Back-to-school restaurant staffing: Hire, train, and retain

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The back-to-school season is a major shift for many restaurants. As families go back to more structured schedules, and high school and college students return to class, dining patterns and availability fluctuate. That means a number of back-to-school restaurant staffing changes that restaurant owners need to prepare for.

Fortunately, navigating these seasonal challenges is quite doable with some foresight and planning. Staying efficient and fully staffed—without being overstaffed—means a restaurant can keep working at a full clip. At the same time, making the most of the changes to hire new talent and market seasonal promotions can provide opportunities for improved restaurant sales.

We’ll start with the dining and hiring patterns a restaurant owner can expect. Then, we’ll cover smart scheduling, training, employee retention, promotions, and tech solutions.

Seasonal behavior changes

Like grazing herds on the savannah, people’s behavior follows seasonal patterns. In the restaurant industry, this applies to both diners and staff. So what can restaurant owners expect?

Dining patterns

The summer means:

• Longer dining hours
• Higher evening and weekend traffic
• More family outings due to flexible schedules

Returning to school largely brings the opposite. In practice, this translates to:

• Weekday lunch and early dinner traffic spikes
• Reduced late-night traffic (except around college campuses)
• Increased demand for quick-service or takeout as families juggle school activities

To mitigate these factors and figure out what to expect in the future, analyze your historical sales data to identify peak hours, like 11am–2pm for lunch or 4-6pm for early dinners. In general, expect a drop in late-night covers and plan for faster table turnover to suit families on the go.

Staff availability

High school and college students, who often fill a number of jobs in the food service industry, will be less available because, well … they’ll be back in school. Conduct a poll 4-6 weeks before school starts again to see which staff will be available as well as where you’ll have gaps, like in weekday daytime shifts. You can prioritize hiring for those shifts once you’ve identified the gaps.

Back-to-school restaurant staffing: How and when to hire

Since many restaurants will need to replace staff, you’ll want to begin as early as possible and cast a wide net. The hardest slots to fill will be daytime weekday shifts, so prioritize job seekers who can work those hours. Some employers may find that it’s easier to hire non-students who can work daytime shifts, for example.

Timeline

If you’re looking to hire students, start hiring early and often before the back-to-school restaurant staffing rush gets into full swing and students get snapped up by other employers. It’s wise to begin recruiting as early as 6-8 weeks before school starts and to time your recruiting with school calendars.

Since schools usually start in late August to early September, plan your recruiting for earlier in the summer. At four weeks before school starts, aim to be conducting interviews and finalizing hires.

At two weeks before, start training to make sure new restaurant staff can hit the ground running for the first week of school and are familiar with all menu items, POS systems, and restaurant operations.

Where to recruit

Looking at many options for recruiting gives you access to the most talent possible. Good recruitment sources include:

• Nearby schools and colleges: Post job listings on campus job boards or partner with career centers for part-time roles.
• Staffing agencies: Use agencies for quick access to pre-vetted staff members—often employees with some prior restaurant industry experience.
• Your current employees: Offer referrals in cash for recommending good hires.
• Online platforms: Indeed, LinkedIn, Craigslist, social media, and other local job boards can get the word out far and wide about your job opportunities.

Labor laws and compliance

Special laws apply to employees under 18, so if you’re hiring high school students, you’ll want to ensure you’re on the right side of the law in your area. For example, the Fair Labor Standards Act stipulates that 14- and 15-year-olds are not permitted to work more than three hours per day on a school day.

Familiarize yourself with employment standards for young people, and if necessary, speak with a lawyer to make sure your labor practices are all above board.

Be flexible with scheduling

Students often have busy schedules, and things come up all the time in student life—exam prep, illness, deadlines, and so on. Expect the unexpected when you have student workers, and prepare for flexible scheduling to prevent problems.

In general, it’s wise to slightly overstaff when dealing with students—perhaps to the tune of 10-15%. This creates a buffer for no-shows or sudden demand spikes like a local fraternity showing up for happy hour or unusually high foot traffic.

Keep an on-call list of reliable workers who can cover short-notice shifts. Incentives like higher hourly pay, free meals, or other perks can encourage availability. Some employee scheduling tools, like 7shifts, allow employees to swap shifts with manager approval.

Whenever possible, cross-train staff to cover multiple roles. For example, servers can also bus tables or bartenders can serve tables if the bar is slow.

Planning shifts long in advance around employee schedules can build loyalty and reduce friction. For example, offering split shifts that cover lunch and dinner allow students to attend afternoon classes.

Standardize training and onboarding

Training new staff is a time-consuming part of restaurant management, so developing delegated and standardized training practices can go a long way toward operational success. Crucially, well-formatted training makes the learning curve less steep, getting staff up to speed and ready to contribute fast.

Some ideas to improve employee training include:

• Team up new hires with experienced staff for 2-3 shifts to learn the ropes. Kitchen staff can shadow a sous chef, and front-of-house (FOH) staff can be paired with a senior server or manager.
• Use pre-planned training modules via video to speed up onboarding. For example, plan sessions on how to upsell appetizers and desserts, how to suggest lunch specials or meal deals, or how to pair drinks with menu items.
• Cross-train staff across roles to allow maximum flexibility.

Check out our article on restaurant staff training for more training ideas and styles.

Focus on staff retention and morale

If training staff is costly and time-consuming, one way to minimize having to do it is to keep your best staff. And how do you keep your best staff? Make sure they’re happy. The average employee turnover costs a restaurant nearly $6,000, so keep your top staff on board and it’ll keep your bottom line healthy.

Some ways to keep your staff happy include:

• Flexibility: Shift swaps and schedule adjustments are part of life for students, especially around exam time or other school events. Your staff will appreciate a flexible schedule.
• Free meals: Free meals or heavy student discounts for your staff keeps your employees’ bellies and wallets full, which is a guaranteed way to keep them appreciative, since students often struggle financially.
• Career growth opportunities: If a talented employee knows there’s an opportunity to move up the ladder in your business, they’ll often be driven to better performance. This encourages long-term commitment.
• Recognition: Employees who feel seen and appreciated will have high morale. Recognize top performers with giveaways, gift cards, or bonuses.
• Solid communication: Conduct frequent check-ins with employees to ensure their scheduling is working out and they’re enjoying their job.
• A healthy culture: Encourage a positive culture via kind but firm leadership, opportunities for social interaction (e.g., staff outings), or simply a friendly atmosphere.

Offer back-to-school promotions

This busy time of year brings the opportunity of back-to-school promotions. Clever restaurant marketing tactics can win new customers and incentivize regulars to come back more frequently while shoring up daytime and late-night sales dropoffs.

Weekday traffic often suffers during the school year. So, look to boost weekday sales with some ideas:

• Teacher and student discounts: Discounts of 10-15% for students and teachers with an ID can boost traffic, especially in the after school period. Other options include appetizers or drink combos.
• Lunch box sets: Take a fast food concept and adapt the best parts of it. Fast, affordable takeout combos like a sandwich, drink, and side will grab the attention of busy parents and teachers who want something to eat that’s still tasty and healthy.
• Back-to-school meal deals: Specials like family meal deals and/or heavy discounts on kids’ meals or kids’ menu items will draw in families.

Marketing your back-to-school promotions

You’ll want to begin your marketing a few weeks before school begins to get the concept solidified in customers’ minds. Start with social media campaigns via short-form video across platforms. Combine it with static ads on Instagram, and share them to local Facebook pages. Print signs for in-store use, and print flyers to hand out to partner restaurants. Send email blasts once a week.

Partner with local schools when possible. For example, donate school supplies to a local school to build community spirit and get your name out there to parents.

Make use of tools and technology

Restaurants that plan their back-to-school restaurant staffing strategies with data they glean from restaurant technology will make smart decisions. Tools like Yelp Guest Manager track reservation trends and waitlist patterns, showing when periods are busiest. Browsing historical data to see that Friday evenings are 30% busier than Mondays means you can schedule extra staff those nights, while cutting back on Monday to prevent overstaffing.

Scheduling tools, like 7shifts or HotSchedules, help automate scheduling based on availability and forecasted demand.

Build a group chat for your staff scheduling via WhatsApp or Slack for fast communication that keeps everyone on the same page.

Keep things running smoothly with Yelp Guest Manager

Keeping your FOH running at full steam during the back-to-school season sends a message to both your customers and your staff that yours is the place to be.

Yelp Guest Manager’s smooth reservation management and easy waitlist joining means customers can get from learning about your restaurant to being there with little friction. Automations in reservations and simplified tableside ordering means staff are free to attend to the human side of the business. And restaurant owners and managers have tons of data to parse to make smart back-to-school restaurant staffing decisions.

If this sounds like a good start to an FOH management system, give us a shout for a free demo. We want to see restaurants in their best form for the upcoming school season, and having the best tech is a fast way there.