With dining room capacity becoming limited in many states, a crucial component of maintaining profitability will be keeping your labor cost low. That can make introducing new roles and responsibilities challenging. Below are some strategies to make sure that you are using your staff effectively and efficiently, if you don’t have the resources to hire additional employees.
Shift the focus of existing roles
Think about what roles can evolve into new responsibilities, especially if you think the demand is here to stay. For example, can your host become a concierge? Can you transform your Assistant Manager into a Safety Manager or an Off-Premise Manager?
Create dual roles
One way to mitigate costs, engage more of your team, and manage new tasks is to leverage your staff in multiple ways. This also offers your employees opportunities to work additional hours and subsidize some of their lost income. For example, could a member of your staff be both a server and a manager of your social media and digital presence? Could another take on the roles of a social distance ambassador or cleaning captain?
Identify where it makes sense to hire an expert
Not every skill and area of expertise will exist within your current team, and it may be cost prohibitive to hire experts full time, but there are services out there that can be hired on an as-needed basis and help negotiate costs on your behalf.
For help with your online presence, companies such as Sociavore have backgrounds in the restaurant industry and can help with website development, email marketing, and social media campaigns. Managing a variety of equipment repair services can take more time than you have right now, but services like 86Repairs can be a one-stop shop for outsourcing repairs, negotiating lower rates, and providing insight into long term repair costs.
For tech support, consider services like Science. Instead of hiring in-house IT, have someone on-call who knows all POS systems and the various digital platforms that you’re using to run your business. Companies like Science can reduce IT and maintenance costs and ensure uninterrupted service to your customers.
Trust20 is the new standard of restaurant safety and diner comfort, based on 20 tactics by health and safety experts.
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