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How Restaurants Can Attract & Retain Millennial Staff

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This is part two of our War for Talent: Generation Edition series. Last month, we looked at how restaurant operators can attract & retain Gen Z employees. This month, we take a look at how to do the same with the Millennial generation.

Now’s a good time to start figuring out what sort of staff levels you’ll need. This is perhaps even more true this year as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the restaurant industry and operators are trading on-premise servers for in-house delivery drivers to keep up with the changing trends.

Looking forward into 2021, Millennials (people born between 1981–1996) will continue to make up a large swath of the industry’s employees. They’re a generation drowning in student loan debt and are about to go through their second recession in their short careers. This all contributes to Millennials being short on cash and on patience. They have little qualm about leaving an employer who they deem are abusing their time and talents.

And with the cost of turnover being almost $150,000 per employee, making sure you’re able to retain your team is paramount to staying in business.

Finding Millennial Staff for Your Restaurant

In terms of finding and attracting the attention of Millennials, you’ll want to opt for a mix of social media and job sites. Like all generations, job sites are the primary way they find jobs (85%), but they’re also the most likely to use social media to find their next gig.

With that said, only 2.8% of Millennials find jobs via social media, so don’t break a sweat over it. But dropping links to your openings will help you get in front of more eyes.

Millennials also expect an open and friendly attitude at their job interviews and the majority would turn down a job after an “unwelcoming” interview (62%). So make sure you nail the first impression and put your restaurant’s best face forward.

Now let’s take a look at what Millennials look for in an employer.

Pay, Health Insurance & Benefits

Poor pay remains the biggest reason why Millennials leave a job. A third of the generation (30%) left their last job due to low pay. That’s a problem for the restaurant industry which is renowned for low pay and wage issues. If you can pay your Millennials a living wage, that’ll go a long way to keeping them around. But there are other ways you can attract this generation.

The eldest of Millennials are in their mid-thirties and have a strong focus on their present-day necessities and the future. Health insurance (41%) was the most desired benefit by Millennials. This is in part to the fact that they carry the greatest amount of medical debt (because student loans wasn’t bad enough). Thank to COVID-19, we only expect this desire for health insurance to rise in 2021 and beyond.

Millennials also desire a 401k matching or retirement benefits (30%).

And while most restaurants can’t cash in on Millennials desire for remote work (31%), operators can leverage their business for another attractive benefit to this generation – flexible work environment (26%). One of the unique aspects of the restaurant industry are the varying shift schedules available throughout the work week. By promoting your restaurant’s ability to create a flexible work schedule, you’ll be playing strongly into one of Millennials strongest desires – a healthy social life.

This leads us to our next section…

Work-Life-Balance is a Deal Breaker for Millennials

As we just mentioned, Millennials desire for a flexible work schedule is strong. And, fortunately, that plays well intro the restaurant industry’s shift-schedule culture. But your restaurant needs to be flexible in its scheduling and scheduling process to take full advantage of this. Cloud scheduling, for example, can help with shift trades on the fly while also letting operators calculate labor costs vs. performance.

You also need to make sure your restaurant is well staffed and not overworking anyone, especially if you want to keep Millennials around. More than a quarter of Millennials (28%) say a poor work-life-balance is an absolute deal breaker when it comes to accepting a job. So any whiff of overworking from current or previous staff will send Millennials looking elsewhere for employment. For Millennials, 35-40 hours is the max amount of hours they’re willing to work (49%); another quarter (25%) are willing to work a max of 45 hours.

Millennials also want their paid time off (PTO) benefits. In fact, more than any other generation, Millennials would turn down a job offer due to poor PTO (28%). Two weeks is considered “good PTO” to Millennials (30%), while more than half (56%) say three weeks or more is good PTO. With that said, they’re willing to accept less PTO than that, but if you’re looking to really impress Millennials and not just hit the minimum bar, lean hard into PTO and your restaurant’s flexible work shift culture.

How to Retain Your Restaurant’s Millennial Staff

Good pay, a strong PTO package, health insurance, and a healthy work-life-balance is a great way to attract Millennials to work for your restaurant. They’re also the key to keeping quality staff around.

Millennials leave their jobs sooner than desired to, primarily, due poor pay, lack of advancement opportunities, and poor work-life-balance. With that said, they’re not flakey job hoopers. Nearly a third of Millennials (30%) think they should stick with a job for 2-4 years before moving on. Approximately another 20%, however, believe staying at a job for less than a year is acceptable, the same percentage as Baby Boomers.

Operators should also take care of their staff’s mental health, too. Half of Millennials have quit their job for mental health reasons, such as anxiety. And mental health is pretty rough in the restaurant industry. A study reported in 2015 showed that waiting tables actually induces more stress than being a neurosurgeon. Server/waiting jobs were labeled as “high stress” due it being high-demanding with little control.

Among the biggest stressors for Millennials, specifically, are long hours and feeling overworked. Alleviating that with a reasonable schedule, livable wages, and good benefits will keep your Millennial staff feeling appreciated and secure in their employment. 

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