What will staffing look like in 2025?
By Daniel McCoy
Everyone in business is aware that this is the year of the Great Resignation. Currently, in the U.S., there are 11 million jobs available, with a large portion of those in healthcare, foodservice and education.
The employees the foodservice industry counted on in the past – high school and college-age kids – now are a much smaller part of the population, and parents are fully funding them through school more than in the past. COVID restrictions on travel and immigration policies have lowered the number of potential employees as well.
As employees continue to leave the workforce in record numbers, either through retirement or staying home to take care of family, employers are being forced to be more innovative and flexible with how they staff. Pay is also a large factor in today’s economic environment, with inflation really putting a dent in earnings. So what does the Human Resource Crystal Ball say?
In this decade, with a birth rate approaching zero, future employees may be in short supply. The employer must look to more efficient ways of running their business.
Embracing technology will be a requirement to survive. Remember, just a century ago, one of the highest paying jobs in a city was being a blacksmith. Major chains are already experimenting with kiosk ordering, robotic cooks, call center ordering and other ideas.
I come from a banking background, and one of the locations I was at had 26 tellers on staff. On Friday afternoons, the lines to cash checks would fill the lobby and the drive-thru lines would reach back into the road. Today, with direct or remote deposits, money transfer systems and ATMs that do so many more things, the bank only has four to six tellers on staff, a 75% reduction. So the concept of machines replacing workers is not new. Even now, there are autonomous cars and driverless semi-trucks in the research and development stages. So why not food services?
One thing that sets the food industry apart is the creativity factor. Chefs today want to express themselves through the food they prepare. True, a portion of food service is utilitarian and designed to fill a need, ie.. feed the customer who is hungry for a fee. At the same time, the need to create new and exciting dishes or provide exceptional service will keep the foodservice industry from becoming a robotic business only. The smaller restaurateur will need to be creative with staffing, as well as his dishes.
Some of the keywords in recruiting and retaining employees today are flexibility, training, well-being and life balance. Today and tomorrow’s recruits have the largest job pool to choose from in history. And those potential employees are expecting a lot more than those employees a few years ago.
Flexibility and life balance go hand in hand. Tomorrow’s workers believe there is more to life than going to work and home and then repeat. According to a recent study by Achievers Workforce Institute, only 20% of those surveyed felt physically healthy and 15% feel supported at work in managing their physical and mental health. Many employees feel overworked due to a lack of staff to handle the workload. Flexibility should allow these employees to take mental and physical breaks when needed, spread the workload out fairly and allow the employees to have an input in decisions.
Another way to improve mental well-being is by offering training to employees. Training someone is an investment of time and assets in the individual and, as such, it increases the employees’ net worth to themselves. A better-trained employee is more efficient and confident in their abilities and less likely to lean on management for guidance for the small issues.
Reform in the industry is in a new phase. In the past decade or so, we have seen a shift in loyalty both ways. Employees used to expect to work for the same company for most of their lifetime. At the same time, the employee expected a pension and the company to take care of them until the end of their lives.
Today, neither of these loyalties hold true. Employees will now expect better compensation, benefits as well as a life-work balance. Changes regarding tipped employees receiving a $2.13 hourly rate is already taking place in many states and seem to be gaining momentum across the U.S. Many employers are increasing the price on the menu to offer benefits to their employees. With the high cost of medical expenses and dental expenses, it is hard to compete with other companies that offer the benefits, even at lower pay. Without some means of social reform to supplement healthcare costs, the employer is faced with figuring out “how can I attract workers while offering them less incentives?”
While many companies are turning to automation, there will always be a need for human interaction. Staffing will certainly be different in the next three years, but at the end of the day, there will still be that need for creativity and outside-the-box thinking that automation doesn’t do.
I anticipate we will land somewhere in the middle. You can take your car to an automated car wash or you can pay to have it detailed, the choice is yours. Look for it in the food industry soon.
Daniel McCoy joined the UGA Small Business Development Center at KennesawState University as a business consultant 2017, after a 21-year successful banking career as a Commercial/SBA Lender and Financial Adviser and 10+ years in upper management in the retail industry. He is a Certified Professional for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success and recently completed the Veteran At Work Certification process. He is also a 2019 Flewellen Award for Consulting Excellence winner. For more on how the UGA Small Business DevelopmentCenter can help your concept, go to georgiasbdc.org or contact daniel at dmccoy@georgiasbdc.org.
