Restaurants focus on tech, retention as labor market cools

Yahoo

21-03-2025

This story was originally published on Restaurant Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Restaurant Dive newsletter.
Restaurants can speed up employee recruitment using technology like applicant tracking systems, automated interview scheduling and mobile application options, according to the National Restaurant Association's Workforce Technology Research Insights report.,
The organization, with the help of Paradox , interviewed leaders from 16 restaurant companies about their hiring processes and retention strategies to find what employers are prioritizing as the labor market cools.
Thirty-seven percent of operators said they plan to adopt labor management and recruitment systems while 28% said they were interested in artificial intelligence-driven solutions, NRA said.
Employers are exercising greater discretion in hiring, the NRA found, while looking for ways to save time for managers. Key measures of labor mobility have flattened over the last two years, with job openings still high and sectoral unemployment rising.
'The process of reviewing applications, conducting interviews, and onboarding new hires consumes valuable time that could otherwise be spent running the restaurant,' the NRA said.
Large numbers of operators, the report claimed, are looking to invest in automated labor management, recruitment and scheduling systems.
Southern Rock Restaurants, a major McAlister's Deli franchisee, said technology now made it possible to hire workers within 24 hours, while the operator's hiring time averaged 14 days when using a traditional, manual recruitment approach.
The operator uses a tracking system that schedules interviews automatically, the report said. A vast majority of applicants (86%) apply to Southern Rock through mobile devices, with the bulk of applications submitted off-hours. This is in line with general workforce trends, as 54% of job seekers applying at night or on the weekend, according to the NRA report.
Southern Rock 'provides QR codes and text-to-apply options in their stores, enabling customers to submit applications conveniently via cell phone. They also use QR codes for employee referral programs, offering bonuses for successful referrals,' the NRA said.
The employee referral program blends the speed and convenience of technology with the reliability of employee recommendations.
'Two-thirds of operators [say] that their own employees are their best ambassadors for attracting new recruits,' the NRA found.
Despite the availability of new technologies, some employers prefer to stick with older hiring practices. One family-owned dining group stuck with time-consuming manual processes because of the expressed preferences of its managers, but was still successful at filling its shifts, the NRA said.
Finding candidates is only half the battle, operators told the NRA, with many focusing on trying to improve retention. One-third of candidates who accepted an offer dropped off before their start dates and over half didn't make it to their first 90 days, NRA said, citing data from Paradox. The Paradox data includes data from restaurant and non-restaurant firms.
Operators interested in retention are investing in regular management communication and proactive support for new workers, the NRA said. One way to achieve that is a standardized training program.
A multi-brand restaurant company uses a '20-day promise' as part of its onboarding program. The 20-day promise communicates expectations to workers, including shift-by-shift training benchmarks. Transparency like that helps ease workers into their new roles, the report said.
Recommended Reading
The restaurant labor market in 6 key statistics