Hiring

If you run a QSR restaurant you are always hiring. You're always taking applications, you're always interviewing, you're always wracking your brain to find enough hours to train and keep a new hire.

Why? Because if you ever start thinking, “Hey, I'm fully staffed!” then you'll be caught flatfooted when your best register guy decides to start skimming from the till. Or you won't have a backup when your primary closer gets in a car wreck. Or maybe that family your predecessor hired all at the same time, the backbone of your schedule, will decide to start playing games and demanding special treatment...and you'll have to give in, because you have no one in place to take over. It's a pain in the neck to fit training, interviewing, and those extra hours into the schedule...but just remember the last time you had to do all that while you were short staffed. Which is the best option?

But for the love of all things good and happy, don't just hire anyone. The whole advantage to thinking ahead and hiring BEFORE there's a crisis is you get to hire for personality. You can take your time, review the application, ask questions about the last couple jobs, the employment gaps. Talk to the person about who they are. You can think about whether or not they fit with your current team, if they'd complement the people you already have (or hope to have). Set 'em up for a second interview to get another impression. You have time, so take an extra couple days to make the right call.

If you don't have a subordinate manager or shift supervisor to help with hiring, fix that. Start developing them to spot good applicants. Teach them the questions to ask when handing over the application. Make sure your people know the staffing goals...what hours are you hiring for? What positions? Pay, benefits? If you're the only person who can answer these questions you're setting yourself up to get burned out, or to miss good people who don't want a run around (yes, “Come back at 3 to ask these basic questions” is a run around).

Above all, be persistent. Review staffing efforts at your manager meetings. Even when it's not a priority, make it clear that hiring hasn't dropped completely off the table. You have to get the right people on your team, and if you can't do that if you aren't looking. Turn over is a fact of life in the QSR industry, and while you can take steps to minimize it...the only defense is to be prepared for it.

You are always hiring. Period. Make it your mantra, and instill it down the chain of command.