Employees of Greengo's Caribbean Cantina in the Virgin Islands tend to stay, says Chef Elizabeth Milburn.
Editor’s Note: This article is excerpted from the 2023 el Restaurante Independent Mexican Restaurant Report, which will appear in its entirety in the Nov/Dec issue.
By Ed Avis
Finding and keeping good workers has been a serious challenge for restaurants for years, especially since Covid. However, a survey of readers of el Restaurante magazine in October showed that the problem may be easing somewhat. In 2022, 78 percent of respondents to the survey said that finding employees was harder than normal; only 55 percent reported that in the 2023 survey. Furthermore, 19 percent of respondents said they have had no problem recruiting employees, compared to 12 percent who said that last year.
Elizabeth Milburn, who helps run Greengo’s Carribean Cantina, which has two locations on the Virgin Islands, said they “struggle a little bit” to find new employees, but their retention level is strong.
“The people who come to work for us, stay with us,” says Milburn, who is a chef and develops the menus for the restaurants, which are owned by her son, Adrian Hale, and his partners. “The first guy we hired as a dishwasher 11 years ago has stayed with us and is now a chef.”
Milburn believes her retention is good because the restaurant trains employees well and allows them to advance. “I’ve told them all: ‘If you want to progress and move up, you can. I’ll train you.’”
But other restaurant owners report continuing problems. Linda Rivas, owner of Henry J’s Taco House in Des Moines, Iowa, says finding midday shift employees is most difficult for her restaurant, which celebrated its 50th year in business earlier this year.
“I’ve had pretty good luck with high school kids who work part time,” she reports. “They are pretty good about saying, ‘Can I have such-and-such a night off for the football game?’ But trying to find older daytime workers who want to do these kinds of jobs, and who are dependable, is tough. We’ve always had an issue with that.”
Marco Perez, co-owner of Maya Mexican Restaurant, which has two locations in Alabama, says one employee issue he has faced is that many workers simply don’t want to put in the long hours.
“A lot of the younger cashiers and other staff don’t want to work 40 hours a week at a restaurant,” he reports. “They want to do more like 15 to 25 hours. They don’t want to do any more than that.”
Naturally, paying more helps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average wages for restaurant workers have climbed 21 percent since 2020, reaching a projected $18.99 per hour in November.
But there are limits to how much an operator can increase pay, of course.
“Raising pay has helped, but I think during Covid a lot of employees stopped trusting the restaurant business as much,” Perez explains. “They saw how we had to close down and they lost their jobs. So now some want more pay than we can afford. I had one guy who wanted to make more than the owner does. I said, ‘Dude, I can’t do that.’”
The el Restaurante survey revealed that raising pay is the most common tactic for attracting and keeping workers -- 88 percent of respondents have raised pay this year. Offering flexible schedules also helps; 69 percent of respondents did that. About 22 percent added other benefits, and only 3 percent did nothing at all to attract employees.
Perez offers more flexibility to his employees, he says. For example, if someone wants to work a double shift to get in more hours at one time, or if a dinner shift employee wants an afternoon shift instead, he accommodates that.