If you’re charged with engaging, educating or even just reaching restaurant employees, your job is not easy. QSR and quick casual environments can be especially challenging. Compared to a quiet office where employees are sitting at computers, restaurants are loud, hectic and nobody is doing much sitting down.
Here are five challenges that can make reaching restaurant employees more difficult:
Shift changes make it difficult for managers to share information with everyone at the same time. The staff of a restaurant might be split between multiple shifts, and there may not be much overlap time between those clocking in and out. Employees passing along information to the next shift might omit important details, unintentionally distort the message, or forget to deliver it at all.
To get information to restaurant employees, corporate communicators depend on the manager cascade, which often flows through regional or district managers to each restaurant’s manager. That provides plenty of opportunities for bottlenecks to occur, or the ball to be dropped. Most restaurant managers aren’t trained communicators, and some may embrace the role more than others.
Turnover rates in the restaurant industry, particularly the fast-food sector, are stunningly high. This means some basic onboarding training must be communicated frequently, and managers may begin to shortcut some information through repetition. It’s also difficult to engage employees in delivering the brand promise when they see themselves as short-timers.
In many restaurant kitchens, you can hear more than one language being spoken. When employees have different first languages, some communication can be lost in translation, so to speak. In the spirit of inclusivity, it’s helpful if managers can learn even a few words in the languages their employees grew up speaking. Connecting employees with ESL resources can help even more.
The hierarchal structure of restaurants can make those employees in the back of house feel like they’re at the very bottom of the heap. That can make them reluctant to speak up if they recognize an issue or have a suggestion. These employees can offer valuable insights to corporate, but there’s rarely a reliable two-way communications channel for employees to share their voice up the ladder.
