A Guide to Restaurant Employee Engagement
The science, data, and three concrete tactics that turn front-line restaurant staff into a measurable sales driver.
Key findings
- Gallup found that firms with an average of nine engaged employees for every actively disengaged employee had 147% higher earnings per share than their competition.
- Employee turnover in the restaurant industry has risen to 75%, up from 72.5% in 2017.
- Employees who engaged with just three short online training modules saw their sales increase by 5%.
Summary
Most restaurants fail to engage their front-line staff, who now shape the guest experience rather than simply process transactions. Outdated paper tools, thin training, and weak motivation among a young, part-time, deskless workforce fuel high turnover and lost sales. Only 24% of executives surveyed by the Harvard Business Review believe their employees are highly engaged.
This eBook makes the business case for engagement and lays out three practical tactics: invest in employee tech, rethink training, and motivate with meaning. It draws on external research from Gallup, the Harvard Business Review, a Lowe’s value-linkage study, a German bakery-chain study across 193 locations and 1,300 employees, and TED speakers Dan Ariely and Dan Pink.
What you’ll learn
- The science behind what actually drives employee engagement and how it links to sales and loyalty.
- Why unengaged employees have become the restaurant and hospitality industry's status quo.
- Three things every restaurant needs to do to engage front-line employees and how to implement them.
