Staffing

Can Shuckin' Shack's labor-shortage solutions work for your brand?

In less than one month, Jonathan Weathington, CEO of Shuckin' Shack, hired 30 people for one of his 16 locations. Here's how he did it.

Shuckin' Shack CEO Jonathan Weathington is incorporating a variety of hiring incentives in order to bring in new employees.

July 12, 2021

By Jonathan Weathington, CEO, Shuckin' Shack

At this point, it's no secret that the restaurant industry is having a hard time finding staff to keep operations running and manage the surge in customers following the COVID-19 pandemic. It's an issue plaguing restaurants everywhere, including all 16 Shuckin' Shack locations spread across the east coast. The restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic, losing 2.5 million jobs over the course of 2020. Now, as the economy opens back up, customers are returning to restaurants in record numbers; yet, there are still 1.5 million job openings in the restaurant industry to date, according to the latest job report.

The reality is this: employees are demanding more from their employers than ever before and previous methods that used to work to attract, hire and retain employees are no longer enough. Our culture is forever changed and, as a result, restaurant owners need to take a new approach.

Increasing starting wages is a good first step, but restaurant owners will quickly find that they need to take additional measures if they're going to attract potential candidates and, what's more, encourage them to show up for in-person interviews.

As a result, Shuckin' Shack is starting to incorporate a variety of hiring incentives in order to bring in new employees, and our Wilmington, North Carolina, location is leading the charge. The restaurant is offering a $13 per hour starting wage paired with a four-day workweek and a $500 bonus effective after 60 days if employees don't call out of work for more than three days during that time. While that may seem like overkill to brands who take a more traditional approach, these incentives are working. Our Wilmington location hired 30 new employees in the past few weeks alone.

In addition to attracting new candidates, these incentives have also improved the overall hiring process. Filling an open restaurant position is already a difficult task and it's often exacerbated by the struggle to get potential applicants to show up for an interview. While open positions usually receive a cluster of applications, the number of people who actually interview or connect with the hiring manager is surprisingly small. Following that hurdle, the number of those applicants who want to come and work at the restaurant is even smaller. These additional hiring incentives have improved overall communication with applicants and made the hiring process more consistent and reliable.

As a franchise system, it's ultimately the decision of each individual owner to choose which hiring incentives they're going to offer. And, while it's impossible to guarantee that the same strategies will work for every location, we can guarantee that blending in with all of the other restaurant brands certainly won't work. We encourage our owners to be flexible and creative in their approach to the hiring process. One of our franchise owners, in addition to increasing starting wages, offers the standard restaurant shift meal paired with the opportunity to take a boxed meal home at the end of the night.

So how can restaurants better navigate this challenging time? Stop doing the same things you've always done. Times have changed, and the restaurants that don't adapt are the ones that will be left behind.

Higher pay is a great starting point, but restaurant owners need to think beyond the numbers on a paycheck. Employees are looking at the intangibles. They want to be part of a team. They want to serve others in their community. They want the opportunity for growth and travel. They want more flexibility to spend time with family and friends.

If your methods aren't working, there's a reason. Change it up. Try something unique. If that doesn't work, try again. There is no one answer to solve the hiring problem, so we all need to think outside the box in order to change how we attract and retain the very best employees.