Labor shortage solution: Cross-Training

Navigating the increase in labor costs won’t take just one adjustment. Consider making a few changes throughout your operations – a holistic approach.

Washington hospitality experts recommend experimenting with your team roles. Can a host also bus tables? Can housekeeping assist with laundry? Examine how your staff members spend their time and evaluate how you can do more with less in 2020.

Experiment with cross training in restaurants

With minimum wage being as high as it is, Jeff Morgan, CEO of Hops N Drops, said you must look at what you can do across roles to be more efficient. For Morgan, cross-training staff members in various roles is the answer.

“It’s good for us because it helps our team be more productive,” Morgan said. “It’s good for the guest because at busier times, there are [staff members] who have the expertise to jump around in different positions.”

He said he talks with employees about how this efficient model is a win for the business as well as employees.

“It’s a balance – give the guest a great experience, help the team members grow and strive to be an employer of choice – but help the company grow,” he said.

Morgan talked about helping team members find their second job within his restaurants so they don’t have to also work someplace else. Wearing many hats at the restaurant allows team members to earn more money, get more hours and a higher wage rate.

Because staff members are cross-trained and earning more money there is greater retention, turnover costs go down and productivity goes up.

 “It really is all about cross-training – helping people move from the back of the house to front of the house, hourly to salary position,” Morgan said. “For example, with our host, busser and expo positions, we work really hard on making sure those folks go through that progression as quickly as possible. They get to work more hours in more positions. For us, people who are cross-trained helps us do more with less.”

In the back of house, as soon as his team members learn one position, they learn the next position.

“We have hot side, cold side (like a pantry) and prep,” Morgan said. “Cross training people in those areas is always a development path we encourage people to take.”

The ability to cross train doesn’t remain front-of-house and back-of-house at Hops N Drops. Morgan said he offers employees to train and transition from one to the other. It’s about giving the team members the opportunity to grow and develop, he said.

And Morgan said you can learn from his past mistakes.

He recommended restaurant owners and managers sit down and ask employees how they want to grow and try to figure out how to support that. But, he urges, you must be honest and sincere.

Two things to avoid: Don’t try and force somebody to grow and cross train if they don’t want to. And don’t make commitments and break them.

“We’ll provide the resources and the framework, but they have to drive the development,” Morgan said. “Because they’re driving their development, the manager isn’t getting overwhelmed or overcommitted, they’re just helping along the way.”

Create opportunities, retain good workers in lodging

It’s not just restaurants that benefit from investing more in the employee. Cross-training has been a successful part of Namaste Cousins’ Holiday Inn express in Sequim, and she’s incorporated it into their business model for the past two years.

“We started … when we first started seeing the minimum wage hike-ups, we used to be a primarily part-time employment status hotel,” Cousins said. “We found that retaining employees … was a lot easier when we were able to offer them more.”

These were challenging changes to implement, Cousins acknowledged – in taking part-time staff to full-time, it creates the added cost of providing benefits to them. But that additional cost is far preferable, she said, to the hardship and cost of recruiting and hiring new workers.

“Just the cost of replacing an employee these days is so high. Right now it’s better to retain, we don’t have to pay for recruitment, for training … it’s been very beneficial,” Cousins said. “Primarily we cross-over with laundry and housekeeping and breakfast bar and housekeeping. We do have some staff that go up and inspect rooms with the housekeeping.”

Quentin Incao, CEO of Q Hospitality Management, also said he’d seen success in consolidating positions at hotels.

“We did actually start doing that this year, purely out of lack of finding qualified talent and/or getting longevity out of talent,” Incao said. “We started morphing a couple of positions.”

By merging his prep cook and dishwasher positions together, he was able to provide the opportunity for a well-seasoned dishwasher to gain much-needed prep cook experience.

“As time permitted and dishwashing slowed down … because of the proximity of the kitchen, the head chef would teach them how to prep, how to slice and dice and peel,” Incao said. “That somewhat eliminated the need for additional prep cooks.”

This worked out well for employees wanting to grow and develop professional and those wanting for more hours. It’s a model Incao expects to continue with in the future.

“That model is actually what we’re going to take into 2020, we’re not going to look for separate prep cook or separate dishwashers, we’re going to look for both,” Incao said. “It’ll be a combined position.”

In terms of executing this change, Cousins said the biggest trouble can be in scheduling. A schedule is great in theory, but in execution if you have employees with multiple positions, sometimes some tasks require additional time.

“Sometimes you think you have a plan that is going to work … (then) If anything happens in that day that is unexpected it can gouge into that,” Cousins said. “We need two people in laundry but the girl who is supposed to be in there is still facilitating breakfast.”

To address this, Cousins found a solution in hiring multiple managers, even for a small hotel. She said she has four.

“Those people can jump into whatever position they need to,” she said.

The golden rule always applies, especially to your employees – treat them well, and consider what they could hope to gain in the long-term from their time at your business.

“I think the general rule is treat your people right, offer them more than is expected,” Cousins said. “Our hotel has gone into things like … offering additional training outside of their realm of work … not everyone working in the hotel (will go into hospitality).”

As long as there’s mutual respect, an employer-employee relationship can definitely benefit from added responsibility – coupled with opportunity.