Staff retention in the bar and liquor trade

Human Resources Staff retention

A reason to stay Retaining staff can be an uphill battle in the bar and restaurant industry. Liquor Canada explores ways to help you keep your staff from going to your competition

H

igh turnover is a reality of the hospitality, bar and restaurant industry. Service staff is often students who work part time to pay for tuition and need a flexible schedule. Beyond that, what makes an employee want to stay?

When Lisa Navarra, manager of associate experience at Montana’s spoke with her company’s staff across the country, 98 per cent told her they were looking for “that extra pat on the back, that extra thank you for doing a job well done, rather than any type of monetary gift.”

Montana’s implemented an online employee incentive program, care of I Love Rewards, to help make that happen.

While incentive programs may be traditionally used for driving sales, Montana’s appealed to I Love Rewards to standardize its reward and recognition of employees across the board at all locations. The online incentive program allows Montana’s employees to collect points for ‘doing a great job’ at work and then redeem them for merchandise and experiential gifts.

How it works The idea is simple. Management determines the core values and behaviours they want to reward and recognize.

Then, when a manager sees an employee demonstrating that behaviour, he or she publicly recognizes the employee by giving him or her a ‘caught in the act’ card in front of his or her peers. The numbers

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on the back of the card can be inputted to a specially designed website. Each card is the equivalent of $10 (in points) that the employee can immediately redeem for merchandise or collect and save for a larger item from the I Love Rewards catalogue.

Matt Lewis-Strauch, I Love Rewards business development manager handling the Cara Operations account, says that by offering employees something tangible, it has a lasting effect.

He suggests employers should put aside one per cent of an employee’s salary for merchandise incentives

rather than just cash-based incentives.

That way, employees can associate that merchandise, like an iPod for instance, with the employee recognition they get from their workplace.

Because their employees are 15 to 24 and computer savvy, they enjoy the convenience of the medium. The catalogue is geared towards generation Y, and is comprised of Apple products, music downloads, gift cards and experiential gifts. The flexibility to redeem right away or collect points and redeem for a larger gift is also appealing to the younger demographic. So far, Montana’s

Human Resources Staff retention

employees have redeemed 80 large gifts – a sign that staff is participating and being routinely recognized.

Navarra says since Montana’s launched the I Love Rewards program in July, she has seen higher staff engagement and excitement at work.

She says Montana’s staff has grown in leaps and bounds in terms of communication with managers and other staff. This is a result of peer-to-peer recognition, where points don’t change hands, only kudos.

Driving retention Navarra says the online incentive program is also used to retain and recruit staff. “It’s a recruitment tool because we can say, ‘Look at all the great things we have for our associates. Just for coming into work and doing a great job you can earn recognition and you can earn points to purchase these great items,’ ” says Navarra. “It’s also a retention tool because our associates can say ‘I do work hard and my management team really recognizes when I do a great job and I appreciate that.’ ” In addition, Navarra says if an employee moves away, he or she will be more likely to rejoin the Montana’s family if he or she is aware of the incentives the company offers to work there.

“You can drive retention because an employee is much more likely to stick

around at a place where he or she is being rewarded and recognized,” says Lewis-Strauch.

Neil Crawford from HR outsourcing and consulting firm Hewitt Associates agrees that recognition is important for employee retention and says that an incentive program is a tool to facilitate that recognition.

Crawford, who leads Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study, says one thing to consider is whether or not the reward is something that employees actually want, otherwise it could be de-motivating. The same is true for the way in which recognition is given. Some may enjoy public recognition, while others might be embarrassed and as a result may avoid performance that might result in recognition.

Tips for small businesses While the I Love Rewards Program works for a large chain like Montana’s who is able to fund recognition and incentive programs (for a small business, the initial cost of the I Love Rewards program is $15,000, while for businesses in excess of 1,000 employees a $2.50 per user per month fee is charged), Crawford says the most important thing to remember is that recognition is free.

For instance, Crawford recalls a salesperson who had all sorts of accolades and rewards such as plaques and cruises.

Tips for retention • Be flexible and accommodating • Have open conversations with staff • Recognize positive behaviour • Provide non-monetary incentives • Promote communication

So his manager sat down and wrote a letter to the employee’s mother. It cost nothing but the manager’s time and had more impact on that individual than anything else they could have given him, says Crawford.

With a smaller owner-operated organization, there’s a big opportunity to build relationships with your employees and be open to their suggestions, says Crawford. It’s not necessarily about systemizing. Instead, he says retention and recruitment is about creating a high level of employee engagement in your company. Crawford says, the higher the level of engagement, the lower the turnover. What smaller businesses can take away from the Montana’s example is a willingness to listen, communicate, accommodate, recognize and reward, and those don’t cost a penny. 

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