FH0320

CHALLENGES &
OPPORTUNITIES
hiring and human resources, Smolkin says the
entire foodservice industry is facing the same
challenge — with competition coming from
within the industry, as well as from outside
competitors, including retail chains and
grocery stores.
“[Restaurant operators] realize everybody’s
up against the same [labour] challenge,” he
says, noting hiring practises need to change to
address the problem.
Sherwood agrees. “The days of posting a
job on a whiteboard and expecting to find
that individual — especially in the restaurant
space — is impossible.”
The Opportunity |
While better benefits, work/life balance and
increased employee engagement are all key
to keeping staff, finding them to begin with
is another matter entirely. For some outsidethe-box
thinkers, the shortage of home-grown
talent has offered up the opportunity to look
farther afield for qualified labour pools.
Starbucks, which has a long-standing history
of working with social agencies and
government bodies to create hiring programs,
developed the Opportunity For All Youth
coalition. In Canada, the company announced
in November of last year it would hold a firstof-its-kind
refugee hiring event. “Starbucks
is the leading employer of refugees and made
a commitment to hire 1,000 refugees by
2020,” says Luisa Girotto, VP Public Affairs
for Starbucks Canada. “We’re currently ahead
of our five-year goal, having hired about 500
refugees in less than three years.”
Closer to home, word of mouth and using
your existing team as recruiters can also be a
good way to attract new staff, says Sherwood.
“If your organization is successful, vibrant
and doing all the right things, then it goes
without saying you’re going to have referrals
[from existing staff]. They become your
brand ambassadors.”
Post-hiring, Smolkin says it all comes
down to training — and doing it in a way
that appeals to your staff. Gone are the days
of training manuals and written tests. Today’s
foodservice workforce is younger, more tech
savvy and has been raised on digital.
At Smoke’s, management is seizing the
opportunity speak to their employees in new
ways by introducing online training modules.
“It’s not standing up with a PowerPoint slide
— it’s all interactive. They’re on the [iPad],
passing modules and tests. We can grade them
and give them [online] badges for doing well,”
explains Smolkin.
Kevin Hulbert, recruitment specialist at
AIP, agrees recognizing the current generation
of people entering the workforce is drastically
different in terms of how they communicate
with one another is key to keeping your staff
engaged. He says operators need to find ways
to incorporate technology into the workplace
to engage staff.
“It sounds trite, but their cell phones are
their world,” he says. “There’s vastly different
approaches to how people communicate and
the way they connect with one another.”
Smoke’s has also incorporated Winnipegbased
7shifts into its operations to manage its
labour across its franchise network.
With the 7shifts app, staff can communicate
with each other directly to swap shifts
or managers can leave notes about tasks needing
to be completed. Smolkin says it goes
beyond just a scheduling and labourmanagement
system.
“It also has the engagement and communication
that demographic loves. They love
to voice their opinion, they love messaging
back and forth. But the underlying part of it is
their manager/franchisee will be using it as an
instructional tool as well.”
Beyond engagement, Smolkin says it’s
important for operators to understand
employee goals and help them achieve them.
“What [do your employees] want to get
out of [the job]? What was their goal on day
one — do they want to be a supervisor or
a manager? Do they want to own their own
franchise someday? Our employee demographic
wants to see that you genuinely care
about them and want to see them advance.
You’re not going to be naive and think they’re
going to be there for five years — it’s a stepping
stone to put themselves through school a
lot of times. You need to show them you want
to help them get there and there’s no hard
feelings when they’re ready to go.”
Hulbert agrees clear opportunities for
growth or “even something as simple as a title
change — some sort of responsibility shift —
can be motivating for some people.” He also
notes the importance of “not just leaving staff
in a position forever so they feel they have to
go somewhere else to advance.”
He says chains such as Joey and Earls have
really embraced this philosophy, offering
training, advancement opportunities and
even the chance to relocate to new parts of the
country to work in their different restaurants.
“They’re moving their people around,
they look after them as well,” says Hulbert.
“They’re impacting the industry —
that’s the bar they’ve set [for the rest of the
foodservice industry].” FH
FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM
MARCH 2020 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY 37