How to Manage Restaurant Staff Well for Long-term Success

How to manage restaurant staff well should be top of mind for all restaurateurs. 

Restaurant staff are the heartbeat of any operation. It’s critical that owners, operators, and managers work to provide great employee experiences, foster positive attitudes, and sustain cohesion amongst their staff.

Successful restaurant staff management will include competitive compensation and benefits, efficient and flexible scheduling, and technology investments and usage — all aimed at overcoming the high turnover rate that plagues the industry.

How to manage a restaurant staff well will look different for every operation, though it’s critical to understand restaurant employee behaviors and preferences. 

Toast is the point of sale system built for restaurants. We conducted an online blinded survey between February 27, 2023 - March 19, 2023 of 1,011 current restaurant employees.

In this article, we explore key data on restaurant employee preferences and how operators can activate these learnings to help improve restaurant staff management practices.

Key findings on how to manage a restaurant staff well

• Experience is abundant in the industry — as 71% of restaurant employees have worked at a restaurant prior to their current job

• Two weeks or more of training is the sweet spot for successful staff sentiment — though nearly three-quarters of restaurant staff (74%) receive two weeks or less of training and onboarding

• Most restaurant employees (46%) are motivated by making money and supporting their lifestyle — while 18% of restaurant employees are motivated by career development and growth within the restaurant industry

• Churn remains a problem, as 30% of staff are at risk of leaving the industry in the next 2 years

• Restaurant staff that churn cite poor hourly pay (47%), not being recognized for hard work (44%), and bad managers (37%) as their top pain points

How to manage restaurant staff well

Successfully managing a restaurant staff maximizes their capabilities, promotes retention, and encourages exciting menu items and excellent customer service.

Any operators asking how to manage restaurant staff well should start by understanding the competencies and past experiences of their staff.

Our data shows that 71% of restaurant employees have past experience in the industry. 

While expectations should be fair across team members, managers may feel comfortable leaning on team members with more experience — especially compared to restaurant staff members brand new to the industry.

Managing a restaurant staff starts with training

Employee training is essential in the restaurant industry, but many restaurant professionals still haven’t cracked the code on the best way to engage their teams to learn new skills. Is it best to throw new cooks into the fire — literally — on their first day in the kitchen, or to send them home with videos to watch and homework to do?

Hiring managers need to have a plan in place for training. Toast’s research found onboarding and training across the industry can be incredibly sporadic — making thoughtful, organized onboarding a potentially endearing benefit.

Almost 75% of restaurant employees spend less than two weeks training when they first start — though  QSR employees are given slightly more time.

Toast’s data shows restaurant staff perception of their training broken down by the extent of it. Turns out that restaurant staff who trained for longer periods of time have more positive perceptions of their training.

Over 80% of restaurant staff that got at least three weeks of training listed their training as good or very good. That’s compared to 45% for staff that got less than a week of training — and 69% that got one to two weeks of training.

These first few weeks of onboarding and training can be crucial for setting the tone and showing off your restaurant mission and team in action. Hiring managers can start with introductions across the team. 

A buddy system can be a great way to usher new team members through their onboarding period — or champions across each team can help as a point of contact for the rest of their crew.

Great restaurant managers can round out their onboarding by setting up times to sit down with new staff over the first few months. This can be a great way to keep track of how they’re doing and feeling in the new role.

Applying personas and behavioral research to get the most out of your restaurant staff management practices

Restaurant business owners, operators, and managers can tap into common employee personas to better understand staff motivations and ambition — which Toast’s research classifies into four buckets based on their needs and desires within the industry.

Here’s the breakdown of these four personas and what motivates them:

• Most restaurant employees (46%) are motivated by making money and supporting their lifestyle. 

• The second most common persona (22%) is motivated by saving money to achieve a future goal unrelated to the restaurant industry, such as paying for school or a new car. 

• There’s a sizable portion (18%) that are motivated by developing skills and sustaining a long-term career in the restaurant industry.

• The final persona (14%) is motivated simply by keeping busy and making some extra cash to support lifestyle activities.

Be sure that your approach to onboarding, training, and general staff management differs from persona to persona — aligning with those motivations and behaviors.

Along with these personas, Toast research also uncovered what most motivated restaurant employees to join their latest restaurant job.

A majority (56%) of employees said they accepted their most recent restaurant job because of the flexible schedule. Along with schedule flexibility, convenient commute (42%), good hourly pay (42%), and free meals (26%) were other top reasons.

These motivational insights highlight incentives that may help improve morale for existing employees — and help attract new hires.

Visualizing churn in the restaurant industry

Restaurant managers are facing two types of churn. There are those staff members that are exiting the restaurant industry entirely, and then there are those who are leaving one restaurant job for another.

Each set deserves a slightly different approach, so we broke down the current state of restaurant churn by these two factors.

Overcoming churn for restaurant industry exiters

Our research identified four categories of restaurant workers based on how long they plan to work in the industry — highlighting that 30% of restaurant workers plan to leave the industry in less than two years.

Poor hourly pay is the most common reason why the short-timer cohort plan to exit the industry (47%).

A lack of recognition for hard work is the second most common reason that the short-timer cohort churn (44%).

While overcoming poor hourly pay may be dependent on labor cost capacity, providing more recognition for hard work can help boost retention with little investment.

After pay and recognition, difficult managers and lack of long-term career growth round out the top four factors causing short-timers to exit the industry  — both which have cost-efficient solutions we discuss below.

Overcoming churn for restaurant staff team members switching jobs

For restaurant staff looking to stay in the industry for more than two years, a majority of them are “Somewhat or Very Interested” in finding a new restaurant job — or churning.

While low pay is still a major concern for these churners, bad restaurant managers are the top reason that staff members churn.

Similar to restaurant staff leaving the industry, 45% of team members are looking to leave for another restaurant job due to dealing with a bad manager. That’s followed by low pay, lack of recognition, and work schedule complaints.

These factors can all be resolved with little to no increase to labor costs or investment in additional resources.

Implementing data-driven restaurant management tips can help overcome overwhelming industry churn

When it comes to preventing churn and retaining restaurant staff, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. 

Here are some strategies that can help retain restaurant staff.

Optimize restaurant employee scheduling practices for greater reliability

When initially interviewing for their current role, restaurant employees valued the ability to have flexible staff scheduling (56%). That goes along with 36% of staff members stating a restaurant work schedule is a factor that caused them to leave one restaurant job for another.

Restaurant management can help eliminate scheduling woes by balancing employee availability, achieving adequate weekly hours without overwhelming, being considerate in preventing cl-opens (when a restaurant staff member closes the restaurant, then opens it the next morning), and rewarding hard workers and top performers with popular shifts.

Start an employee incentive program for your restaurant business

Incentivizing hard work with financial and non-financial rewards can be an effective way to boost employee morale, make progress on restaurant business goals, and improve employee workplace happiness. It’s a built-in form of appreciation and recognition — which our data shows there’s a clear lack of in the restaurant industry. The earned and recognized praises can also boost satisfaction with managers.

Provide career growth opportunities

Give your employees a reason to stick around long term with career development and growth opportunities via skills progressions and promotions. 

Hiring from within can encourage employee loyalty and provide your restaurant operation with a new generation of leaders with experience and intimate knowledge of your restaurant. While this of course won’t apply to short-timers, it may convert some employees that are supporting households into dedicated restaurant careerists who are in it for the long haul. This can be a great way for good restaurant managers to develop stronger relationships with their team members.

Schedule regular one-on-one meetings with every member of your restaurant staff 

Connecting regularly with each employee is an essential part of improving your restaurant’s employee retention rate.

During these private chats between a manager and their team member, employees are encouraged to share how things are going at work, ask for help overcoming obstacles, set goals, and hear feedback from their manager. These meetings can also operate as skip-level meetings, where an assistant manager may “skip” over their manager and meet directly with the owner or their manager’s manager.

Optimize restaurant staffing with a positions list tailored to your needs

Successful restaurant management starts with meeting the unique restaurant staffing needs of your concept — driven by order volume, restaurant space, number of locations, labor costs capacity, and more. 

In general, restaurants staff three high-level types of restaurant jobs:

• Front-of-house restaurant staff: Front of house, or FOH, refers to public-facing restaurant staff that engages guests and manages customer experiences. 

• Back-of-house restaurant staff: Back of house, or BOH, refers to restaurant staff operating behind the scenes — typically anyone who works in the kitchen or prep areas.

• Restaurant management: Management typically works in the back office, monitoring and fine tuning restaurant operations based on key metrics. They may occasionally pop into the front and back of house to promote better communication and optimal work environments, as well as checking on guest experiences.

Restaurant staff positions list

Cooking down the high-level roles, here’s a more specific restaurant staff positions list for all your team members.

Restaurant owner: May be totally hands off as a passive investor. If active, they may handle all restaurant responsibilities, or fall somewhere in the middle. May contribute to the business growth strategy, managing finances, controlling costs and menu pricing, working on social media, email, and other marketing strategies. May work with management to help ensure a strong team is always on hand to deliver consistent customer satisfaction.

General manager: Should contribute a positive team spirit and well-being, since they will be interacting with, training, and managing everyone on your staff. This person should also be a master at problem-solving, multitasking, and qualified to hire, fire, and reprimand employees when necessary.

Kitchen manager: Help run back-of-house operations. They should be able to push for efficiency in the kitchen and motivate cooks on the line. The kitchen manager should also be organized, keeping close track of inventory to make appropriately sized orders to suppliers.

Bar manager: Responsible for bar inventory management, creating new menu items and specials for drinks, hiring and managing bar staff, and doing bar performance reporting. Should follow national beer and cocktail trends and be able to make informed drink suggestions to guests based on their preferences.

Assistant restaurant manager: Takes on whatever tasks the restaurant manager doesn't have time to handle, like approving shift changes, cash-outs, and deciding server sections. An effective assistant restaurant manager will be able to seamlessly step in as the manager on duty.

Head or executive chef: Conceptualizes and creates your restaurant's new menu items while deciding on long-term staples, manages food costs on a regular basis, oversees daily food preparation, and directs kitchen staff. Should have years of experience working in kitchens and a deep understanding of how ingredients relate to one another.

Sous chef: Second in command in a kitchen, with responsibilities including helping in the preparation and design of food and drink menus, producing high-quality dishes, and ensuring the kitchen operates in a timely way that meets quality standards. They will also need to be familiar with recipes and comfortable taking a leadership role when required.

Line cook: Line cooks manage a station for the duration of meal service — like pasta, grill, or fryer — and will need to be able to maintain focus on the same task for a few hours at a time.

Prep cook: Prepare most of the ingredients that go into the various dishes. Basic prep cook duties include chopping vegetables, cutting or grinding meat, weighing and mixing ingredients, washing and preparing vegetables, storing food, preparing sauces, and more.

Bartender: Bartenders are experts at mixology, the art of preparing mixed drinks. You'll also need someone extremely personable behind that counter; this can be a stressful position, so you'll need someone who can get the job done and still have fun with your guests.

Barback: Bartender's apprentice. Responsibilities include pouring beer and wine for guests (mixing complicated cocktails is reserved for bartenders), getting ice, restocking garnishes and glassware, and making sure the bar has everything needed to operate.

Server: Responsibilities include taking orders, serving food and drinks, removing dinnerware, answering questions about the menu, and handling any and all feedback from guests. Look for candidates that have the strong server skills needed to deliver a top notch dining experience for every guest.

Busser: Responsible for clearing tables and re-setting them for continued use. They need to be attentive during meal service, scanning the room to see if guests have cups, plates, or cutlery that need clearing.

Dishwasher: Helps speed up the cleaning process so that your entire supply of forks isn’t trapped in a wash cycle. Make sure dishwashers are detail-oriented; one missed spot could result in a lost customer. 

Host / hostess: Should be approachable and personable, able to follow the organizational structure of your reservation system, understand your guest seating strategy, be attentive to parties in the waiting area, and be able to coordinate takeout orders.

Cashier: Should be polite, efficient, and accurate. In some restaurant concepts, the cashier is the only person the customer interacts with. The cashier also needs to keep the line moving during busy times without compromising accuracy of orders or quality of service.

Rounding out restaurant staff management skills with technology expectations and desired uses

Modern, efficient restaurant management is reliant on critical software and real-time insights. Toast’s research inquired with restaurant employees about their technology usage.

The majority of restaurant staff are using clock in/out software (65%) as well as point of sale (POS) platforms (57%).

In fact, restaurant employees recognize the importance of POS at their job, as 27% say POS is the most important technology — the most of any platform. That’s closely followed by clock in/out software at 21% and then scheduling at 10%.

Restaurants — and their staff — run through point of sale systems 

Point of sale systems are the foundation of restaurant software. These systems provide the means for servers, bartenders, and floor staff to take guest orders, communicate those orders with the kitchen and bar staff, and then close out the order, totaling the amount due and processing payments.

More and more, restaurant staff are seeing their POS systems literally detached from bulky, wall-mounted terminals — winding up with handheld devices in their pockets.

These handhelds are powering modern guest and staff experiences, such as Toast’s New Steps of Service.

The New Steps of Service feature restaurant-specific technologies powering service models that remove the outdated balance of control and give guests the power to order and pay as they like. With New Steps of Service, restaurants can unlock better guest experiences, more efficient staff, increased ticket sizes, higher tips, and real top- and bottom-line impacts.

Essential clock in/out software pairs well with payroll integration

Clock in/out software tracks and digitizes the hours that staff members work — hours that are essential for consistently executing accurate payrolls. Thus, time-tracking tools built directly into a restaurant payroll system can unlock key automations that help ensure accurate, timely payment processes.

Modern restaurant payroll management systems can provide newfound benefits to their staff. For example, our data shows restaurant staff prefer direct deposit. Most staff report they are getting paid via direct deposit, though a significant portion say they’re still getting paid via check or cash.

With nearly two-thirds of restaurant staff preferring direct deposit, it’s table stakes for today’s restaurant staff management.

Restaurant staff have an interesting relationship with online ordering

Restaurant employee respondents listed online ordering as the third most used restaurant software. However, it’s tied for the second least important restaurant software. And it’s the platform restaurant staff say they’re least confident using — though.

Context is important here — as online ordering is the tool that staff are least confident with, a whooping 78% of staff say they’re either comfortable or extremely comfortable with it. 

This may mean restaurant staff simply need better onboarding and training with their online ordering platform. While it may not be the most important technology for restaurant servers on the floor or cashiers behind the counter, it’s good for all team members to know all the systems.

Staff scheduling software supports systematic success

Staff scheduling software is another standout tool. Nearly 40% of all restaurant staff currently use it and restaurant staff list it as the third most important tool. 

Gone are the days of spreadsheets printed out and taped to the wall in the break room. Integrated scheduling tools can help restaurant management save time building the team’s schedule each week.

For example, Sling by Toast can help optimize scheduling processes and team communication capabilities. Individual employee profiles can enable valuable employee information to flow seamlessly between scheduling and payroll tools. And the communication capabilities can simplify new shifts releases, schedule updates, and team member shift swapping.

Toast is here for your restaurant staff management

Whether it’s POS, Payroll, Scheduling, or other tools, Toast is here to provide essential restaurant management automations and help you capitalize on newfound processes and efficiencies.

Reach out today to learn more, schedule a demo, or expand your suite of Toast products.

This information is provided for general informational purposes only. Toast does not warrant the completeness of any information, text, graphics, links, or other items contained within this content. Toast does not guarantee you will achieve any specific results if you follow any advice herein. It may be advisable for you to consult with a professional such as a lawyer, accountant, or business advisor for advice specific to your situation.

Methodology

Toast conducted a blind online survey of 1,011 U.S. restaurant employees not operating at a manager or owner level ages 18 and older between February 27 - March 19, 2023. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study. Using a standard margin of error calculation, at a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error on average is +/- 3%.