The food and beverage industry is in a fix. After months of enforced shutdowns, restaurants and cafes are finally allowed to open their doors to guests again. However, most establishments are struggling to find enough staff, making it exceedingly difficult to operate at full capacity. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May this year, F&B outlets were a whopping 12% or 1.5 million jobs short.
Compounding the problem is the turnover rate, which is sky-high at present. The April 2021 Job Openings and Labor Turnover summary painted a very bleak picture. Restaurant worker resignations rose to 2.7% (4 million), with a record 5.6% of restaurant employees quitting their jobs in April alone.
While eating and drinking places have pretty much always needed more workers, the situation has not been this dire in decades. As you would sadly already have witnessed, the ramifications of the current labor shortage are severe and far-reaching.
The startling impact of the labor shortage
Not enough staff means that the entire work chain slows down. With fewer people working front of house, taking orders gets delayed. The kitchen will not receive the order requests as fast and it takes much longer for guests to receive their food. Processing and settling the check also consumes more time. In short, not enough staff means lengthy wait times for guests at every turn. Slow service causes unhappiness in patrons who will not want to come back again.
When orders take longer to process, the number of orders you can take in each day reduces. This means less revenue, which will impact future purchase patterns. If the quality of your ingredients change, the taste of your dishes could be severely impacted. Customers may not be as pleased with what you serve and demand for your offerings could go down causing a further reduction in the money you earn. Overall, slow service is bad news for your restaurant’s bottom line.
Not having adequate wait staff puts added demands on those who are working. They will have to prioritise taking orders, feeding these into the POS, communicating with the kitchen and serving the food and drink. These tasks will absorb all their time and they will be far too harried to engage in the hospitality aspect of serving. Connecting with guests is a vital part of the dining experience and, when this is lost, customers may not want to revisit your restaurant.
When a restaurant is shorthanded, shifts of existing staff members tend to become longer. This is an additional burden on a group whose jobs are already very demanding and stressful. Couple this with a less-than-attractive pay scale and you have got a ticking time bomb on your hands. The annual average wage range of a restaurant worker is between $11,000 and 27,000, which is relatively low. Asking for more work without a commensurate pay rise will cause your employees to become disgruntled and disillusioned. You might as well hold the door open for them because they will not hesitate to hand in their aprons once something more lucrative comes their way.
Restaurant ordering apps are the answer
One of the most efficient solutions to the current labor shortage is restaurant ordering apps. Previously viewed as exclusively for remote ordering, apps are a wonderful front-of-house tool that is also invaluable for dine-in. Guests can place their orders and make payments directly through the app without the intervention of a server. The number of phone-in orders will go down (with more people opting to order online) and dine-in guests can simply use their devices. In this way, you do not need any extra hands for accepting and processing orders. A restaurant ordering app facilitates smooth operations with a smaller staff base.
Once the order is confirmed, it will be fed directly to the chefs through the kitchen display system. Preparation can begin almost instantly; no delays and no excessive wait time. A restaurant ordering app will speed up the orders. So even with a smaller than usual pool of human labour, you can still accept more tickets and generate more money.
A restaurant ordering app will take over the mundane duties of your staff, easing their workload. Your front-of-house staff will not have to run around like headless chickens from table to kitchen to table to kitchen to… you get the picture! They will now have the head space (and energy!) to focus on the needs and comfort of customers, offering a superior dining experience that will keep your patrons coming back.
Restaurant technology for success
A restaurant ordering app is just one technological solution to overcome the current labor shortage plaguing the food and beverage industry (pun may or may not be intended!). Kiosks can also automate tasks previously carried out by people, helping to reduce the number of employees you will need to roster per shift. Online ordering is another form of digitization that will eliminate the need for a dedicated phone operator allowing your staff to easily multi-task. Applova offers all these options for your restaurant and all you need to do is contact them for a demo. With Applova’s technology, you can combat the current labor crisis and set yourself up for long-term success!