In the United States today, Millennials make up about 25 percent of the population. However, they make up almost 40 percent of today’s workforce. Those in a position of hiring need to not only understand this statistic, but also recognize the traits that motivate today’s employee.
Current staffing issues have been blamed on Millennial employees, but that’s not the hiring problem we’ve seen at Penn Station East Coast Subs. In fact, we’ve found that Millennials often bring valuable skills, especially for restaurant jobs.
Why has hiring become more difficult?
Think about how many options you have for lunch. Then, remove important factors like taste, location, and price. You’re left with dozens or hundreds of restaurant options each day, and all of those restaurants are competing for the same employees. The ability to separate your restaurant from the plethora of job opportunities for those potential employees is crucial if you want to compete when the unemployment rate is below 5 percent.
Over the past few years, the restaurant industry has continued to grow and hire. The federal government reports the restaurant sector is a bright spot in terms of hiring. In the fast casual segment, we’ve seen an explosion of new restaurants. Franchisors with hundreds of units have grown to thousands of units and many new brands have been created the past few years. That significant increase in competition has led to increased difficulty in hiring and retaining good employees.
How can restaurants overcome the hiring challenges?
Many quick-serve restaurants offer more than minimum wage – sometimes by up to $2 per hour – as a starting salary. Increasing what you pay new hires has a ripple effect. If you pay your untrained, unproven hourly employees $2 over minimum wage, you have to also pay your experienced employees, shift leaders, managers and general managers more. That can quickly cut into profits.
Sandwich and fast casual concepts also have to compete against the big chain fast food restaurants that are open later and therefore have more hours to offer employees. However, they also have the advantage of offering a better quality of life. Would you rather work for a business that closes at 10 p.m. or one that stays open all night?
There isn’t a lot of room for fast casual restaurant to compete for employees based on starting salary, so instead of just offering more money, restaurants need to use other methods to attract top talent and provide better long-term opportunities for advancement and job satisfaction.
As a franchisor, we leave it up to franchisees to make all of their hiring decisions and set the wages they pay their employees. However, we also want to provide franchisees with best practice tools they can use and take back to their individual businesses. Penn Station recently launched My Penn Path, a program that gives employees a clearly defined career path to show them how they can take an hourly job and turn it into a career. My Penn Path shows employees exactly what they need to do to get promoted and make more money. It provides greater clarity and strategy for the employee and franchisee and has helped franchisees significantly with hiring and retention.
Restaurants also need to change their viewpoint. Many of the hourly employees we are competing for are Millennials. Instead of fighting it, franchisees need to learn as much as they can about Millennial employees and what they are looking for in a job. For example, Penn Station has benefitted from being a fresh brand with an open display kitchen. Many of our franchisees have also made an effort to offer more flexible schedules since Millennials tend to work harder than previous generations to balance college, work and personal lives. Play off your strengths and what you have to offer as opposed to simply worrying about competing with another 25 or 50 cents an hour. If you provide a long-term plan for advancement, you can attract top talent.
Why are Millennial employees awesome?
Many like to point to wanting a work-life balance as a negative trait of Millennials. However, it can help keep employees from burning out. Millennials come with a few ingrained skills that are perfect for restaurant work. Ten years ago, multitasking was a skill that could separate you from the pack when job searching. In today’s workforce, Millennials almost universally have great multitasking skills. This means they can do two to four things simultaneously. In the restaurant industry, that is a huge advantage when shifting to assist at various stations allows the employee to prosper and the company to maximize savings.
While some are busy complaining about Millennials, we recommend embracing them. They make great employees, and if offered a clear career path and goals, they can become great managers and general managers. In fact, one of our franchisees has a 21-year-old general manager who is leading a restaurant to sales that are well above average while also working as a full-time student. Now, that is great multitasking.