When it comes to running a successful restaurant, the secret ingredient isn’t just on the menu — it’s in the team. Your employees play a key role in shaping the guest experience, from the first hello to the final bill.
Building and managing that team, however, takes more than luck. According to the 2025 State of the Industry Report from the National Restaurant Association, 77% of operators say that recruiting and retaining employees are still significant challenges. That’s why a strategic approach to workforce management is your best defense against turnover, burnout, and understaffing.
This guide will help you rethink and optimize your workforce strategy, so your restaurant thrives no matter how fast the tickets fly in.
Effective hiring sets the tone for everything that follows. Instead of haphazardly filling open roles, take a tactical approach: define exactly what you’re looking for, both in skills and in cultural fit. Every hire should align with your restaurant’s vision, whether you’re building a fast-casual powerhouse or a fine-dining destination.
Start with clear, engaging job descriptions that highlight not only the responsibilities but also the culture, growth opportunities, and perks of working for you. Don’t limit yourself to traditional job boards either. Social media, referrals, and even in-store signage can attract candidates who already align with your restaurant. At the same time, technology is now integral to the hiring process. Using hiring platforms that can streamline and speed up the process help restaurants make contact with high quality applicants faster, helping to stay ahead of the competition. With everything in one place, your managers can also save time by easily tracking applicants, scheduling interviews, and staying organized.
During interviews, ask behavioral and situational questions that reveal how candidates might perform under pressure or handle guest complaints. A few well-placed questions can uncover work ethic, teamwork abilities, and adaptability far better than a resume ever could.
Training is not a one-and-done task; it’s an ongoing process that defines how prepared your team is to deliver outstanding service. A good training program covers the basics, but a great one goes deeper: It empowers employees to problem-solve, think critically, and genuinely represent your restaurant.
Begin with structured, hands-on training that matches the pace of your restaurant environment. Blend technical skills like point-of sale (POS) operation or food safety protocols with customer service scenarios to fully prepare employees.
That said, cross-training is especially valuable in restaurants; it makes your team more flexible and ensures you’re never caught short-handed during a rush. Don’t be afraid to use a mix of formats—videos, hands-on practice, peer mentorship—to cater to different learning styles.
And training shouldn’t end after the first few weeks: Ongoing coaching and feedback are vital to maintaining high performance. Virtual training platforms make it easy to deliver consistent, on-demand education that keeps your team sharp, even as your menu or processes evolve. From onboarding to advanced skills development, digital tools help operators ensure everyone—from new hires to seasoned pros—is up to speed. Best of all, virtual training supports a culture of continuous learning without pulling staff off the floor.
We’ve built our entire training platform with Restaurant365 and ExpandShare, and the ability to gauge team progress has been invaluable for measuring the effectiveness of our content.
Jennifer Sivec, Director of Learning & Development
Winking Lizard Tavern
Strong onboarding stretches beyond filling out paperwork and handing over a uniform. It’s a first impression that sets expectations. It also serves to build loyalty and accelerate a new hire’s ability to contribute. Restaurants that invest in structured onboarding programs see higher retention rates, faster productivity gains, and stronger workplace culture.
The best onboarding programs are welcoming and intentional. Introduce new hires to the entire team. Then walk them through your brand values and explain how their role fits into the bigger picture. Provide a clear roadmap for their first 30, 60, and 90 days, outlining specific goals and milestones. Digital onboarding tools can streamline administrative tasks, freeing you up to focus more on mentorship and culture-building.
The 4 Cs—Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection—serve as the pillars of effective onboarding. Neglecting any one of them can leave new employees feeling confused, unsupported, or even disconnected.
Keeping up with all four Cs isn’t always easy unless you’ve got modern restaurant management software on your side. The right tools handle the paperwork, speed up communication, and make building a connected, confident team second nature. Learn more now.
Our management teams were spending so much time going through the orientation, reading the handbook to the new hire, doing paperwork, and things like that. If you’re looking to move into today’s world and get out of paper stuff, this is a no brainer.
Chad Foust, Owner
Sweet Lou’s
Scheduling isn’t just about covering shifts; it’s about optimizing your labor to deliver consistent service while keeping your team satisfied and engaged. Poor scheduling can quickly lead to burnout, labor inefficiencies, and even higher turnover. On the flip side, smart scheduling acts as a powerful tool for growth.
Start by forecasting accurately. Review historical sales patterns and seasonal fluctuations that could impact business volume. Then build your schedule around those projections, balancing experienced staff with newer employees to ensure both efficiency and training opportunities. Make sure to consider employee availability and preferences where possible. After all, flexibility is a huge driver of employee satisfaction.
Most importantly, don’t rely on guesswork and be prepared to tweak and pivot when needed. Scheduling software can dramatically reduce the time and stress of building schedules, while helping you optimize labor costs.
Creating an effective restaurant schedule requires more than plugging names into a template. It’s a strategic process that, when done right, ensures smoother shifts, happier employees, and lower labor costs.
Restaurant365’s employee scheduling solution is tailored specifically for restaurant pros. It simplifies scheduling by enabling operators to easily review requests and communicate with employees on the go. You can also optimize labor costs by monitoring overtime, avoiding over-scheduling, and accessing insightful labor reports.
When shifts are flying, even small miscommunications can lead to big mistakes. Task management ensures that everyone knows exactly what needs to get done—and when. From daily opening and closing duties to mid-shift deep cleans and prep lists, having clear expectations keeps service smooth and accountability high.
Start by standardizing tasks across roles and shifts. Break responsibilities into bite-sized, repeatable checklists that remove ambiguity and reduce reliance on memory. This helps new employees get up to speed faster and seasoned team members stay consistent.
Digital task management tools make it easy to assign, track, and verify tasks across your team. By using an integrated task management you can set recurring duties, flag missed items, and celebrate completed ones—keeping everyone aligned and informed in real time.
Tipping remains a core part of restaurant compensation, but without the right system in place, managing tips can turn into a huge problem. Between tip pooling, credit card processing, and ensuring fair distribution, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks—leading to compliance risks and frustrated staff.
A well-run tip management process brings transparency and trust to the table. Whether you’re splitting tips among servers, bartenders, and bussers or using a hybrid model, clearly outline the structure and communicate it during onboarding.
Modern tools make it simple to log, track, and distribute tips accurately while reducing manual entry and risk of error. That means your staff gets paid properly—and on time—without back-office chaos.
Manual tip-outs? No thanks. Tip automation software eliminates the guesswork, reduces human error, and ensures compliance with labor laws. It streamlines the process by calculating and distributing tips based on your set rules—no spreadsheets or calculators required.
When tip automation is fully integrated with your labor and payroll data, it not only speeds up processing but also boosts transparency across your team. Everyone sees how tips are distributed, which builds trust and minimizes disputes.
And because tip compliance is always evolving, automation gives you peace of mind by ensuring you’re aligned with the latest regulations—from IRS reporting to wage thresholds.
R365’s Tip Automation gives me back four to five hours of my week back. Now, it’s simple for me to delegate and teach someone how to use tip automation versus a spreadsheet, and from an employee standpoint, it’s regulated; they know a software is managing the process, so it builds trust.
Chad Arnold, Owner
Summer Moon Coffee
Payroll is more than just cutting checks—it’s about accuracy, timeliness, and keeping your team happy. In an industry where variable hours, shift swaps, and tip credits are the norm, payroll can get complicated fast. One miscalculation can mean compliance issues, unhappy employees, or worse.
A payroll solution that is built specifically for restaurants can help manage everything from overtime and tip credits to PTO and tax withholdings. Even better, it syncs directly with scheduling and time tracking, so you’re never working with outdated info.
Automated payroll processing saves time, reduces costly errors, and ensures that payday is never a source of stress. And when employees get paid correctly and on time? That’s one less reason for them to look elsewhere.
Communication can make or break a shift. Without it, critical updates go missing, priorities get misaligned, and team performance suffers. A digital logbook brings clarity to the chaos.
A digital logbook creates a single source of truth for every shift. Managers can log notes, track tasks, and stay updated on customer issues, maintenance problems, and team performance—all from one place. With mobile access and built-in chat, communication stays clear and consistent across shifts and locations.
Automated task lists and quick filters make it easy to focus on what matters most, while a searchable history helps track trends and follow up with confidence. It’s not just about what happened last shift—it’s about setting up the next one for success.
Accurate labor planning starts with reliable sales forecasting. Without it, staffing decisions are based on guesswork rather than real demand, leading to higher labor costs, missed service standards, or employee burnout.
Forecasting tools that draw on historical data, seasonal patterns, and local trends can take the guesswork out of scheduling. With clearer insight into expected demand—sometimes even by the hour—managers are better equipped to align staffing levels with real-time needs.
When forecasting is built into your daily operations, it becomes a powerful tool for maintaining service quality, reducing overtime, and improving overall efficiency.
Managing a restaurant workforce comes with constant challenges, but with the right systems in place, it can also become a key source of stability and strength.
From hiring and training to scheduling and payroll, every part of workforce management plays a role in team performance and overall success. When those elements work together, restaurants are better equipped to deliver great service, retain strong talent, and adapt to whatever the day brings.
By adopting a more strategic, integrated approach to workforce management, restaurant leaders can improve daily operations and build a foundation for long-term success.
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