5 Ways To Create a Better Environment for Your Restaurant Employees

How owner-operators can minimize frustrations and keep their staff more engaged.

Restaurant employees understand; there are so many good parts of making a living in the hospitality and food service industry. At Science On Call, many members of our team have experienced life on the restaurant front lines. 

There’s something romantic about being part of the crew. Who doesn’t love digging deep and banging out that lunch rush with your counterparts on the line? True satisfaction comes from delivering a delicious meal and a unique experience to your customers. And nothing beats that first sip of soda or beer or kombucha with your buds after a long shift.

But as anyone in the world of QSR and fast-casual dining knows, there are parts of the restaurant experience that aren’t so rosy.

Staffing shortages can leave restaurant employees stretched thin. Customers might be rude or disrespectful. And commonly, faulty restaurant tech can pull staff away from the parts of the job they truly love.

How can owner-operators minimize the impact of these frustrations — and keep their restaurant employees happier and more engaged?

We’ve got some tips! Given that our background is in restaurant technology, much of this post will focus on your tech stack. However, we’ve also learned some more general lessons from partnering with hundreds of QSRs and fast-casual owner-operators over the years.

Here’s a five-pack of tips for you to chew on:

1. Build a consistent training schedule.

Training is important to your staff: 62% of restaurant workers would consider leaving a company due to a lack of training, according to a survey from TalentLMS. 

What’s more, many employees report they’re not getting the training they need: 70% of employees in customer-facing roles receive zero customer service training, per the same survey.

Better training should spur more confidence in customer interactions and other day-to-day processes. The owner-operator’s role is to set up a training schedule that holds each location responsible for delivering the required training. 

We’d recommend looking into a training platform like Opus, which is designed for restaurant employees.

2. Make strategic investments in technology.

Some owner-operators will (understandably) shutter when they see the up-front costs associated with a new POS or inventory management platform. These systems can be expensive, especially in an industry where margins are already razor-thin.

But technology is a great equalizer. It’s been proven time and time again that when deployed strategically, new technology can increase efficiency and revenue over time. 

Plus, there’s so much potential for technology to remove the manual aspects of restaurant life that your employees dread. Check out our guide to emerging restaurant tech trends to find new platforms that could help make life easier for your staff.

3. Don’t forget about technology-specific training.

Think of this tip as a combo platter of numbers 1 and 2. In the simplest way possible, train your restaurant employees on the systems they’re being asked to use!

You’ll only reap the benefits of new restaurant tech if your employees know how to use it to its full potential. Investing in training will help avoid service delays and hiccups during a service rush. That means fewer opportunities for customers to yell at staff, which is always a win.

4. Involve your staff in decisions that affect their day-to-day.

Part of being an owner-operator is making the final decisions on which platforms you’ll integrate into your locations. But you can make the final decision without being the only decision-maker!

For example: why not ask the people ringing up orders every day to help you determine which POS to bring on board? They’re the best possible sources of information. 

You could try bringing in your shift managers and front-of-house staff for a demo session with multiple POS systems. Get their feedback and use that information as you weigh your decision.  

5. Don’t try to be everything to everyone.

We leave you with this final tip. It’s simple, yet profound: stick to your bread and butter. Not literally — you might be sticking to your burritos or briskets or bobas. But just stick to what you’re good at!

This is true for so many aspects of your business: your menu, the physical setup of your locations, your tech stack, etc.

You don’t need to make a “McDonald’s Pizza” type of mistake (check out this awesome podcast on the topic). That’s to say: don’t try to create a million menu options that confuse your cooks just to please a small fraction of your customers. Don’t bother with outdoor dining if it’s going to drive your wait staff crazy. 

These are just examples, but the larger point remains: don’t make life hectic for your staff to try to please every single customer. You can never have a 100% approval rate.

Science On Call: Helping keep your staff happy

Our restaurant technologists might not have 100% approval either….but our customers think they’re pretty damn close!

Science On Call is a lightning-fast, AI-powered help desk for restaurants just like yours. We offer 24/7/365 tech support services to anticipate and solve everyday restaurant tech issues, including point of sale, internet, Wi-Fi, online ordering, email, and phone systems.  

Here’s some real feedback from our QSR and fast-casual clients:

  • “Response time was great!”

  • “Excellent speed of resolution on a weekend morning - THANK YOU!”

  • “Quick Response”

  • “Prompt response and follow up”

  • “Great customer service and quick turnaround.”

We like to say we’re a restaurant employee’s BFF; quicker resolutions mean fewer tech headaches. Book a demo with our team today to discover your staff’s new support system for all things restaurant tech.

Science On Call