Seven Core Principles for Hiring for Restaurants

Running a restaurant can be stressful, and the last thing an owner needs to worry about is if they hired the right employees for their team.

1. Create a World Class Culture

Culture flows from the top down, says Burns, meaning that a great company culture starts with you, the leader. Changing your attitude about your team is the only way that they will change and one of the most important ways you will attract and keep high-quality talent. Culture starts with the words that you use, especially towards your team.

2. Hire for Personality and Desire

Skills can always be trained, but personality cannot be. It’s important to ask the right questions during the interview to learn about their personality. Most individuals’ resumes will only have information about their hard skills, meaning what they are able to do on the job. It’s important to pay attention to their soft skills, such as personality.

 

3. Make it Hard to Join the Team

Make joining your restaurant a challenge and a privilege by having interviews that are multiple steps. You must make the person feel like they earned their spot on the team. This ensures that you’re hiring the people that truly want to be there and will work well. Additionally, Donald cautions against immediately hiring someone. Take the time to think about a candidate and make sure they’re truly a good fit for your team.

4. Always Be Training

Do you have a training culture or a learning culture? It’s important to have a company culture where everyone is continuously learning. That can be through webinars, demonstrations, lessons, etc. Constant training is a must when you want a team that works to the best of their ability.

5.  Always Be Recruiting

Hiring on demand — immediately hiring someone because a position is vacant — is not the way to go, Donald asserts. Instead, it’s important to always be working towards attracting top talent. Attracting fast-disappearing top talent is done by creating a recruitment plan with actions for each week. One of the ways to do so is offering a career instead of a job. Don’t advertise a new position by stating what you’re looking for, instead, tell the potential candidate what life skills they can learn and improve upon at your establishment. Are they going to improve their people skills as a hostess? What about learning multitasking and time management as a server?

6. Create Opportunities

Opportunities don’t just mean money or a promotion; people want and need a chance to grow. If there’s no chance to grow at your company, the turnover rate will be high and it will breed a negative atmosphere.

7. Appreciate, Reward, and Acknowledge

A simple thank you can go a long way, especially coming from you, the team leader. Give personal thank yous either through a written note or by meeting with every member of your team at the end of their shift. Take the time to get to know your team by sitting down with them one-on-one and learn their goals and dreams. Understanding your team better and getting to know them will help you better motivate them and create a stronger team environment.

A great team starts with you and your hiring practices. The tips Donald provided above are a wonderful foundation ball rolling for your restaurant. Be personable and have clear expectations, and your team will be sure to follow.

Learn more about great hiring practices from Donald Burns by watching the webinar here!