We recently had the pleasure of hosting a webinar, 5 Ways QSR Brands Can Overcome Labor Challenges, in partnership with QSR Magazine. Leaders from Portillo's Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, and Olo came together to address the elephant in the room: labor.
Amidst California's $20 minimum wage increase, sky-high food costs, and an ongoing labor shortage, 62% of operators say they can staff up to meet demand and 80% say they have difficulty filling open positions.
How can QSRs retain employees, decrease labor costs, and boost revenue‚ without sacrificing the guest experience?
Keep scrolling for a few strategies highlighted during the webinar and watch the full video on-demand to hear first-hand experiences and advice from our panel of experts:
- Dino Northway, Director of Off-Premise Dining at Portillo's
- Sean Thompson, VP of IT at Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
- Kenneth Marks, VP of Product Management, Order at Olo
1. Start with guest- and staff-centric problem-solving
Restaurant team members who started a few years ago likely had a much different workload than those who start today due to rapid tech adoption and evolving guest expectations. One way to improve job satisfaction and retain employees is by making their lives easier.
Identify opportunities to reduce manual work, stress, and operational inefficiencies‚ such as automating tedious and transactional aspects of the job. After all, happy employees create a positive dining experience wherein guests are inclined to spend and tip more, write positive reviews, and return often.
On the flip side, it's important to consider all aspects of the guest experience‚ prioritizing convenience, eliminating pain points, and creating special moments that deepen the relationship.
Start by listening closely and defining your goals based on insights from team members, franchisees, guests, and tech partners. Surveys, reviews, and reputation management tools can help you glean valuable intel to inform business decisions, including tech investments.
We're looking at technology that augments what our team members are best at: understanding the guest, engaging with the guest, helping the guest feel seen, and giving them those special moments.
Sean Thompson, VP of IT at Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
2. Leverage self-service ordering
Restaurant tech solutions like kiosks, QR code ordering, and voice AI can streamline the order-taking process, lessen your staff's workload, and enable them to focus on what matters most: providing exceptional hospitality.
Self-service ordering isn't just popular with brands either. The National Restaurant Association reported 65% of all adults, 75% of Gen Z, and 78% of Millennials would use a self-service kiosk if presented with the option in a restaurant.
Ensure your people, processes, and company culture align when evaluating any restaurant tech solution. And remember, the work doesn't stop at implementation.
It's important to regularly revisit each solution to ensure it's improving operations and the employee/guest experience. If a solution isn't meeting your needs, it's OK to walk away and find a suitable alternative. What works for one brand may not work for another.
I don't look at what's shiny and new and say, How can I fit it into our tech stack? That's a fool's errand. You should be looking at the team member and guest experience and go from there.
Dino Northway, Director of Off-Premise Dining at Portillo's
3. Master capacity management
To maximize sales and meet guest expectations‚ especially during peak times‚ brands must leverage digital solutions that simplify order management and streamline operations. An online ordering platform with built-in capacity management tools can help you increase throughput and reduce employee stress.
For example, Olo Ordering customers can take advantage of three order throttling strategies to control how and when orders hit their restaurants: orders-in-progress limits, make time minutes per period, and orders per window.
Features like Olo's machine-learning-based OrderReady AI can also provide more accurate quote times to guests while eliminating the burden of guesswork and human error.
If capacity management isn't an option within your current setup, you've likely outgrown your online ordering platform.
A calm restaurant is an efficient restaurant.
Sean Thompson, VP of IT at Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
4. Remove friction in existing processes
Creating seamless processes and minimizing the steps required to complete tasks can boost efficiency, prevent team members from becoming overwhelmed, and enhance the guest experience.
Every detail‚ from your restaurant's internet connection to the location of the pick-up shelf, should be carefully considered.
Is everything on the ticket necessary to fulfill an order? Do guests have multiple payment options? Is the handoff mode always obvious to team members? Can someone easily place a catering order online?
These types of questions are essential for keeping your restaurant running smoothly, your guests happy, and your staff feeling like they're set up for success.
We want to make our operations more and more efficient for our team members and our guests, whether it's reducing the steps it takes to do something or making a win-win scenario for our guests in the multiple channels we offer.
Dino Northway, Director of Off-Premise Dining at Portillo's
5. Simplify back-of-house operations
Whether they realize it or not, what's happening behind the scenes at your business can greatly impact team members and guests.
A comprehensive payment platform, for example, can significantly reduce manual work for your accounting team, enable guests to use their preferred payment method, and make it easier for staff to reconcile, refund, and void transactions.
Related: Beyond a Processor: 5 Traits of a Future-Proof Restaurant Payment Stack
Similarly, adding images to kitchen screens and tickets can help team members better visualize each order as it's prepared and reduce errors. Fewer mistakes mean happier guests and more relaxed team members.
The best solutions are ones that team members almost don't notice. Olo Pay took all the stress and management of payments out of the restaurant, making life easier for our accountants and team members. Now nobody ever has to talk to me about what's going on with payment processing.
Sean Thompson, VP of IT at Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
How to watch the webinar on-demand
Watch the webinar on-demand to hear leaders from Portillo's, Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, and Olo dissect the state of labor for QSRs and share more ways to combat workforce challenges without sacrificing the guest experience.
Get additional tactics for optimizing operations and supporting employees in our Do More With Less blog post series on Delivery, Front-of-House, and Marketing.
