Restaurant employee burnout happens when stress in the restaurant industry becomes chronic and prolonged, leading to a state of exhaustion. Burnout can decrease job performance, increase workplace injuries, and lead workers to quit the industry entirely, leading to a sky-high restaurant industry turnover rate.
Restaurant burnout is the physical and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged exposure to stress. Burnout is not unique to the restaurant industry. However, due to the combination of stress factors in the restaurant workplace, burnout tends to affect a higher percentage of the restaurant workforce than in other sectors.
The good news is that the pandemic years of 2020 to 2021 brought restaurant employee burnout into the open. And there have never been more tools to help you address burnout and stress in the restaurant industry. We dive into all the tips for managing restaurant employee burnout below.
1. Learn the Signs of Burnout
The signs of burnout can look like job dissatisfaction and depression. So, it can be easy for restaurant owners and managers to see burnout-related behaviors and identify a burnt-out staff member as a problem employee rather than someone who needs help. Problem employees exist, but in my experience, burnt-out employees are much more common. It is always best to assume burnout first and take steps to relieve it.
Some classic signs of burnout are:
- Poor attendance: Lateness and failure to show up for scheduled shifts are typically the first symptoms that managers and owners notice. A desire to escape work is common when employees are burnt out.
- Cynicism & lack of motivation: Restaurant workers tend to be motivated by food, beverage, and the chance to make money. Staff who seem listless and unmotivated by any of the good things in the hospitality environment could be burnt out.
- Decreased enjoyment: Most people pursuing restaurant work are passionate about food and beverage. Staff that lose the ability to enjoy those things may be stressed.
- Insomnia: In an industry known for long, late hours, insomnia can be hard to spot. But if you hear employees complaining about exhaustion and lack of sleep, those could be signs of burnout.
- Poor health: When a top-performing employee suddenly gets sick and takes a long time to recover, burnout could contribute to their illness and recovery time.
- Substance use: Substance use (and abuse) is a scourge in the hospitality industry. It can be a form of self-treatment to mitigate burnout.
Looking at that list, you might think that burnout looks a lot like depression. You’re not wrong. The two are different but can be related. According to Mayo Clinic, burnout can increase the risk of depression.
2. Connect With Industry Support
One of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic is the increasing awareness of supportive resources for industry workers and the decreased stigma in seeking them out. The mental health nonprofit Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness (CHOW) is an excellent resource for connecting with multiple other nonprofit organizations that offer everything from sobriety support groups for industry workers struggling with substance use to groups that offer communal meals multiple times a year where workers can connect and build community.
Some great resources for supporting employees dealing with stress in the restaurant industry are:
- Healthy Hospo: A nonprofit organization that provides mental health and wellness training for individuals, restaurant teams, and hospitality brands in 27 countries.
- The Burnt Chef Project: A nonprofit social enterprise that provides 24-hour mental health support for restaurant workers and free training in stress reduction and mental health techniques.
- Big Table: Currently operating in Nashville, San Diego, Spokane, and Colorado Springs, this nonprofit assists restaurant workers experiencing personal, professional, and mental health crises. They also provide training for crisis prevention.
3. Use the “In The Weeds” Exercise
This exercise was designed by California chef Patrick Mulvaney and his wife after a chef friend of theirs died by suicide. After his friend’s death, Chef Mulvaney and his wife selected four colored tiles to represent four possible moods:
- Green: “I’m just fine today”
- Yellow: “I’m OK … Or not sure”
- Red: “I’m mad or irritated”
- Blue: “I’m in the weeds … struggling, sad, down.”
Chef Mulvaney then placed several colored tiles and a box by the employee time clock and asked that staff place a tile that represented their current state of mind into the box when they clocked in. At the staff pre-shift meeting before the service began, the manager leading the meeting announced the tallies as the day’s “temperature,” as in, “Today’s temperature is four ‘fine,’ three ‘not sure,’ one ‘mad or irritated,’ and two ‘in the weeds.’” The manager then asked the staff to consider how they would anticipate working their shift, knowing that two teammates were struggling.
The tiles are anonymous. None of the staff members know who on the shift is struggling. Chef Mulvaney found that just knowing a co-worker is struggling was enough to encourage staff to converse and support one another throughout the shift. I love this approach because it so effortlessly destigmatizes discussions about stress and mental health in the restaurant workplace.
Use this exercise at least once a week to get a baseline temperature on your staff’s well-being and to create an opportunity for struggling employees to reach out and ask for help. You can download the exercise kit for free from the Big Table website.
4. Learn & Teach Stress Management Skills
Many industry-supporting nonprofit organizations have created educational and training programs for restaurant owners and managers to help deal with mental health and stress management in the restaurant industry. Companies like Healthy Pour offer programs from on-demand online classes, a social learning network, and full-scale on-site classes for interested restaurant groups.
You can also hang training posters to illustrate critical skills for hourly staff to see and use. Promoting stress management and destigmatizing mental health conversations will likely help you attract like-minded managers and other employees for future roles.
5. Hard-schedule Breaks
Hard-scheduling means blocking out specific times on a schedule that cannot be moved, which ensures your staff take their breaks. Hard-scheduling your employee meal and rest breaks ensures your team gets downtime during their shift. That little downtime each shift may be enough to keep general work stress from growing into burnout. Hard-scheduling also helps you plan for break coverage so service and profitability don’t suffer.
You can hard-schedule downtime for your whole team (including your managers and yourself) by closing your restaurant for a day or a week. This is especially useful after a prolonged busy season like after the holiday event season or the summer wedding season. If your lease requires that you keep your restaurant open for a set number of days or hours (some do), schedule maintenance or repairs to your restaurant so you can close without incurring penalties.
6. Monitor Workload
The tasks we expect restaurant employees to perform have expanded wildly in recent years. Hosts are no longer simply organizing tables and seating customers, they have become the de facto curbside takeout packagers and delivery driver traffic directors. Servers have been tasked with additional takeout and delivery responsibilities, plus extra cleaning and sanitizing duties, and as minimum wage increases may also have taken over bussing tables and running food.
And managers? Rising customer, owner, and staff expectations have increased demands on their time, attention, and conflict-resolution skills. As your restaurant creates new revenue streams or eliminates supporting service roles, consider what employee roles are absorbing all the new daily tasks, and ensure you are not overloading one or two people as you update your operation.
7. Simplify Tasks
Reducing the food and beverage preparation tasks you require of kitchen and bar staff can help balance the workload. If your kitchen is overworked, ask your chefs and kitchen teams to assess recipes that can use pre-prepped ingredients like sauce bases or pre-diced vegetables. Pre-prepped ingredients typically cost more, but they can be worth it if they reduce your labor or save your staff from burnout.
Using simple, easy-to-clean plates and servingware, or even adding paper liners to your dining room plates, can ease the workload for your dishwashers.
8. Use Technology to Your Advantage
Once you start looking at ways to streamline your operation, you’ll see them everywhere. Look at the tech you already have and ensure you are using it to save your staff time helping them do their jobs more efficiently. Most restaurants have point-of-sale (POS) systems, but may not use all their available tools. If your POS has tools and integrations you don’t use—for scheduling, inventory tracking, email marketing, review management, self-service kiosks, online order organizing, or more—learn to use them. The extra expense will be worth it if they make your employees’ workday more manageable.
When adding new technologies like kiosks, automated phone attendants, or robotic waitstaff, make it clear to your employees that these technologies are not here to replace them. Adding technology that makes your employees worry about their job security could add to their stress. So make it clear to your employees that your intent is to help them, not stress them out.
9. Pay Equitably
In the restaurant industry, pay can vary widely depending on the restaurant style, price point, and employee role. Look at your employees’ and managers’ wages; are they standard for your area and restaurant type? Do the salaries you pay adequately compensate your team for the level of work you expect from them?
If you accept tips, are they distributed equitably? In many states, restaurant owners can adjust how tips are distributed among tipped employees involved in the direct service chain. If you pay your tipped staff full minimum wage, in some states you may also include kitchen staff in your tip-sharing and tip-pooling arrangements.
However, check your local labor laws regarding tips before adjusting your tip out or tip pooling arrangements. Some states, like New Hampshire, outright ban employer involvement in tip distribution. Whatever you do, do not include managers in any tip-sharing or tip-pooling arrangement. This is against the law pretty much everywhere, and it is terrible for staff morale.
When tips are part of staff compensation, I prefer a pooled house, where all collected tips are pooled into a single pot and then distributed equally among tipped workers for each shift based on their hours worked and their service role. I have found that this one change increases teamwork and decreases stress among tipped staff.
10. Listen to Feedback
An overwhelming majority (74%) of employees say that they are more engaged at work when they feel heard. Engaged employees are less likely to experience burnout. Have an open-door policy that encourages your team to bring concerns about workplace stress to you and your managers. Your employees will tell you exactly how you can help them feel less stressed. And you might be surprised by the good ideas they bring to streamline your operational processes and increase profitability, too.
Restaurant Burnout Challenges
Restaurants are stressful work environments. That’s not just my opinion; scientific research has shown it. A 2022 study[1] published by the National Institute of Health found that restaurant workers’ levels of the stress hormone cortisol are three times higher during normal work than the standard non-stressed adult.
Addressing restaurant employee stress is complicated by several factors—the biggest complication being that not all of the work stressors in a restaurant are within the owners’ control. For example, many restaurant workers say they experience discrimination in their workday—a serious stressor—from customers.
Benefits of Managing Restaurant Burnout
Restaurants that proactively address employee burnout have happier employees. And studies indicate that happy employees are 12% more productive than unhappy ones. Addressing burnout can help you see lower staff turnover, lower employee theft, higher staff productivity, and higher sales. They may also see fewer workplace accidents and fewer foodborne illness incidents.
I have also personally witnessed how engaged restaurant staff take much better care of every aspect of a restaurant, from performing cleaning tasks to adding on sales and referring special event business. Your restaurant staff are the people who show up every day to help your business grow. Most customers come and go. Loyal staff can stay with your restaurant and help you run it for a decade.
If you plan to expand and grow your restaurant into multiple locations, having a stable of engaged, loyal staff will help you expand faster and more successfully.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Restaurant burnout is not only an issue in US restaurants. With stress and burnout being common features of restaurant work, owners and managers need to understand how to address them. Restaurant burnout is a hot industry topic, and it’s an important conversation. These are the most common questions I hear about restaurant burnout and restaurant employee stress.
Last Bite
Stress is a common part of working in a restaurant. It makes sense; restaurants are loud and hot and require a lot of physical work. The good news is that burnout can be addressed and managed before you lose your whole staff. The best news is that the first step to addressing burnout and stress in the restaurant industry is simply a desire to start. By reading this article, you’ve already taken that step.
Sources:
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8887680/
