaction scores and ultimately, a healthier bottom line. And this favorable status is achieved when you value your employees. In turn, they add value – and have a greater tendency to stay and grow their careers with your company.

Create a Guest-Centric Culture

By focusing on higher guest satisfaction, you will achieve spillover into enhanced employee morale and engagement.

  • Make sure employees understand business goals and their role in meeting them. Communicate your goals and objectives to all team members, with parallel messages describing the importance of their own success in continuously improving guest relations.
  • Involve employees in developing goals. No one knows the job of an individual team member better than that person, regardless of their department or position on the organizational chart. Ask for and listen and respond to employee input on how to develop future plans and make your business better.
  • Make all goals SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. This applies to both individual and business plans and strategies.

Get Restaurant Employees Involved

If you give up a bit of your control and give ownership to employees, you can then sit back and watch how positively they respond. Make no mistake: you need to be there to provide guidance and resources, But it’s critical to let leaders lead. The outcome can be awesome.

  • Establish employee teams. In addition to gathering their input on business improvement tactics, assign them to tackle specific projects and events. For instance, a team devoted to community service can develop an annual calendar of events that align with your company’s social responsibility plan.
  • Celebrate success. Implement a rewards and recognition program. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It does have to be robust and supported from the top down. This is another great team activity. Your recognition team can take responsibility for nominating employees and your property or business for ongoing rewards.

Support Their Future

Show your top performers that you have a vested interest in their career growth. Find out where they want to go and help them get there.

  • Provide training, support and development. Employees will be more likely to stay loyal and strive to advance within your company versus the competition.
  • Cross train. This breaks the monotony of employees’ everyday routine, stretches their minds, and allows them to learn about and build rapport with other departments.

The specialized recruiting team at Horizon Hospitality can partner with you to further develop your workforce and build HR success for the future.  If you are looking for a restaurant management search firm, contact our team today.

Horizon Hospitality continues to be recognized as the leading hospitality recruitment firm in North America.  From restaurant manager searches to hotel general managers recruiting to executive chef recruitment, we have placed top-tier hospitality executives, managers, sales professionals and chefs in a wide array of restaurant, hotel, resort and country club positions.   Whether you’re looking for a hotel or restaurant management job or a top hospitality executive recruiter, Horizon Hospitality is here to help!    

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