Calling All Restaurants: Seniors Are Great Employees | Modern Restaurant Management

I always encourage seniors to consider working in restaurants as a fun full-time or part-time job. Just as COVID ended, the hospitality industry was desperate for employees.

Today, the industry does not have quite the same issues, but shortages persist, and I still am a huge fan of hiring seniors to work in their local restaurants. Why? Because seniors are spectacular role models for today’s employees.

You might be asking, “What makes them so special?” First, if I schedule a senior for 10 a.m., they come in at 9:45, get organized, and by 10 they are at their station, ready to go. This is often not true of many in today’s working generation, who show up at 10, get into uniform, vape, send a few texts, and then eventually get to their station.

When we ask seniors to focus 100 percent of their time working with guests, we have an employee who spends 100 percent of their time doing just that. I have never seen any of our seniors trying to sneak into a corner and call their significant other.

Today’s labor pool, in terms of numbers, is more stable; however, a great deal of today’s labor shortage consists of employees who accept a job but are unreliable. They show up late, miss shifts, don’t call out. This is the exact opposite of the seniors who are working or are looking for some part-time hours.

Seniors may not move as fast, may not lift as much, but they do the most important thing any employee can do: show up ready to work!

Seniors Can Be Star Employees

Seniors like to be appreciated for what they do by both management and guests. If they really want to feel appreciated? They should call a restaurant, let them know they are interested in a job, make an appointment for an interview and then show up on time for the interview. Just doing that may make the managers or owners break down in tears.

I have many friends who are retired and complain that they have nothing to do, or that they are bored. My father used to say that “only a boring person can be bored.” 

Seniors can feel great about themselves and work a few four-hour shifts in a restaurant each week, meet and enjoy the young people who do work there, and enjoy greeting the guests who are coming in for a meal and a special time together.

No Excuses!

Many older people may be still  looking for an excuse to stay on the couch. They might be saying, “I can’t work in restaurants because I don’t have experience.”

They should not worry, as they have been to plenty of restaurants and understand how they work. Managers and owners love to train people in the hospitality business, and they will love working with a seasoned employee.

They might be saying, “I can only work from 6 to 10 in the morning,”  “I can only work during lunch,” or “I can only work three hours a day, four days a week.” They should not worry about any of those things, because if they tell the restaurant owner when they can work, and that they will show up on time for every shift, they will find work to fit that  schedule.

I fell in love with the restaurant industry when I worked as a dishwasher at age 15. This has been my career and, at 66, I’m as excited now every day when I go to work as I was way back then. 

One of the greatest benefits is that seniors can have a fully satisfying job at their convenience and,  at the end of the shift, they are done. No work to take home, no stress, and the only thing they will be thinking about is what they want to learn tomorrow and how to spend the extra cash.