How To Improve The Restaurant Employee Experience

Improve Safety Measures in Your Restaurant

Improved safety is an easy and obvious way to enhance your employee’s experience. It will make your staff feel better and more relaxed about coming into work. It’ll also save your business money and diminish liability for injury, theft or hazard. Here are a couple of quick tips:

• Emphasize locking doors, various safety measures to prevent theft or burglary
• Upgrade alarm systems
• Install security cameras
• Reduce employee time outside the building

Emphasize to your staff the importance of locking doors to help prevent burglary or theft. Upgrading your alarm systems and installing security cameras is another great preventative measure that will also help you figure out the source of a security issue should one arise. Limiting the amount of time your staff spends outside the restaurant completing tasks like used cooking oil disposal or garbage is a great way to mitigate potential liability, particularly at night. It leaves them vulnerable to robbery.

Better Your Training Processes for Restaurant Employees

Restaurant owners and managers cannot expect satisfactory performance from employees if they aren’t properly trained to do the job. One study found that nearly one in five restaurants (17 percent) said they never received workplace safety training and 40 percent indicated their employer does not post. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) signage that is required by most municipalities. Your staff needs to know how to do their jobs correctly to promote safety and improve their experience.

There is no better place to start than right when they are hired.

New hire training guide

• Make sure a thorough new-hire training guide is in place
• It should include training on register and all transactional systems
• Clear, concise explanation of their role and the responsibilities it includes
• Outline any company policies or guidelines

Make sure you have a new hire training program in place. This is key to getting your employees off on the right foot, so they feel comfortable in their working environment. Train them on using the register and all transaction systems, as well as cooking equipment and any policies and guidelines your business adheres to.

Injury and Hazard Reduction in Commercial Kitchens

• Proper training on all equipment, particularly dangerous equipment
• How to properly dispose of used cooking oil
• How to clean fryers and cooking equipment
• Cleaning up spills, placement of wet floor signs

Proper training also leads to fewer injuries, which means more of your staff is available, your business is a safer place to work and has less potential liability. Slips and falls account for 18 percent of all restaurant workers’ compensation claims and are the second most common claim. Slips and falls also account for 37 percent of all incurred cost for restaurant workers compensation claim.

Properly train your employees on all cooking and frying equipment, but particularly the more dangerous equipment such as fryers, grills and used cooking oil disposal equipment.

Maintain a Clean Work Environment

Cleanliness and a sanitary work environment have always important aspects in cultivating a satisfactory employee experience, but especially so since the COVID-19 pandemic set in. More people are more conscious about cleanliness and sanitation than ever before.

Establish concrete hygiene policies

• Washing of hands after using restroom
• Hair nets, ties at all times in kitchen
• Gloves when handling or making food
• A strict ‘if you’re sick, stay home’ policy
• Ensure employees are aware of proper handling of food when being delivered to the customer

You want your staff to feel comfortable in a clean environment. That starts with putting policies in place that it remains that way. Start with the basics like a handwashing requirement upon leaving the restroom, and hair nets and gloves when handling food. Make sure your servers know how to deliver food to customers in a sanitary manner. This is where proper signage can play a key role in cementing these policies.

Lastly, make it abundantly clear to your staff that they should stay home if they are feeling ill. You want your healthy employees to feel safe and you don’t want illness to spread throughout your kitchen, causing further staffing shortages and leaving your staff vulnerable.

Optimize Kitchen Technology to Reduce Unnecessary Labor:

Utilizing technology to reduce unneeded manual labor and mundane tasks is an important step toward improving employee experience.

• Make sure the technology is productive and efficient
• Automated used cooking oil transfer equipment
• Single-touch cooking equipment
• Make sure your systems are easy to use, your employees know how to use them and that it makes their job easier not harder

It’s important to make sure that technology is beneficial to your staff and not a hinderance. According to one study, before the COVID-19 pandemic set in, roughly 22 percent of workers surveyed had claimed they had quit their jobs because workplace technology made their jobs challenging. Post covid, over 32 percent of workers claim they will quit if technology at work becomes a bottleneck to performing their job. Ask your equipment supplier for any opportunity to upgrade to automated equipment that increases ease of use for your employees.

When utilized properly, technology can make your employees’ lives easier.

Maintain High Restaurant Employee Morale

Investing in your employees might be the most important thing you can do to ensure they have a satisfactory experience at your business and stick around longer.

• Reward them when they do a good job.
• An incentive program that includes flexible scheduling, time off.
• Make them aware of growth opportunities within the company.
• Train and prepare them for present and future roles.

Motivating your employees to do a good job is a two-way street. You have to incentivize them to want to do a good job and put out a good product. Put programs in place that reward employees for good performance, whether it’s an employee of the month award or a system that provides benefits like flexible scheduling and time off. If your employees want to be there and feel they are valued, they will want to do a good job rather than watch the clock until the day or shift is over. That will ultimately work to the benefit of your business.

Improving the restaurant employee experience is key in a time of high turnover and staffing shortages within the industry. These tips will help you get the process started.