Talent Acquisition in the Restaurant Industry
Seeing how the economy, regulations, demographics, social changes, and issues like immigration are tied into the restaurant industry is one of the most interesting things I have learned this semester throughout my research and time at M Street. As an intern there this semester, I have mostly been focused on hiring and recruiting, which are intertwined with many of the issues I have explored in my blog.
At M Street, we continue to face many challenges with labor and finding not only enough people, but the right people to fill roles. Sometimes we are forced to make a choice between filling roles as soon as possible to alleviate other team members who are working overtime, and actually finding the best candidates that will be the right fit at M Street.
Given the factors I have evaluated in this blog, it is clear that the Nashville restaurant industry will continue to grow quickly. There are many more people moving to the city and we can expect to see continuous increases in tourism, business travel, and immigrants coming to the city.
After working on hiring this semester, in my opinion there are several key things that M Street needs to be focused on, given the challenges and opportunities of the restaurant industry in Nashville.
- Speed- the longer candidates are kept waiting, the more likely they are to accept another job offer. With labor shortages in the city, especially for back of house positions, it is critical that leaders respond to candidates as soon as possible. Even a day-long delay in response time can mean losing a candidate to another restaurant or group.
- Coordination- although this ties into speed, it is another critical aspect of hiring and deserves its own callout. Candidates need to be able to navigate the application process with ease. All interviews and onboarding should take place in one day so that candidates don’t need to come back and forth to M Street several times. Interviews should be thorough but efficient and interviewers should seem practiced but friendly.
- Selling M Street- finally, in this incredibly competitive space, M Street will only be able to compete with and surpass other restaurants by promoting many of the values that make the company so unique, including opportunities for promotion and transferring between concepts to develop unique experiences. Seeing as M Street owns 6 restaurants of all different varieties, team members have the unique capability of transferring between restaurants and developing different skills and experiences.
Only if M Street is able to practice speed and coordination, and really sell the unique aspects of the company that makes them unique will they be able to be successful.