Restaurants focus on technology, retention while the labor market is cool

Diving brief:

• Restaurants can accelerate the recruitment of employees using technology such as candidates monitoring systems, automated planning of interviews and mobile application options, according to the National Restaurant Association Report on technological research of labor.,
• The organization, with the help of Paradox, interviewed managers of 16 catering companies about their hiring processes and their retention strategies to find what employers prioritize as the labor market cools.
• Thirty-seven percent of operators said they planned to adopt work management and recruitment systems while 28% said they were interested in artificial intelligence solutions, NRA said.

Diving insight:

Employers exercise greater discretionary power in hiring, noted the NRA, while looking for means to save time for managers. Key measures of labor mobility flatte Over the past two years, job offers are still high and sectoral unemployment increased.

“The process of examining applications, to conduct interviews and integration of new hires consumes precious time which could otherwise be devoted to the management of the restaurant,” said NRA.

A large number of operators, according to the report, seek to invest in automated labor, recruitment and planning management systems.

Southern Rock Restaurants, a large MCALISTER charcuterie franchisee, said technology has now hired workers within 24 hours, while operator’s hiring time was on average 14 days when using a traditional manual recruitment approach.

The operator uses a monitoring system that automatically plans the interviews, depending on the report. A large majority of candidates (86%) apply to Southern Rock via mobile devices, with most of the applications submitted outside the hours. This complies with general workforce of the workforce, because 54% of job seekers apply at night or on weekends, according to the NRA report.

Southern Rock “provides QR codes and text options to apply in their stores, allowing customers to submit requests in a mobile phone. They also use QR codes for employee reference programs, offering bonuses for successful references, “said NRA.

The employee’s reference program mixes the speed and convenience of technology with the reliability of employee recommendations.

“Two -thirds of operators (say) that their own employees are their best ambassadors for attracting new recruits,” said the NRA.

Despite the availability of new technologies, some employers prefer to stick to older job practices. A family catering group has remained with manual processes that take time due to the preferences expressed by its managers, but still managed to fill its quarters, NRA said.

Finding candidates is only half of the battle, operators told NRA, many of whom focus on the attempt to improve detention. A third of the candidates who accepted an offer were abandoned before their departure dates and more than half have not reached their first 90 days, said the NRA, citing the data from Paradox. Paradox data include data from non -restaurant companies and businesses.

Operators interested in detention invest in regular communication and proactive support for new workers, NRA said. One way to achieve this is a standardized training program.

A multi -brand catering company uses a “20 -day promise” as part of its integration program. The 20 -day promise communicates expectations to workers,, Including the drive references to shift by change. Transparency like this helps to alleviate workers in their new roles, according to the report.