Front of House Needs a Coach

The cost of eating out is up, but that’s not why restaurant foot traffic is down.  

The grueling labor shortage faced by restaurants across the country, from quick serve to Michelin Star, is starting to take a toll on customer experience.

This is according to a report on the industry published by Black Box Intelligence and a smart piece in QSR Magazine, which analyzed that data together with findings from a recent survey, conducted by Rewards Network and distributed to over a thousand restaurants across the country.

The most telling stat from where we sit? Only 5% of respondents reported that they were fully staffed for front-of-house.

At 1Huddle, we work with brands every day doing the best they can with the people they have. But just because those numbers weren’t a surprise, doesn’t mean they’re not having an impact. 

For the 95% of restaurants struggling with labor shortages, here are 3 things you can do to run a lean, mean, partially staffed machine. 

1. Support soft skills with ironclad coaching.

It doesn’t matter how poised the new hire seemed during her interview, that’ll be the first thing to go under pressure. Tact only gets you so far when you don’t know what you’re doing. 

It’s almost impossible to de-escalate cranky interactions, smile through abuse, or overcome fear of embarrassment without a solid knowledge of things like where the menus are kept, how to use the POS system, where to confirm orders for UberEats, or when to transfer a call to the back office. 

Hands-on coaching is key to consistent customer service. By helping them feel proficient in the basic tasks they need to perform, you can greatly increase your front-of-house worker’s ability to stay cool under [ressure, and to deploy the soft skills so often needed on the frontlines of customer service. 

2. Cross-train your front of house for the jobs they have, and for the roles they’ll need to fill. 

It’s not just technology that will change job functions in the future—  The reality of work is doing that already. And nothing impacts the reality of what’s required of us, day-in and day-out, than the roles that go unfilled.  

So, while your servers or bussers wouldn’t normally need to know how to use OpenTable, with the average restaurant operating with 4 fewer front-of-house employees, being ready for the reality of work will mean cross-training the people you have for the jobs you might not be able to fill. 

3. Clear communication is key to preparing your team for changing roles and responsibilities without risking retention.

Gallup found that fewer than 4 in 10 millennial employees understand what management expects of them– and that that lack of communication puts them at severe risk of quiet quitting or worse actual quitting. 

Clearly communicating your expectations for each role is the difference between empowering your people to take on additional duties and discouraging them to the point of disengagement. 

Empower them to perform the duties you cross-trained them for by answering their questions, and preparing them (to the best of your ability) for the shifts where they’ll be expected to perform the new tasks ahead of time. Try remaining on the floor to demonstrate what things should look like when correctly executed, and remaining on the floor to coach them through their first attempts after. 

A lot of workers get their start in restaurants. For many, it’s their first job, and that’s true for a lot of us at 1Huddle, too. 

Front-of-house workers are the first and last face the customer sees, and sometimes the only name the customer remembers– they are the live wire that keeps the kitchen in touch and responsive to the customer experience. 

Not being able to staff up for these key positions responsible for customer service is clearly having an impact, regardless of whether their guests are dining off or on-premises. And, if only 3.7% of restaurants feel that understaffing is related to why customers aren’t coming back, how many are failing to support the workers they have with the extra coaching they need?

About 1Huddle

1Huddle is a coaching and development platform that uses quick-burst mobile games to more quickly and effectively educate, elevate, and energize your workforce — from frontline to full-time.

With a mobile-first approach to preparing the modern worker, a mobile library of 3,000+ quick-burst employee skill games, an on-demand game marketplace that covers 16 unique workforce skill areas, and the option for personalized content, 1Huddle is changing the way organizations think about their training – from a one-time boring onboarding experience to a continuous motivational tool. 

Key clients include Loews Hotels, Novartis, Madison Square Garden, PIMCO, TAO Group, and the United States Air Force. To learn more about 1Huddle and its platform, please visit 1huddle.co.