443. How to Reduce Turnover in Restaurants: Boosting Team Culture, Leadership, and Data-Driven Insights - Russ Hawkins

·35 min·3 clips

Roger Bodwin dives into labor challenges, turnover costs, and the dark side of theft in restaurants.

The episode begins with Roger Bodwin introducing labor challenges, turnover costs, and theft in restaurants. Russ Hawkins joins to discuss foundational elements like leadership and training. He emphasizes hiring the right people and creating a rewarding environment to improve retention. Hawkins defines 'intrapreneur' as demonstrating entrepreneurship within a structured organization, fostering innovation. The conversation shifts to recruiting versus hiring, with Hawkins recommending leveraging employee networks and casting a wide net. A specific example is shared: a Southern California restaurant chain used $250 gift cards to customers for successful staff referrals during the pandemic. Hawkins discusses the high costs of turnover, advocating for exit interviews and fair compensation. The dark side of theft is addressed, with Hawkins explaining data analytics to detect abuses like sweet-hearting and loyalty abuse through POS monitoring. He stresses the importance of relationships with employees to minimize theft. Data-driven strategies are explored, highlighting POS data, third-party delivery metadata, and social media monitoring as key sources. Hawkins advises comparing historical data and using day-part analysis for decision-making. Menu engineering is discussed, focusing on food costs, prep time, and profitability adjustments. Hawkins' company, Agilentz, is introduced as a data analytics firm helping restaurants democratize data access with AI tools for tasks like tracking upsell performance. The episode concludes with a summary of insights and sponsor acknowledgments.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Restaurant Rockstars Podcast