High turnover costs restaurants $3k–$5k per employee. We analyzed 4,600+ applicants to find the "loyalty markers" in resumes that predict long-term success.
What does employee turnover look like for Full Sevice Restaurants (FSRs)?
It is completely typical that an FSR will see anywhere from 80%-100% turnover of staff within their restaurant over the course of a year. Each staff member who turns over can cost the restaurant $3k-$5k in total cost (hiring activities, onboarding and training).
Some restaurant groups, like Brasa Foods, maintain an incredibly low turnover rate (17%), but this is by far the exception and not the norm. Restaurants operate on enormously thin margins, so any reduction in attrition can be reduced cost, and also stem additional benefits like better customer satisfaction.
What does the data tell us about turnover?
At Lighthouse, we screen resumes for indicators of success and match to jobs. We collect hundreds of datapoints on candidates and can identify patterns and behaviors within an application. When we identified that some of our clients in the FSR space were having high turnover, we decided to run an analysis on applicants to identify commmonalities amongst candidates who were likely to leave and flag this at time of applications.
what we identified was that 29% of applicants were very likely to turnover within one year, predicted by a pattern of turnover in their resume. The pattern which was most predictive was the below:
- Analyze tenure of past 3 employers
- Avg tenure across these employers
- When avg tenure was <1 year, likelihood of turnover skyrocketed
Our analysis looked at 4,647 applicants across 4 key roles - Servers, Kitchen Staff, FOH Managers and BOH Managers - each with their own propensity to turnover.
A drill down of the analysis is below:
What was unsurprising was that Managers tended to have lower turnover than entry level staff. But if you run am FSR, what does this mean for you?
The Strategy for Screening Resumes to Reduce Turnover
The data was quite clear that there is a simple prioritization you can take when reviewing candidates and offering them jobs. That prioritization is:
- Favor candidates who have an avg tenure of 5+ years with their past 2 employers. They have a 98% likelihood of staying with your restaurant after hire
- Next, favor candidates who do not show signes of leaving previous employers in quick succession (see next point)
- Finally, consider these candidates last who are on average sticking with their past employers for less than 1 year, as they have an 85% chance of leaving your restaurant within 1 year
Now, let's apply this to your screening method:
Using a tool like Lighthouse Hiring:
- Lighthouse has these functions built int
- Use the "Jumper" flag to automatically deprioritize candidates who are likely to leave you
- Use the "Loyal" flag to automatically favour candidates likely to not turnover
If manually reviewing:
- Pay close attention to start and end dates on the resume
- Flag anyone spending short periods of time with their previous employers
- Favor candidates with long term expereince at other restaurants
Applying these tactics can improve your turnover rate massively once implemented, saving cost and improving your likelihood of delivering good customer experience at your restaurant.
If you'd like to use a purpose built tool for this, check out Lighthouse Hiring at lighthousehiring.ai
Thanks for reading!
