employees, employee-compensation, restaurants, family-businessI have a small restaurant that has been in my family for a while, but I’ve started to lose some of my workers to larger companies who are able to, frankly, pay them more.
To be clear, yes, I would love to pay my employees more. And I have every intention of doing so later down the road, but right now business has just been slow. It’s barely making enough for me to get by.
I live in Seattle, where we’ve recently bumped the minimum wage up at $15. For those unaware, here’s a quote from that article.
The increase to $15 in Seattle will take place over several years based on a scale that considers the size of and benefits offered by an employer. It will apply first to many large businesses in 2017 and then to all businesses by 2021.
I’m strictly not looking for a political discussion on this, but rather, I’m just trying to come up with how I plan to handle it.
How can I attract young people looking for summer jobs to come work for my restaurant when I can’t pay the same amount as they’d get from other, bigger companies?
The quick answer for related questions on here is often “give them equity,” but I don’t think that’s quite as relevant in a business like this.
According to many experts, baseline happiness has two big drivers: Do I know what my job is? and Do I have the tools to do my job? Everything else - pay included - comes below those.
So your first challenge is to get that right. The bad news is that most large chains are pretty good on this, but lots of small restaurants aren’t, so you have an opportunity to position yourself in the upper group.
Get those right, and you can add in something that chains struggle with, which is to give people a great way to answer How can I and my co-workers see the difference my contribution makes? Work on your welcome, catch people doing things right and give praise in public, make sure different roles aren’t seen as giving people different value or status, share daily and weekly stats, give treats on birthdays and anniversaries (30 nights worked etc) and basically create a place you’d love to work whether for an odd night or long term.
Some people are still going to focus on the hourly rate. You’ll lose them. But if you create an awesome working culture, be generous when you can afford it, and be creative in making your restaurant a fun and friendly place to work, loyal staff who value those features will bring in other people like themselves.
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