The Hidden Restaurant Staffing Crisis | Modern Restaurant Management

Restaurants are known to be physically and emotionally taxing environments with staff under constant pressure to produce. This atmosphere is one of the reasons staffing is reported to be a continual struggle for operators. 

Dan Simons, co-owner of Farmers Restaurant Group, implemented policy-level mental health support, including free online therapy for all employees and their families to lower stress, reduce turnover, and improve safety. The group includes seven Founding Farmers restaurants in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, a distillery, Founding Spirits. and a catering arm for a total of more than 1,500 employees.

In this conversation with Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine, he discusses why he believes prioritizing a human-centric culture is essential for restaurant success. 

How would you define the “hidden burnout” crisis in hospitality and how is it different from the everyday stress that is common in the industry?

Servant leadership and all jobs in hospitality inherently require that we put the needs of others above our own. This is what those of us who work in this industry love doing. It creates warm, wonderful, intrinsic benefits. And, yet, it means that when we put ourselves last, day in and day out, we can lose sight of what we, the individual, need.

For most workers, the “daily stress” of the job isn’t actually viewed as stressful. What is distressing (the negative version of stress, in my view) is when compounding negative factors batter workers, managers, and chefs relentlessly — margin erosion, societal strive rolling through the front doors and spilling onto the table and the server, legislation or ideology that pits worker vs. manager (even though most of the time, in my experience in both roles, that relationship is actually positive), staffing levels amidst decades of ineffective immigration policy. The distress can push a hospitality person to reach the point where it just isn’t worth it anymore.

Why is this issue important to you?

I love my teammates, and I love the camaraderie inside and outside our restaurants with our colleagues at other places. We are a deeply human industry. It isn’t actually ever food or drink that touches a diner’s heart — it is the work of the humans who produced and presented that food or drink that has touched that diner’s heart.

We are a deeply human industry. It isn’t actually ever food or drink that touches a diner’s heart — it is the work of the humans who produced and presented that food or drink that has touched that diner’s heart.

One reason some restaurants make magic is that they keep their teams together; low turnover, fully-staffed, fully-trained, fully-performing — this recipe allows for the team to gel, and the magic to be made. So the issue of caring for our people is paramount; we must care for each other and ourselves so we can care for others, for the long term.

Is this crisis worsening and what can be done to combat it?

I’m not sure it is worsening; I think it depends on the restaurant and the city it is in. As with many topics, we can improve by replacing ideology with logic. When people with influence and power actually choose to listen, distill, collaborate, and look for common ground, rather than closing their ears tightly and opening their mouths widely. With a logical, centrist approach to issues outside the restaurant, we can reduce some of the distress inside. We can have policies that help employees and companies with things like child care and health insurance, and we can do this without demonizing businesses or demonizing workers who need support.

That’s all outside the restaurant; inside the restaurant, we can celebrate Chefs, Managers, Workers and Leaders who are doing exemplary things to support one another — we can make these the restaurant stories that maybe the media would retell and magnify, rather than holding up and celebrating the wrong people, doing the wrong things, and fanning the flames of negativity. Maybe food writers could write about the amazing people doing the work, and stop desperately hunting clicks with slash-and-burn criticisms that miss entirely the reality of the humans pursuing their craft. And yes, the topic I raise in every conversation: we can make discussion and support for mental health in the workplace as normal and common as taking inventory or pouring wine.

What are some examples of the business costs of mental exhaustion in restaurants?

Well, you don’t want your air traffic controller exhausted or wishing they weren’t at work, because then planes crash. While far less dramatic, the same is true — exhausted servers ring up orders wrong, which means cooks need to remake food on the fly, and guests are upset (rightfully so)…and if you think restaurants aren’t life and death, you are wrong. Food safety is a restaurateur’s most important topic. Literally, more important than service, flavor, and profit.

When cooks are exhausted, treated unfairly, or lack role models who care, food safety standards slip. Just Google Jack in the Box and food poisoning if you want to know what happened… and if you think that was a long time ago, realize these lapses can happen anywhere, any time, and they do — even though, thankfully, they are not widespread or as tragic as the J.i.B. situation.  Just think of the cost to the business — from recooking food ordered or made wrong, to paying for hospital bills for diners who got it, to ER bills for cuts, slips, and falls when employees are distressed and unable to lock in with the focus their role requires.

How is Founding Farmers addressing this issue, particularly on the policy level?

We focus on the intersection of strategic and tactical — the two elements that shape how we build and sustain our human-centric culture. We offer free mental health benefits to our employees (and their family members) — access to licensed therapists. We offer free massage — sounds strange, but yes, it’s a thing. We normalize talking about mental health by teaching classes on the subject, by providing mental health first aid training, and by bringing in guest speakers to educate our chefs and managers on mental health and tactical ways to engage and support our staff.

We normalize talking about mental health by teaching classes on the subject, by providing mental health first aid training, and by bringing in guest speakers to educate our chefs and managers on mental health and tactical ways to engage and support our staff.

Most importantly, we LISTEN. We listen through our employee surveys, we listen through our Voices at Work meetings, we listen, and develop programs and policy through our Council on Culture, made up of employees and outsiders to ensure we have comprehensive perspectives.

What should other restaurant groups be doing to protect their staff?

First, I’d say lots of restaurant groups care deeply about their people and are already doing many positive things. I can’t give advice; I can only share my perspective. I think any leader, namely me, can Listen More. We can ask our people what is stressful, what is distressing, and what solutions would really help them. The more we listen, the more our tactical solutions come from the inside out, and the bottom up, rather than the assumptions that often flow from the elevated positions of authority.

My favorite benefit is Paid Time Off. It gives people the #1 thing they need, physically, mentally, spiritually — time to unplug from work, reconnect with themselves, with a viable financial way to take the time. For the large groups, they can invest more in Manager/Chef Training on the soft skills; they can invest money to get them off the shift, and into meeting rooms and classrooms, and not some useless check-the-box video, but actually engaging classroom environments, with role plays and safe environment discussions. The stronger groups have better Managers/Chefs, and the workers will have a better experience.

What can indie restaurants do to better support staff mental health?

Listening More is free, so a restaurant co any size can elevate by doing this. Survey Monkey is free; WhatsApp is free — asking questions, and then immersing in the answers, and looking to give the employees solutions and support that they want is where it starts to make an impact. Because, by asking the questions, we are normalizing the answer. Don’t ask “Do you want help with your mental health?” Instead, ask “Do you ever have days where you just don’t feel like you can get yourself out of bed?”  Forming groups at work for people to talk and discuss and support each other — while they are on the clock, and scheduled for the “round table discussion” — sure, it costs some labor dollars, but the ROI is clear, but it lowers turnover costs.

What impact has Founding Farmers experienced since redesigned benefits and what is the staff response?

This is not new for us — we’ve had elements, tactical and strategic, that bring this culture to life since our first Founding Farmers opened in September 2008.   We’ve learned a lot along the way, so we’re always evolving, always testing and trying new things, and measuring them, to figure out what creates value for our people, and thus, our enterprise. We know the staff response, because they vote with their feet — having turnover at half the industry average is an endorsement, and yet in my view, it’s still far too high, and we can always do better for our people, and thus, our business.