Hiring reliable restaurant staff is the difference between success and failure. Think about it: from the servers and shift leads to cooks and cashiers, every restaurant employee has a direct connection to the customers and can make or break customer satisfaction scores.
Hiring is an area where skipping over the details and hoping it works out won’t cut it. In fact, it’ll bite you in the rear.
To help you avoid future hiring mistakes, our guide walks through the hiring process, from what to do before you post a job description to interviewing to onboarding. Let’s roll.
Want this How To guide as a PDF? Download the Restaurant Hiring Guide here.
What to do before hiring restaurant staff
Before you start posting about hiring, get crystal clear on the restaurant staff you need to run a successful restaurant.
Calculate Sales Per Labor Hour
First, use your Sales per Labor Hour calculations to determine if sales have been healthy enough to justify bringing on more staff and how many more team members you actually need. This helps avoid hiring from a place of panic, and instead ensures you’re hiring what you actually need to maintain and grow your business.
Identify Skills & Experience Required
Next, get clear on the experience, skills, and availability required by your new hires.:
- What specific skills do they need?
- Is this a good fit for a newbie or do you need someone with experience?
- What hours do you absolutely need to cover?
- How much face-to-face customer interaction will they have?
Write a Detailed Job Description
Receiving a ton of applications from unqualified candidates is a total waste of time and resources. Get ahead of the problem by creating clear, concise and highly specific restaurant job descriptions.
Your Restaurant Job Description should include:
- Job title
- Location
- Hours
- Pay range
- Key responsibilities
- Additional job requirements
Here’s coffee shop barista job description example:
Create an Employee Training System
Don’t wait until your new employee’s first day to think about training. Having an onboarding and training plan is critical to boosting employee engagement and retaining talented workers.
- Set up Restaurant Payroll Services to handle all the new hire paperwork plus get payroll rolling from Day 1
- Use Restaurant POS that’s easy to learn, simple to manage, yet powerful enough to help you grow your business.
- Create a structured training plan, not just shadowing other staff or yourself. Include everything from understanding restaurant menus and equipment to customer service expectations.
- Assign a “Go To Trainer” who can handle all those on-the-fly questions or concerns that a new hire is sure to have.
How to find and manage restaurant staff applicants
From job posting sites to word of mouth, there are endless avenues to find applicants when hiring restaurant staff. The trick is to find what’s going to work best for you, in your specific area. Here are some common options.
Employee Referrals
This is your best bet for a strong new hire. Ask your current employees if they anyone who would be a great fit for the job. This works so well because your current employees are vouching for this new hire and therefore not likely to recommend someone they know isn’t going to cut it. Start here.
Word of Mouth
Your second best option for finding great employees is tapping your network. Ask other people in your industry if they know anyone looking for a job who would be a good fit. Let friends and family know that you’re hiring, too.
Online Restaurant Job Postings
With referrals and your network in play, amplify your efforts with a few posts online.
- Share your job description on Facebook or Instagram and ask your followers to help spread the word.
- Add a job posting on sites like Indeed or restaurant-specific job listing sites like Good Food Jobs.
- Local job boards are also very effective places to share open roles.
How to hire restaurant staff
If you’ve followed the above restaurant staffing tips, you should have a number of applicants waiting to hear from you. Now it’s time to find out who’s best qualified to become a reliable team member.
Interviewing Restaurant Employee Applicants
Job applications are just scratching the surface on whether or not an applicant is a good fit to fill your open restaurant position. Interviews are essential.
When you speak with a potential hire, you should look for a solid knowledge of the industry, some sort of experience that translates to the position and, perhaps most importantly, the presence of good communication and interpersonal skills.
Questions to Ask Restaurant Employee Applicants
As a restaurant owner or general manager, your job during the interview process is to determine if the potential new hire has the experience and the communication and interpersonal skills required for the job.
Be prepared with questions as well as the type of answers that you’re hoping to hear.
Here are a few interview questions to help get you started.
- Have you worked in a restaurant or in a customer-facing positions before? Tell me about that.
- Can you provide an example of when you have worked in a high pressure situation?
- How would you handle an unhappy customer?
- Describe a time you worked as part of a team. What role did you take?
- Why do you want to work in a restaurant?
When you combine basic questions with these deeper inquiries, you’ll get a combination of practical feedback and answers that tell you more about a candidate’s attitude and culture fit.
“You’re hired!”
Keep in mind that great employees aren’t typically great on Day 1. They’re nervous, you’re nervous, and mistakes can (and likely will) happen. The good news is that building a great team culture is an ongoing process. Here are few things to keep in mind during your new hire’s first week.
- Stick to your onboarding and training plan
- Introduce the new hire to your team
- Praise publicly, criticize privately
- Lead with grace and empathy
- Be positive!
Get the Guide
How to Hire Reliable Food Service Staff
- Identify the type of help you need
- Write a job description
- Find great job candidates
- Conduct an informative interview
- Create an effective training program
Table Needs POS makes onboarding easy!
Creating a great restaurant staffing plan can be difficult, but Table Needs can help. Our Restaurant POS system is super easy to use, and our customer service is always available to answer staff questions and provide extra training.
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