According to Reporter's Notebook, the restaurant turnover rate rose to an astounding 72% in 2015, making it the fifth consecutive year of turnover acceleration.

Separately, Jim Sullivan wrote a post in Nation's Restaurant News claiming that the average hourly turnover in the foodservice industry is 110% annually. Either way, it's hard to run a business with turnover anywhere near those conditions. 

It gets worse, too...

The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell concluded that turnover costs hospitality businesses $3-7k per employee, after you factor in pre-departure, recruiting, selection, orientation, and lost productivity costs. Of those cost buckets, lost productivity is the single greatest contributor, accounting for 55-65% of total turnover costs. 

Even if you found a silver bullet that would cut turnover in half, you'd still be coping with catastrophically high turnover costs. 

You can't stop turnover, but can you overcome it?

For hospitality businesses, maintaining continuity of the guest experience is of utmost importance. Do you think guests notice if a key member of your staff leaves? Of course they do. They probably still love your restaurant, but they have to get to know someone new. Scale exacerbates the problem, because staff are always coming and going and batons — guest relationships — get dropped.

Given this eventuality, its important to arm your establishment with tools to insulate customers from the turbulence. This is where Wisely comes in, providing you and your FOH staff with a cloud-based institutional memory.

With Wisely, starting from a FOH staff member's first shift on the job, they can see a guest's full history in real-time. We can't clone the exact staff member who left, but we can help you make it clear to your guests that you care about them — and we can give your staff a tool to pick up a dropped baton.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what an institutional memory ought to look like. Feel free to set up a conversation, or tweet at us @WeAreWisely.

-- 

Wisely empowers restaurant groups to grow and sustain profitability by acquiring valuable new guests, converting them into regulars, and keeping them happy for life. Our software is easy-to-use and enhances productivity, so staff can focus on what really matters. For more information or media inquiries, please contact us at hello@getwisely.com.