By Mary Kate Addison, SHRM-CP
In recent years, large hospitality groups have capitalized on their scale to dominate the restaurant industry conversation in the U.S. With thousands of units, these groups have grown to have a purchasing power that small restaurants simply can’t match.
With scale, however, comes standardization. And at its logical extreme, that can mean a lack of agility, autonomy and creativity — all things that independent restaurants have in spades. With smaller teams and simpler operations, owners of independent restaurants have the unique opportunity to position themselves as the “employer of choice” in a community — one where staff are empowered to make decisions that impact the company culture, not the other way around.
Instead of competing directly with large hospitality groups, independent restaurant leadership teams should think about hiring for, and managing with, a set of ethos that set them apart. At GSI Executive Search, we specialize in placing excellent hospitality leaders who understand this concept.
Here are five methods we have seen generate success for independent restaurant leadership teams.
Have you ever known the name of the head chef at your local chain restaurant? It’s unlikely. However, many of us can name the leading independent chefs in our local culinary communities.
An authentic ownership presence is one of the greatest advantages of independent restaurants. As employers, you can capitalize on this by making celebrities of your team. Through social media and PR efforts, spotlight your chef, name your employees and celebrate your workplace culture.
Let your team members see their name in print, and see how their pride in their work expands.
People who choose to work for independent restaurants are often entrepreneurial by nature. In our experience, top talent is often drawn to independent restaurants specifically because they have a greater voice in shaping the operation.
Capture that energy and celebrate it by allowing your team to make calls and creatively contribute to work culture and operations.
When front-line employees are empowered to play a role in building something unique and meaningful, they become more invested in the success of the operation. The restaurant becomes more than a job. It becomes a shared mission driven by people who care about its growth and future.
One of the major owner-operated advantages is speed and agility in the decision-making process. Customers have complaints about a dish? Change it. Need to hire more staff or change shifts? Do it.
Show your team, through your actions, that you are willing to quickly and efficiently make adjustments if they will better your guests’ experiences. People love working for leaders who are willing to break away from the corporate playbook and operate by instinct, purpose and — especially — team input.
If your employees can genuinely see that you’re willing to adjust operations to care for guests and employees, you will build a stronger, more dedicated employee base.
In the early years of an independent restaurant, you may not be able to compete with the enticing corporate benefit package of a large hospitality group, but you can provide something they can’t: hands-on learning at a much faster pace.
As an employer of a small team, you can focus more time and energy on training and prepping your team for the next phase in their career. Even your most green hires can gain visibility into the industry and learn from you regarding how to lead and succeed in this market. In addition, smaller teams allow for clearer paths for growth and advancement.
Staff at independent restaurants are much more likely to feel a sense of autonomy in their work. Thus, they are more likely to personalize experiences and elevate service.
Will Guidara, who ran Eleven Madison Park in New York, captured this idea in his book Unreasonable Hospitality: the notion that the most memorable guest moments come from small, specific, in-the-moment decisions that no corporate playbook would authorize. Independent operations have this autonomy built into their DNA: the freedom to comp a dessert for an anniversary, remember a regular’s order, or bend a rule because it’s the right call for that guest — not because a policy says so.
Personalization, and even autonomy, at scale is expensive and hard to replicate. But at independents it’s natural, and flows with the needs of the customers.
Moral of the story: by focusing on being the employer of choice, an independent restaurant can out-perform a large corporate one on many levels. While you may not be able to compete on salary alone, the perks you can offer in terms of meaning, advancement, creativity and engagement can be real difference-makers in setting your operation and your culture apart.
Rather than chase a corporate north star, find what you can do well — and be the best at it. Meaning is perhaps the best advantage you could have.
