By Eli Patterson, Contributor
There is no doubt, whatsoever that truly diverse organizations tend to be much more innovative and profitable. In fact, diverse groups perform significantly better than most homogeneous organizations. For example, racially diverse teams have been known to perform better than their monocultural counterparts by as much as 35%!
This is not very surprising when you consider the fact that the more diverse the people the greater the chance of them bringing new perspectives and new ideas to the table. This holds particularly true for restaurants.
And fortunately for restaurants, the industry is naturally pretty diverse thanks to a heavy immigrant workforce. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for growth or improvement in the form of promoting diversity and inclusion in your business. Let’s look at some of the hows and whys diversity can help your restaurant.
How: Expand Your Restaurant’s Candidate Profile
While a job description is all well and good, it is very important to be as flexible as possible when you create a hiring profile of a candidate.
It is always a very good idea to be as open-minded as possible to various different experiences and backgrounds. For example, education background tends to be influenced by the means of one’s parents and an obstacle for many. Really consider if a college degree is necessary for a particular role at your restaurant. Or is on-the-job training and work experience really more important and telling? Same with culinary school.
The broader your outlook, the better the chance of gaining the right person for the job at hand.
Why: You Have Unrestricted Access to a Larger Talent Pool
If you only hire from the same small talent pool, it is more than likely that you will end up assembling a team of cooks and service people alike, who both think and act the same way. And while you want your team to be on the same page, homogeneous groups tend to stagnate and not adapt well to unforeseen issues (the recent COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example).
If you really intend to stay ahead of your competition, then stagnation is not really an option. New recipes, ideas, and approaches will keep your target market interested enough to keep coming back again and again. Once you become truly proactive about diversity in the recruitment of your human resources, you will discover previously untapped sources of talent.
This way, you will be likely to create an establishment that is confident in its ability to come up with highly innovative twists on tried and tested dishes and cuisine.
Why: A Great Competitive Advantage
It has been reported that companies with a diverse board of directors (BOD) tend to have nearly twice the revenue of their homogenous counterparts. As per an MIT report, diverse teams of employers and staffers were way more productive than most non-diverse organizations. It is very simple really. When you hire a really diverse pool of staff members, you will be in a position to show both staff members as well as your customers that you always reward hard work irrespective of an individual’s race, creed, age, sexual orientation, social-economic status, and so on.
Why: A Much Better Representation of Your Target Market
If you own an eatery, it is more than likely that your business will essentially attract customers and clients from a diverse variety of cultures and backgrounds. This is why it pays to promote a diverse culture.
Once you hire people from diverse backgrounds, they will be able to engage with a cross-section of your customer base. An Urdu-speaking Pakistani, for instance, would love to meet his compatriot at your food outlet and likely bring his extended family there as well. But that is more likely if you have Pakistani staff members working in your restaurant in the first place. After all, such a diverse workforce will automatically increase the overall likelihood of having an employee who will better understand the needs of your particular clientele.
Related: If your target customers are pretty homogeneous, you may also want to consider if you’re leaving profit on the table.
How: Use a PEO Service
It’s hard to get everything right when you’re running your own indie restaurant. Using a professional employer organization (PEO) service provider can help you with hiring diverse people for your restaurant and building an inclusive workplace through better recruitment policies. Here, it is possible for you to contact a company that offers global PEO services in order to help you with your diverse hiring requirements. Once you hand the assignments to these experts, you just have to sit back and relax and they will do the job for you in a very short span of time.
Conclusion
These are just scraping the surface of what restaurants should consider doing (and why) to promote diversity in their business. You will need a diverse and inclusive environment if you want your restaurant to grow and thrive in a highly competitive environment. Once you broaden your recruitment horizons, you will be good to go.
