Restaurant Workforce Management: Hiring, Training, and Retaining Great Restaurant Teams

00:06 — Anthony Presley: 

Thank you for joining me today. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your name, your brand and what you’re working on? 

 

00:12 — Brice Ciener: 

Sure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I’m Brice Ciener. I’m with Roasters and Toasters. We’re a New York style deli out of Miami. We have five locations. We stick a lot of breakfast, a lot of catering, obviously a lot of nova and that kind of thing. So. Yeah. 

 

00:30 — Anthony Presley: 

Awesome. And we met last year, I guess at close B3 conference in Texas. 

 

00:35 — Brice Ciener: 

Yeah, yeah. 

 

00:36 — Anthony Presley: 

And you guys are growing. You’re having a great time. 

 

00:39 — Brice Ciener: 

Yes, absolutely. We’re having a great time. We’re, we’re going with the flow of the economy and the amount of employees that come and go. So. 

 

00:47 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, yeah. Well, that was one of the things I wanted to talk with you a little bit about today. So we’re focused a little bit on operations and workforce management. So tell us a little bit about where you’re seeing the labor market right now. 

 

00:59 — Brice Ciener: 

Labor in general is always been hard in the restaurant industry. 

 

01:02 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

01:02 — Brice Ciener: 

But I would definitely say that now it’s a little bit more fluid. People come and go easier than what they used to go, whether they’re leaving us or we’re having them leave us. So it’s important that we are always looking and always hiring because once you’re understaffed, it’s too late. You’re already in the hole. 

 

01:21 — Anthony Presley: 

It’s hard to dig back out of that. Yeah, yeah. So maybe you could share a couple of tactics you guys have picked up. Is that is it the same as pre Covid is? Has it changed a lot in the last five years? 

 

01:33 — Brice Ciener: 

It’s definitely changed and it seems to keep changing. I would say out of COVID it was more of a restaurant world where, you know, people were just wanting jobs anywhere they were coming in. And I would say now it’s a little bit easier for them, so they have more choices out there. I would say the hardest thing is getting the word out to a lot of people that we employ. Like for restaurants that we’re hiring because they aren’t people that are on Indeed. You know, we’re hiring a lot of. Whether it’s the younger generation or just people that aren’t tech savvy, that’s not going to happen. Indeed. To find a bus or for example, or dishwasher is extremely hard. Right. And we stick to a lot of the Craigslist type ads when it comes to that. 

 

02:17 — Anthony Presley: 

Okay. 

 

02:18 — Brice Ciener: 

Management and stuff like that. We’ll go into indeed or those kind of Things. But yeah, just getting people word out there, word of mouth from our staff. Hey, we’re hiring. Get people out there. Anybody you know? Yeah, from other companies. 

 

02:29 — Anthony Presley: 

That’s interesting. Do you guys offer any sort of like a retention bonus for somebody who’s been there for a long time? Or do you offer perhaps a hiring deal, like if you refer a friend, you have a referral bonus? 

 

02:39 — Brice Ciener: 

We’ve done that before in the past for a referral bonus if somebody stayed 90 days. We are doing that currently. I know that a lot of times when we do hire somebody on, we’ll start them at one wage and if they stick out for 90 days, then it can lead to a higher rates than what they started with to try to retain that person a little bit longer. 

 

02:58 — Anthony Presley: 

That’s a fantastic tactic. We’ve seen that work really well. You mentioned a couple of things about retention. You mentioned finding and hiring. Are you finding maybe the current upcoming generation, the folks who are say, under 25? Are you having to work with that age group differently than others? 

 

03:15 — Brice Ciener: 

Absolutely. And I think from a management standpoint, my GMs and managers there are a lot of the Gen Xers, the generation right after Gen X, to where they think different than the Gen Z that’s coming right in. And so they expect, you know, you’re going to come to an interview in a nice outfit or something and no, we’re having employees or future employees come in and they’re wearing flip flops. 

 

03:38 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

03:38 — Brice Ciener: 

Well, I mean, granted we’re in Miami, but still you don’t go to an interview on a flip flop. And a lot of them, well, I can’t work this and I can’t work that. When you’re a restaurant, you’re telling them you can’t work the weekends. It’s kind of like, what are you talking about? Type of thing. 

 

03:51 — Anthony Presley: 

That drives me towards the question a little bit about scheduling. Are you, Are you having to accommodate a lot of unique schedules? 

 

03:56 — Brice Ciener: 

And we do, and I think we need to get better at it because it’s really hard to get some of the older team members that we have. They’re used to a set schedule. 

 

04:06 — Anthony Presley: 

Okay. 

 

04:07 — Brice Ciener: 

They want to work, you know, their set schedule every week so they can plan their life. We try to get the schedule’s posted at least a week in advance, which can be challenging also because of the other ones that are saying, I can’t work here, I can’t work there, and that kind of thing. And there’s not as many, like for our staff, we can have Anywhere from six to seven servers on some of our floors down to only two servers on our floor. So it’s harder to maneuver those people around. But I would say scheduling wise, the older team members, they know they’re going on vacation or they need a day off, you know, two months in advance. 

 

04:42 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

04:42 — Brice Ciener: 

Where the new one’s all, hey, tomorrow I’ve got, that’s right, a thing that I got a doctor’s appointment. And we all know they made that doctor’s appointment a long time ago, right? 

 

04:50 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

04:51 — Brice Ciener: 

So, yeah, it gets challenging for sure when it comes to those two things. Yeah. 

 

04:56 — Anthony Presley: 

Labor’s always been interesting to me in this industry. I’ve been. We’ve had product in market since 2007 and it’s an evergreen topic because as new folks come into the market and there’s new challenges, one of those that we hear a lot about from our operators is training. And to your point, you get fast turnover, which means you’ve got to really hit the ground running with training so that they get up to speed as fast as possible. How are you guys tackling that? 

 

05:22 — Brice Ciener: 

Well, we have a pretty good training system. Our training involves, we have back of the house and front of the house training. Our front of the house is definitely a hardcore five day focused training where they have specific things they have to do the first day test, the follow up, the next day, second day and so forth all the way through. And by day two or three, if they’re not making it already on those tests that we did, we know they’re not serious about it. So we try to cut our losses early. Yeah, but I find with the training they just want to start making money now. Right, Right. Right now they want to know how much am I going to make today. Right. I mean, and we use toast and we use sling. 

 

05:59 — Brice Ciener: 

They can see on their toast cards sometimes how much they made. And if it’s not right, even if everything has a process all the way through, they’re coming to us about that aspect, especially the new people when we first hire them on. Getting them to understand this is how it works is a challenge as well. But if they make it out of training, I think we need to continue training past that because they didn’t absorb everything in that first five days or the line cook. So it’s a constant go back around in the restaurant world. You know that managers are busy with everything. 

 

06:29 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

06:29 — Brice Ciener: 

Remember that you hired this person a week ago and they need to refocus on whatever their drinks are section or something. Right. It can be challenging for Even the managers. 

 

06:38 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, for sure. So you’re doing training. You’re looking at possibly, I think the term for that might be micro training. Right. Going forward and how you continually do that. Continuous improvement. 

 

06:49 — Brice Ciener: 

We do. And actually on the micro training, we just did a 15 day script and a 12 day script, which is something we started. Okay. And it was a way that we wanted servers to approach guests in a way that we wanted them to not say, you have to say it exactly this way. But this was the idea behind what needs to say when you get to a table. And we did that first 15 days. This is what you’re all doing for 15 days straight. And then we built on top of that onto a 21 day thing. So I was trying to get it staying first. Originally I was like, let’s do all of it all in one. No, no. We’re going to break this up into two categories and everything. And so that’s what we did. 

 

07:25 — Brice Ciener: 

And now that 15 day and the 21 day is now part of the core training package for anybody that comes in. So we’re doing our basic menu knowledge and stuff like that. But then you also have scripts that you go into when you get to the table and getting those to understand that this is what you’re supposed to say at a table instead of just being an order taker. It’s extremely hard, especially with the younger. 

 

07:46 — Anthony Presley: 

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. It’s challenge. Right. It’s the running joke I used to have as a consultant many years ago was if it wasn’t for these employees and these customers, like business would be easy, right? Yeah,. 

 

08:00 — Brice Ciener: 

For sure. 

 

08:01 — Anthony Presley: 

So let’s just pretend that somebody is coming into your type of a role. Someone’s in the operations role, they’re senior leader, brand new at the role. What’s one or two things that they could hit the ground running and go, I’m going to make these changes immediately or I’m going to look at these things. What’s the first thing you would tell somebody in that role? 

 

08:19 — Brice Ciener: 

That’s a good question. I think that coming in, I know that when we even look for our GMs, we’re looking for those philosophies that they may have as a manager to where we know that they’re going to already be on top of what I call the basics. Like you’re going to be on time, you’re going to be in the uniform, you’re going to be the one that makes sure everybody else. You’re not going to turn a blind eye type of a thing. I can teach them our system in our restaurant all day long. Yeah, but if you’re not focused on those things, then your employees are just going to walk all over the hole scenario. So. And I know that’s a little short. I’m not, believe it or not. 

 

08:56 — Brice Ciener: 

I have to make sure they have to know how to do Excel or word or sit down at a computer and type. I mean these things are. I’ll get even GMs in that. I’ll be like, I should ask them this during an interview. But like can you do these things? Because. Right. It becomes complicated when they sit down and they can’t even pull up an email or something like that. And I’m just like, yeah, you want to go? What? 

 

09:16 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we ask a lot from the GMs these days. Right. You got to, you got to manage five or six pieces of software, 10 or whatever the case may be. You need to be an expert at ordering, you need to be an expert at scheduling, you need to know all the HR tasks. 

 

09:29 — Brice Ciener: 

Right. 

 

09:30 — Anthony Presley: 

I mean there’s so much that gets asked of a GM these days. And since COVID that tenure of the GMs has drastically dropped. 

 

09:38 — Brice Ciener: 

Right. 

 

09:38 — Anthony Presley: 

We’ve seen in the industry and so you know, just like a frontline worker, you’ve got to get them up to speed quickly. And one of the buzzy topics this year is AI. AI. 

 

09:48 — Brice Ciener: 

1. Yeah.

 

09:48 — Anthony Presley: 

How are, how are you guys seeing that? How are you thinking about it? 

 

09:51 — Brice Ciener: 

AI is a great tool. Has got a built in AI with their system marquee that we use. Has a lot of AI stuff involved with that. Yeah. 

 

09:59 — Anthony Presley: 

They just released some new stuff. 

 

10:00 — Brice Ciener: 

Right, right. And ovation also. So. And we’re very particular with our managers and I’ve had to coach them a lot when they want to use that automatic AI answer. 

 

10:11 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

10:11 — Brice Ciener: 

To. Not to. Oh, interesting to say. It looks, it sounds very scripted. It sounds very AI. You need to customize a little bit, make sure we’re using, you know, what the person’s talking about. Making sure that you’re using employee names. Even like if they’re talking about. Oh no, our, you know, our deli crew there is run by so and so or whatever. They’ll take care of you next time you’re ask for me. All those things that the AI just isn’t putting in there. So. Because it’s really. We want them to answer those ovations quickly. 

 

10:41 — Anthony Presley: 

Yes. 

 

10:43 — Brice Ciener: 

So it’s really easy for them to push that AI button to give that automated Response. But then I’ll get it. I see them all on my phone obviously, and I let them do all the answering. I don’t do it for them. GMs do those and I’ll get them and I’ll just like. That sounds sounds AI sounds so AI. So I just like. And I’ll text them in the background and I’ll be saying, please, you need to not do it that way type of thing. 

 

11:07 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s really interesting. I was at the Google Influencer event we had a couple days ago, okay. Here in Chicago, and one of the things they were showing off was their new Gemini product and the integrations with all the Google, my business and reviews and maps. And so one of the interesting things they brought in was like you could ask it questions, you can query and say, hey, tell me a little bit about, you know, what should I do to improve my Google, my business? And one of the other folks in the room said, hey, why does Google not just have an AI agent that would tell me what to do? And the answer was really interesting. 

 

11:43 — Anthony Presley: 

The answer was, well, if you, if we do that, it’s just going to kind of average all the great things together and it’s going to sound like AI. It doesn’t sound like your brand and it doesn’t sound local. Like you’re pillars of the community, right? You’re hiring from the local community, you’re training, you’re providing soft skills, you’re doing all the things to be good citizens of the community. Do you think that’s part of the strategy? Is that part of your strategy to go, hey, we’re influencing the local community? 

 

12:11 — Brice Ciener: 

Absolutely. We’re very community driven. And that’s using any kind of AI tool is going to take away from that community driven stuff. So that’s why we don’t want to answer that way. And a large base of our guests and customers that do caterings with us, like our catering manager, she knows them like that, she knows exactly what they want ahead of time. Our servers have a very dedicated following of people that came in and the moment we answer with one of those AIs, they’re going to know it’s not us. 

 

12:37 — Anthony Presley: 

Right? 

 

12:37 — Brice Ciener: 

Because they know us already. 

 

12:38 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

12:39 — Brice Ciener: 

And the systems that we use, it shows the past usage of that customer, that guest that’s ordered all those times and that we know that, hey, they said something about this, they complained about this, they said something good about this. So we’re not falling back on that. Then that also makes it show like we’re not, like, real and sincere. 

 

12:57 — Anthony Presley: 

Right? 

 

12:57 — Brice Ciener: 

Yeah. 

 

12:58 — Anthony Presley: 

No, I love that. I’m going to ask one last question. Just kind of the hot seat, quick fire. If you could do one thing to fix a piece of your business and could do it like, hey, this is my day one, I’m making the change today. What’s the one thing you would want to fix about your business? 

 

13:15 — Brice Ciener: 

I think it actually comes more in the realm of a marketing question. Yeah. I think that there’s so many options out there, and there’s so much Google information out there that it’s very hard to stay on top of. I mean, one of our owners, david, he is constantly on board with all of that stuff to make sure that we’re at the top of the list. But I think somehow getting it out there that. Because we still get those people that say, oh, what’s roasters and toasters? Even though we’ve been there for 19, since 1984, we’re part of that community for a long time that we have five locations. 

 

13:54 — Brice Ciener: 

So I think that finding a way to get more information out there to make us even a bigger household name would be my focus, because driving guests in, because, like I said, there’s so many choices. 

 

14:05 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

14:05 — Brice Ciener: 

People can always get lunch anywhere or breakfast anywhere. And we want to drive home our value and our brand. Right, Right. 

 

14:12 — Anthony Presley: 

No, I love that. 

 

14:13 — Brice Ciener: 

Yeah. 

 

14:13 — Anthony Presley: 

I mean, that’s one of those core philosophies. Right. More people in the top of the funnel, more guests. Right. And then controlling the labor costs and. 

 

14:21 — Brice Ciener: 

The cogs and the HR part of that. We’re doing so much right now. I don’t know if I had a magic wand. Yeah. My magic wand would just make incoming people a little bit smarter with the technology we’re already using. 

 

14:37 — Anthony Presley: 

I got you. 

 

14:37 — Brice Ciener: 

You know that it’s complicated to train. Like you said, there’s so many different levels of computer systems that we use, and to get them on board and to understand hiring, we go through Toast payroll. It’s a simple process. You send the email to the people, they fill out that out. You’d be surprised the amount of employees that don’t have email still. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s crazy to me. Like, that’s just, like, not a thing and. 

 

14:59 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

15:00 — Brice Ciener: 

I’ve had to sit down with an employee and help them create an email just so we can go through that function, which is just. Yeah, that’s crazy. 

 

15:07 — Anthony Presley: 

It is crazy. 

 

15:08 — Brice Ciener: 

A magic wand would just get Everybody to the 21st century. 

 

15:11 — Anthony Presley: 

I love that. I love that. Yeah, yeah. The number of employees that change their email, change their text messaging. We often at time forge become the system of record because in store, like somebody’s changed their cell phone or they’re using a buy now pay here kind of plan and the cell phone’s changed three times since you hired them. And then they can’t get their W2. And then, you know, and then you can’t tell them, hey, there’s a. The parking lot’s got a problem, we’re closed today or whatever. Absolutely. And yeah, it suddenly becomes an issue real fast. 

 

15:41 — Brice Ciener: 

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. 

 

15:42 — Anthony Presley: 

Another one of those things that I like to say. Restaurant owners don’t start restaurants because they want to deal with HR and payroll and accounting and roof repairs. They started restaurants because they want to start food. Exactly so. 

 

15:57 — Brice Ciener: 

Exactly. 

 

15:57 — Anthony Presley: 

That’s true. Well, I appreciate you spending some time. 

 

15:59 — Brice Ciener: 

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.