A restaurant owner cut turnover in half across two locations and saved $60,000 in replacement costs. He reinvested that money into staff pay, which improved guest experience and consistency. The key: measure what turnover actually costs and treat retention as an investment.
So I got like 28 full time staff between my two restaurants. Not huge, not crazy. Let's just say I were to cut that 100% turnover in half and I'm only going to turn over 14 people. Right? You're talking about $60,000 versus $120,000 in turnover expense. I just put $60,000 back in my pocket by being thoughtful. Now, when I have that $60,000, I can divide that by my total employee wage. And if I can reach that goal, I can divide that by total number of hours worked, and I can put that $60,000 into the pay that I give them so it pays for itself. It's really, really pretty crazy. But people don't think like that. People don't measure the soft cost of things. People don't measure the investment value of things. And I don't want to get that money and put that 60,000 back in my pocket. I want to put that 60,000 back in MY people because they'll generate me far more than 60,000. Right. I mean, think about the consistency to the guests. When my guests come in, the food tastes the same every time because I've had the same core kitchen team since we opened almost three years ago. I've had almost zero turnover in the front of the house because they make so much money, but the guest recognizes them. My employees recognize the guests. The engagement is real, it's authentic. There's no gaps in the tribal knowledge. They know the last four menu iterations because we change the menu every quarter. And when a guest asks for something that's been off the menu for a year, they're like, oh, yeah, we can still make it. We have a little cheat sheet in the back. And my guys back again. They've been there. They remember how to make that dish. We just pulled it because it wasn't popular, but somebody still loves it. And we give them that VIP treatment because we still have all the same ingredients. So we make the dish like little like that. You can't get that benefit with crazy turnover and that, that loss of fidelity. That's so true.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
