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The Real Truth About Hiring + Staffing in Food & Beverage and Hospitality
A widely held belief is that recruiting & hiring workers in the food service or hospitality industry is a pretty straight forward affair, though anyone in management will admit it has gotten considerably tougher the last 3+ years. Labor costs have increased across the board as a percentage, and new workers entering the industry have dropped, especially amongst the sub-21 crowd. With fifteen-million employees spread amongst over one-million and counting food & beverage locations in the US alone, competition for quality industry workers has never been higher or more dramatic. And the competition for US consumer dollars dictate that businesses operate fully staffed, lest they run the real risk of losing out to the competition and dying a costly, albeit quick, death.
Labor Costs are not just what an owner-operator spends to employ someone in the food & beverage and hospitality industry. It should include all costs associated with turnover such as job postings, interviews, hiring, training, and take into account the time spent by management on each task. But it goes well beyond this, whether that be a restaurant or bar, hotel or banquet facility, catering operation, and so forth. To calculate the actual cost of turnover one must take into account the cost of being short-staffed as a consequence. A consequence that drives the…
