10 ways to reduce restaurant employee turnover rates

Employee turnover is a constant challenge in the restaurant industry. In fact, the average annual turnover rate hovers around 80 percent.

Low pay and hard work undoubtedly play a role, but there’s more to it than that. Many employees simply don’t plan to stay long term — with more than 60 percent intending to leave the industry within eight years.

This high employee turnover means owners and managers must constantly onboard new employees, incur recruitment costs, or run their businesses with a skeleton crew that falls short of customer expectations.

Sound familiar? These restaurant management tips will show you how to reduce restaurant employee turnover and build a team that sticks around.

What is restaurant employee turnover?

Restaurant employee turnover is the rate at which staff leave a restaurant within a specific time period. With an average turnover rate of around 80 percent, the restaurant industry experiences turnover far beyond the 10 percent that average experts consider healthy.

In many cases, restaurant staff think of their jobs as temporary — with entry-level employees often only filling positions on a seasonal basis. They may be using a restaurant position as a stopover on the way to a different career; 40 percent of short-time employees list an industry move as their reason for potentially leaving.

On top of this revolving-door mindset, working in the restaurant industry isn’t for the faint of heart. Long hours of hard work often lead to burnout among employees who already have one eye on the door. And these are just a few of the factors contributing to this hospitality industry’s turnover rates.

Identifying root causes of turnover in the restaurant industry

Getting to the core of why your team members are leaving can help you develop better solutions for how to reduce restaurant employee turnover. The restaurant industry is fast-paced and often short-term by nature, but a few common issues tend to affect employee retention the most:

• Low pay: This factor is one of the top two reasons for turnover among short-, mid-, and long-time employees alike. Since most restaurant employees (servers and back-of-house staff) are paid at or near a minimum hourly wage, there’s not much financial incentive for employees to stick around if a better opportunity presents itself.
• Lack of growth opportunities: There are only so many leadership roles in a restaurant. For workers who crave more fulfillment and compensation, that ceiling can feel limiting.
• High-stress environments: Long hours, fast pace, and little recognition can quickly lead to burnout — especially when hard work goes unnoticed by management. In fact, lack of recognition is a top reason why many employees consider leaving — nearly at the same level as low pay.
• Poor management practices: For mid- and long-time employees, a difficult manager is the number one cause of turnover. Even experienced staff who know the realities of the industry will move on to escape an overbearing or unpleasant work environment.

Your first step toward better employee satisfaction and staff retention is identifying which of these factors is most impacting your particular turnover rate. From there, you can introduce new strategies to your restaurant business plan.

Proven strategies to reduce restaurant employee turnover

If you want to retain your employees, focus on what’s actually driving them away. When you address the root causes, everything else gets easier — from morale to performance.

As you consider how to reduce restaurant employee turnover, try implementing these employee retention strategies to boost workforce engagement and improve workplace culture.

1. Competitive compensation and benefits

Particularly with short-time or seasonal employees, the difference between you and another business may come down to dollars and cents. So while you may have limited options (after all, many restaurants operate on a shoestring budget), where possible, stay competitive with wages — even small differences can influence whether someone stays or leaves.

It’s also important to consider benefits outside of pay. Health, dental, and vision insurance are high-value factors for many employees looking to join, stay on, or leave your team.

2. Training and development opportunities

While restaurant hierarchy may mean that not everyone can move up, they can still grow. Offering specialized training and development opportunities for your employees aligned with their interests and strengths can help them feel much more invested and fulfilled.

For example, if you have a member of your staff with a particular passion for wine, consider investing in sommelier or Wine & Spirits Education Trust training. This investment can not only spark renewed interest and purpose in your employees’ everyday responsibilities, but it can also pay dividends by enhancing the quality of your customers’ restaurant experience.

3. Cultivating a positive workplace culture

Kind words and a welcoming workplace can go a long way toward retaining restaurant employees. But working directly with the public means your team regularly has to deal with challenging interactions — and that can take a real toll over time.

To mitigate fatigue caused by daily work stress, prioritize improving your workplace culture with

• Open and honest communication between employees and management
• A safe and supportive workplace through safety training, zero-tolerance harassment policies, mental health resources, and scheduling policies that take into account the challenges of everyday life
• Restaurant team-building opportunities

If you go the extra mile for your employees, they’ll be more inclined to do the same — particularly during tough times.

4. Flexible scheduling options

Not everyone is built for the demands of an industry schedule. Some restaurant employees may want as many shifts as possible, while others may be more comfortable with fewer. Encouraging employees to schedule as many shifts as they can handle without burning themselves out can help maximize employee satisfaction and productivity.

That said, it’s not realistic for employees to expect to work whenever they want, particularly if you have a smaller team. But making an effort to help employees maximize their hours when necessary or take time off as needed can go a long way toward building trust and loyalty.

5. Effective onboarding processes

Onboarding training is crucial for providing team members with a strong foundation for their work and can influence how many of your new hires stick around. This foundation helps prepare them for when things go sideways — reducing burnout from the demands of restaurant work early on.

Modern training methods like e-learning can help onboard team members more quickly. And remember to personalize where possible — allow employees to learn in ways that suit their learning styles best, ensuring they get the most from the sessions.

6. Employee engagement initiatives

Increasing workplace engagement can directly affect employee satisfaction and staff retention. Of all the employee retention strategies on this list, you have the most flexibility here.

What engages your employees will be unique to their needs, so consider tactics like

• Mentorship programs
• Community involvement events
• Employee engagement committees

Test and tweak engagement initiatives to find the perfect blend for your team that keeps employees tuned in and signed on for the long haul. Consider using an employee engagement survey for direct feedback on what is and isn’t working.

7. Quality management training

Restaurant management has an undeniable impact on employee turnover. That’s why you can’t afford to promote just anyone to this position — or fall short on training and expectations. 

When considering who to promote to management, think about their relationships with fellow staff members. Are they well-liked and respected? Do they consistently and successfully handle the interpersonal conflicts common in high-pressure environments like restaurants?

Once in their position, invest in their success by offering ongoing training. Managers should be the most capable members of your staff — but they may need your help to stay ahead of the curve.

8. Thorough exit interviews

The best way to find out why your employees are quitting is to go straight to the source. Before any employee’s final shift, take the time to sit down and learn more about why they’re leaving or what, if anything, you could have done to prevent their exit. 

You can perform these exit interviews formally, informally, or even through the use of a feedback form. Feedback forms are especially useful thanks to their flexibility, efficiency, and accessibility.

9. Employee incentive programs

If you’re looking for a low-cost way to offer your employees a little something extra, try implementing an employee incentive program. Start by setting goals that drive results in your business. For example, you can encourage employees to recommend new staff to fill vacant positions. For every recommended new hire who stays on for a set period, reward the employee who referred them with extra break time, first pick of shifts, or even a cash or gift card bonus.

You can also use this system to reward employees who go the extra mile and are recognized by their peers as exceptional team members. Have your team fill in an employee of the month form and nominate a fellow team member. Then, choose one employee to be recognized and offer them a small incentive. This ongoing reward system provides additional motivation for employees during hard shifts while showing your appreciation for their hard work.

10. Collect feedback from your employees

Your employees know what they want from you. In some cases, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful restaurant is whether you’re willing to ask. To collect feedback from your employees, use an employee pulse survey tool to generate an online form and send it to your team.

Once you’ve gathered your team’s feedback, make sure to address (or at least acknowledge) what you hear. Employees who don’t see change after submitting feedback may feel unheard and become even more likely to leave.

The key to implementing effective employee retention strategies is effective communication. Since you can’t always get your employees in the same place at the same time, using an accessible online form tool like Jotform may be an ideal option.

Make retention easier with Jotform

When it comes to reducing employee turnover, Jotform is a restaurant owner or manager’s best friend. With its user-friendly, drag-and-drop form builder, you can easily build employment forms, surveys, onboarding documents, and even shift-scheduling forms. These allow you to better align your team and create a work environment that drives staff retention.

Streamline employee feedback

There’s no need to create forms from scratch, either. Jotform offers customizable feedback form templates designed to help you regularly check in on your staff’s concerns, experiences, and ideas for improvement.

To ensure you’re getting actionable insights, you can easily mix and match question types like 

• Open-ended questions
• Closed-ended questions
• Multiple-choice questions
• Likert-scale questions
• Dynamic dropdowns

Plus, Jotform features an anonymous feedback tool, so your team can provide honest, useful feedback without hesitation. 

Organize data and track incentives

Collecting feedback and insights is only half the battle — the rest is knowing what to do with it. Jotform Tables automatically organizes your form submissions into a connected workspace, making it easy to spot trends at a glance.

If you want to build an employee incentive program, Jotform has you covered there, too. It can help you develop a system to track employee achievements and gather peer recognition with an employee information form to collect the details needed for your database.

Manage your restaurant with custom apps

Beyond retention, Jotform can help you run your entire business. Through Jotform Apps, you can access ready-made restaurant management app templates to upload menus, handle delivery orders, build staff checklists, add a tip calculator, and so much more.

If you’d prefer to build your own business app, you can choose from more than 900 app templates to create, customize, and share your own app without the need to code. You can add elements like links, text fields, documents, images, and buttons to customize your layout — along with options for a unique splash screen and app icon to enhance brand recognition. Even if you’ve never built an app before, Jotform provides all the resources you need to get started.

Take action today to reduce employee turnover

Reducing restaurant employee turnover starts with getting to the root of the problem. When you actively listen to your team members and implement solutions that balance their needs with yours, you can significantly impact your staff’s loyalty and longevity.

Jotform is here to help you manage end-to-end restaurant operations, collect staff feedback, and run a more efficient business overall. With our powerful and intuitive tools, you can more easily uncover the issues driving employees away — and build new systems that make them want to stay.