While the hospitality industry may contend with above-average turnover rates, you don’t have to fall prey to the constant hire-and-fire (or quit) cycle. There are ways to keep your staff around longer and provide customers with continuity and consistency.

Here’s everything you need to know about employee retention in the hospitality industry, including how to keep employees for longer. 

Why Employee Retention in Hospitality Matters 

While you might be tempted to just plug new people into entry-level hospitality roles and keep the business running, that's not always the best move. Building a talented and confident team promotes business continuity and ensures your customers enjoy prompt, consistent service, whereas constant turnover can drag your business down and demotivate your team.

Here are a few of the dangers associated with high turnover in the hospitality industry:

Reduced Profitability 

There are several direct and indirect costs associated with high turnover. Direct costs include recruiting and training expenses, while indirect costs include lost productivity and the potential for decreased business due to lower staff output. 

What this means is that every vacancy translates to missed opportunities, so you want to maintain adequate staffing levels at all times. 

Customer Dissatisfaction

Working short-handed directly impacts your customers. After all, your team can’t serve patrons like they should if staff members are overworked and stretched too thin.

If your team is working short, they aren’t going to be able to serve your customers in a way that meets your standards. Over time, customers will catch on that your service quality has fallen, prompting them to turn to your competitors. 

All of this could be avoided by improving employee retention. 

A Lack of Chemistry 

A hospitality team that’s been together for a while tends to work like a well-oiled machine. If they face an unexpected lunch rush in the middle of the week or get swamped with patrons after a big local event, they’ll be able to rise to the occasion and work together smoothly. 

However, if you face significant turnover, your shifts will be composed of people who don’t have much experience working together. This lack of chemistry can hurt productivity and cause friction during high-stress situations. Instead of rising to the occasion, they may collapse under pressure. 

How to Keep Employees for Longer

So how do you get workers to stick around and become an integral part of your team? There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, you’ll need to use a few key strategies. 

Offer Competitive Pay

It’s important that you’re offering competitive hourly wages to your workers. While you don’t need to “beat” your competitors, you need to be in the same ballpark. If your competition pays significantly more than you do, you’ll have a tough time retaining staff.

Of course, adjusting pay rates is a balancing act, as you can’t take on too many expenses. However, undercompensating your team will invariably lead to morale issues and attrition.

Determine How Many Workers You Need

Overworking your staff can also lead to burnout and attrition. Understandably, no one wants to be run into the ground every time they clock in, but if you fail to adequately prepare for a busy night, your entire team will pay for it. Therefore, you need to ensure you always have enough people to meet demand.

To do so, you can review recent customer patterns for your business, being mindful of seasonal trends and fluctuations across days of the week. Use this information to determine how many of each position you need, restructure your schedule accordingly, and make sure you have enough employees to fill all needs. 

Provide Work Perks

You might not be able to drastically increase employee pay, but you can still make working for your company appealing by offering certain perks. For example, consider offering free meals to workers who are there for six hours or more.

You should explore other creative ways to offer your workers benefits. Reach out to a local gym and see if they will offer you a package deal on memberships for your staff. Host quarterly team-building events on a day your business is closed to bring your staff together.

Just be cautious and do not make this the extent of your employee retention program. There are few ways to frustrate your staff more effectively than just rewarding them with the occasional pizza party, and many workers do not see the opportunity to come in on their day off as a reward. 

Respect Employee Availability

Do your best to respect each employee’s availability. If one of your team members can’t work the late shift on Friday evenings because they don’t have a sitter for their child, respect their needs, and don't attempt to call them in when you're shorthanded. 

You should also consider allowing team members to swap shifts. Doing so gives them a sense of control over when they work and may help resolve scheduling conflicts. If team members can trade away shifts that don’t fit into their personal lives, they may be less likely to call out. 

Hire for Fit, Not Simply to Fill Vacancies

If you’re carrying a vacancy, it may be tempting to hire the first acceptable candidate that comes your way. But unless the need is dire, resist this urge. 

It may feel like you are short on choices and should therefore take what you can get, but you should instead evaluate whether a person is a good fit and be selective about your hiring choices. It will be worth the time and effort to find the right person. 

The best candidates will positively contribute to workplace culture and uplift the rest of the team. Hiring for fit can also reduce friction among your staff and help you keep workers long-term. 

Promote Business Success With These Employee Retention Strategies

These employee retention strategies will go a long way in reducing churn and help you maintain a stable team. With that said, maximizing employee retention in hospitality can be an elusive goal because there are so many variables that can impact your workforce.

The good news is that you don’t have to figure it all out yourself. One Haus offers tailored recruitment services on a contingent basis. When you need to fill vacancies with skilled hospitality pros, we’ve got you covered. Contact One Haus today, and let us accelerate your talent search.