In recent years, the F&B industry in the Philippines has become more competitive than ever.
With a growing demand for skilled workers and an increase in restaurant and café establishments, the competition for top talent has intensified. As a result, attracting and retaining dedicated, motivated, and skilled employees has become crucial for F&B businesses that want to stay ahead.
For restaurants and cafés, maintaining a strong team is essential to ensuring smooth operations, excellent customer service, and long-term growth.
In this blog, we’ll explore practical strategies for managing and retaining employees in the Philippines’ F&B industry, from providing career progression opportunities to fostering a positive work environment that encourages loyalty and boosts staff performance.
Create Clear Career Paths to Retain Talent in the F&B Industry
The F&B sector has one of the highest turnover rates, with an average of around 75%. One of the best ways to reduce this high turnover is by creating clear career paths for your employees. When team members can see a clear route for advancement and growth, they are more likely to stay with the company and be motivated to do their best work.
For example, if a server knows they can rise to a shift leader, then a floor supervisor, and eventually a manager, they will feel more invested in their role.
You can map out each role’s career progression and provide a timeline for when they can expect potential promotions. This clarity helps employees understand what they need to do to move up within the company, motivating them to stay longer. Internal training programs, where employees earn certifications and skills necessary to take on more responsibilities, can also help solidify their commitment to the company.
Jan Rodriguez, owner of The Weekend in Cebu, exemplifies this approach.
At The Weekend, everyone is cross-trained to handle multiple roles, creating a flexible and well-rounded workforce. Even the dishwasher learned how to handle the fry station, moved on to the grill, and eventually mastered sautéing. This cross-training approach ensures that when key people are unavailable, the team can easily adapt without disruptions, allowing the business to continue running smoothly.
In addition, having mentors for new employees or those looking to advance in their careers can foster loyalty. A mentor can guide them, answer questions, and offer support as they progress in their roles. Internal promotions, as opposed to hiring externally, also save on recruitment costs and help create a more cohesive, loyal team.
By offering clear career paths, structured training, and mentorship opportunities, you not only help retain employees but also develop a motivated, skilled workforce that will contribute to your business’s long-term success.
Leverage Competitive Pay and Benefits for Employee Retention
Offering competitive pay and benefits is an obvious yet essential strategy for employee retention, especially in the F&B industry. While salaries alone won’t necessarily keep employees long-term, providing pay that is competitive – or better yet, above industry standards – signals to your team that you value their contributions and are willing to invest in their well-being.
This, in turn, helps you retain skilled and motivated staff, reducing turnover rates and the associated costs of constantly hiring and training new employees.
But how do you provide these attractive pay packages without putting a strain on your business’s finances?
One way is by automating and streamlining your operations. By cutting down on unnecessary third-party tools and systems, like separate loyalty programs or manual reporting, you can save valuable time and money. An all-in-one POS system like StoreHub can consolidate your operations, from sales tracking and inventory management to customer loyalty and marketing, into one easy-to-use platform.
By automating tasks that would otherwise require extra tools and manual effort, you free up your budget to offer better pay and benefits without stretching your finances thin.
In addition to competitive salaries, consider offering tangible benefits such as meal allowances, free meals from the restaurant, or performance bonuses.
Providing employees with a free meal or a meal allowance during their shift is a practical way to show appreciation while alleviating the cost of eating during working hours. For health insurance, it’s important to select a plan that covers not just basic medical care but also workplace-related injuries, like burns or slips, which are common in the F&B industry. This coverage can offer employees peace of mind, knowing they’re protected in case of accidents on the job.
Meanwhile, performance bonuses tied to specific, measurable goals not only incentivise hard work but directly align employees’ efforts with the success of the business.
By rewarding achievements such as meeting sales targets or improving customer satisfaction, you create a performance-driven culture that motivates staff to go the extra mile and contribute to the overall growth of the business.
Use Technology for Efficient Employee Management
Managing a team in the F&B industry can be complex, particularly when dealing with multiple locations and different roles – from servers and baristas to chefs and managers.
Juggling schedules, tracking attendance, and ensuring employees are performing to standard can easily become overwhelming. On top of that, managing these tasks manually leads to errors, wasted time, and frustration, both for you and your staff.
For instance, manually clocking in and out can result in mistakes, like buddy punching (where employees clock in for each other), leading to inaccurate timesheets and, ultimately, payroll discrepancies. These errors can create problems down the line, especially when managing large teams across several locations.
Investing in a POS system with employee management features, like StoreHub, takes care of these issues. With photo-based clock-in features, employees can clock in and out simply by having their photos taken, preventing buddy punching and ensuring accurate attendance records.
On the management side, you can access real-time reports, including shift reports, timesheets, and individual sales performance, all from one centralized dashboard.
This ensures you can track employee hours, performance, and overall efficiency in real-time – whether you’re at the store, at home, or on the go. With everything automated and easily accessible, you eliminate the risk of human error. For example, if you manually calculate that an employee has made a certain amount of sales, you might find yourself reprimanding them for underperformance – only to later realise they were actually performing better than expected.
With an employee management system integrated into your POS, you have an accurate, real-time view of each employee’s sales and performance, ensuring fair evaluations and saving you headaches in the process.
Offer Ongoing Training and Development
While experience is an invaluable teacher, relying solely on day-to-day work to develop skills can be limiting. For F&B businesses, especially in a competitive market like the Philippines’, providing structured, ongoing training can boost employee performance, morale, and loyalty.
Because training should never stop after onboarding. It should be a continuous process that supports both personal and professional growth.
For example, consider a barista at your café who wants to improve their latte art and dreams of competing in an international coffee competition. Supporting them with specialised training sessions, attending workshops, and offering resources for practice can help turn this aspiration into a reality.
Not only will this employee feel motivated and appreciated, but it will also directly improve the quality of service you offer customers. Similarly, employees in other roles, such as chefs or servers, can benefit from targeted workshops on specific skills, whether it’s improving their cooking techniques, mastering food presentation, or enhancing their customer service approach.
Quarterly training sessions can be a good way to focus on both hard skills (like product knowledge, food safety, or specific techniques) and soft skills (such as communication, problem-solving, or teamwork). This regular commitment to upskilling shows employees that you value their development beyond the day-to-day tasks, encouraging them to stay with your business long term.
Offering certifications in areas like food safety, barista expertise, or customer service excellence can also serve as a strong incentive. Not only do these certifications benefit your business, but they provide your employees with qualifications that are transferable, giving them confidence and valuable credentials for their future in the industry.
Final Thoughts
Employee retention in the Philippines’ competitive F&B industry requires a mix of strategies that address employee needs, provide clear growth opportunities, and make them feel valued.
By offering competitive pay, fostering career progression, and investing in training, you can build a motivated and loyal workforce. Technology also plays a vital role, helping streamline operations and making it easier to manage your staff efficiently.
In the end, retaining top talent is about creating an environment where employees feel supported, challenged, and rewarded. By combining these strategies, you can reduce turnover, improve job satisfaction, and ensure that your business grows in the long run.
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