How AI can help with hiring and labor for restaurants

Let’s face it, hiring in the restaurant industry can be a hassle. From finding the right candidates to preventing turnover and juggling new-hire training with your 10,000 other demanding tasks, hiring the right staff can be time-consuming, costly and frustrating. 

On average, it can cost restaurant operators $1,056 to replace a front-of-house position, $1,491 to replace a back-of-house position and $2,611 to replace a managerial position.

Pair this with the continued rising food and labor costs, up 35% in the last 5 years, and you’ve got a recipe for a not-so-good time.

We all know that your staff are the backbone of any good restaurant. But how do we navigate juggling the many moving pieces of managing a restaurant with finding and maintaining a strong team (and finding time for sleep somewhere in between)? Finding the right crew is like perfecting a recipe; it might take a few tries to get it right. Thankfully, with AI-powered systems and processes on the rise, it’s becoming much simpler.

Before we take a look at how AI can help in your hiring process, let’s take a look at a few common hurdles when it comes to hiring:

• Finding qualified candidates - Finding candidates with the skillset, experience and enthusiasm can be tough, especially in a competitive industry with low profit margins. The more extensive the search, the higher the cost of advertising and time spent on filling open positions.
• Rising labor costs - As minimum wage and benefit expectations increase, businesses are facing higher costs to attract and retain top talent, putting pressure on budgets and profitability.
• High employee turnover - According to 7Shifts, the average restaurant employee turnover rate is 79.6% annually, with employees naming things like low wages, limited career advancement and poor work-life balance as top reasons for parting ways. Constantly replacing, hiring and training new staff is not only costly and time-consuming but can also lead to burnout for existing team members.
• Post-pandemic labor shortage -  Although it’s been 5 years since COVID-19 first dealt a devastating blow to many restaurants, the lingering effects are still here. Full-service restaurants have lost roughly 250,000 jobs since the pandemic first started.
  
  Many smaller businesses still struggle to pay back COVID-era loans and restaurant staffing remains below pre-pandemic levels in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

So who’s the Scooby Doo masked villain to blame? You guessed it, inflation. 

All of these hurdles are intertwined. Restaurants are seeing rising costs in everything from inventory to rent and utilities. Add this to the rising cost of living (home prices have risen 1,045% since 1973) in the US and pushes for increased minimum wage, operating a business and finding the right staff to help is becoming more and more expensive.

While we can’t wish this issue away, we can find ways to navigate the new labor market, keep costs down and still find the best staff for the job. Let’s look at a few ways AI can help you navigate the hiring process: 

1. Slash hiring time by automating the initial screening process

Use AI-powered hiring platforms to attract candidates across multiple platforms and handle the admin work that typically comes with initial screening. Big names like Chipotle were able to cut hiring time by 75% by automating parts of their hiring process. 

2. Automate your onboarding process

Once you’ve found the right people, getting them up to speed shouldn’t add to your stress.

Paige, a former restaurant pro and now a MarginEdge Sales Enablement Partner, shared, “Most restaurants don’t have the time or resources for formal training systems like manuals or guides. Training often depends on which veteran staff member you’re paired with that day, if there’s even time for training at all. Sometimes, it’s rushed or skipped because you need that person working now, not learning how to do the job.”

Ditch the chaos by using AI-powered onboarding tools. Store employee documents automatically and let your team train at their own pace, stress-free and streamlined.

3. Increase your application pool

Reach more of the right candidates by automating the job posting process. Some AI tools can even post to as many as 200 boards automatically, diversifying your candidate pool and increasing your chances of finding that perfect match. 

4. Avoid unexpected labor costs

No more guessing or being hit with unexpected labor costs. Use AI-powered tools to automatically track missed clock-ins and sync data between scheduling, punch-ins and payroll.

Bonus✨: Make smarter staffing decisions and stay on budget with this labor cost calculator.

There are plenty of stressful parts of managing a restaurant. With AI tools, you can take one off your plate (see what we did there). From handling initial screenings to auto-scheduling interviews and expanding your applicant pool, AI makes hiring easier and more efficient.

Whether you’re elbows-deep in resumes or dusting the cobwebs off of your job postings, addressing your hiring issues by mixing in the help of AI-powered tools to navigate them is a sweeter combo than icing on a cake (buttercream, please!).