9 ways to stretch a thin staff
By Amy McKeever on Nov. 15, 2016It had been looming for years, but the 2015-16 academic year was the first that The College of Wooster’s dining services department truly felt the pinch of a constricted labor market. Marjorie Shamp, director of dining services, says new manufacturing and restaurant jobs in northeastern Wayne County, Ohio, had siphoned away applicants. Without enough qualified cooks in its application pool—which already was too small—the department had to leave several kitchen and front-of-the-house positions unfilled throughout the entire school year.
1. Trim the menu
“You have to understand that you can’t be everything to everyone,” Morse says. To avoid disappointing guests, consider cutting a few dishes from each category—whether reducing your salad options or offering only a few favorite deli meats rather than the whole gamut. At Wooster, Shamp improvised when she couldn’t fill a night cook position by trimming down the dinner menu at the dining hall’s international station and expanding stir-fry options, which are more convenient to cook, instead. “It’s about dialing down your options, but still providing a great experience,” Morse says.
2. Hire for flexibility
Even when full-time employees are scarce, part-timers and flex workers still may be options. Julie Jones, director of nutrition services at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, says the hospital has shifted from mostly full-time employees into a workforce that includes many part-time workers from OSU. Though students previously were hired to support full-time staff, one Wexner food center now includes 55 student positions, a 22% increase. Many work only eight to 12 hours a week and often take leave, Jones says, but balancing the two types of workers has proven cost-effective.
3. Contract out when necessary
Even operators who don’t have a convenient pool of student employees have options, though. Shamp sometimes turns to temp agencies to fill certain vacancies, including those for employees on extended medical leave. While “You pay premium for those folks,” she says, the arrangement also can be a great foot in the door for future recruitment. Agencies require their workers to commit to a certain number of hours at any given job before they can be hired there fulltime—which means the temps already are trained and acclimated to the workplace, Shamp says.
Contracting out can also mean sending the work out-of-house; Morse says that when he was short-staffed in a previous facility, he sent his cookie recipe to another company to produce for him.
4. Streamline job applications
Wexner also is working on reducing its application time as a way to help alleviate the burdens of a strained staff, Jones says. Even when there are no specific positions to be filled, the hospital maintains a placeholder listing on its job board to keep a constant pool of applicants churning in case of an urgent need. Jones says the medical center also is looking at ways to speed up the background check period, as well as offering orientations at convenient and flexible times so that new employees can jump in right away.
5. Institute cross-utilization
Saving staff some extra time in prep starts with buying. Morse advocates for efficient purchasing and cross-utilization of ingredients as a way to do more with fewer hands— a tactic he’s been taking advantage of for years, including in his last role as executive chef for the Douglas County School District in Castle Rock, Colo.
For example, he’ll design the menu to make use of one order of frozen blueberries in several dishes, such as syrups, barbecue sauce, pancakes and more. The plan works just as well, he says, with ingredients that might involve more prep time—the labor for each item is applied to five dishes instead of one.
6. Spend extra time where it counts
Though the trend in foodservice has been toward more scratch-made dishes, Morse argues that buying premade ingredients just makes sense with certain items and during high-volume times like holidays or the beginning of the school year. For example, he recommends that schools purchased salad mix, precut broccoli and florets premade fried rice for their rice bowls, since he found during his years in schools that manufacturers can make those items well consistently.
It’s also a potential cost savings: broccoli florets, for example, might cost 86 cents a portion to buy and pay someone to prep, but would only cost 50 cents a portion to buy precut. With the money saved, operators can direct employees to spend time on tasks that will make a bigger difference, such as slicing fresh tomatoes or making chicken tenders. It’s all about finding workarounds that make sense, Morse says. “The key is engineering your menu around your limitations.”
7. Measure success with work audits
Another organizational trick that Morse recommends is making use of time studies; he’s been using them since working in a large Minnesota production kitchen decades ago. He recommends picking two employees, assigning them each a task and timing them. Those prep tasks should then be assigned to the most efficient employee. It’s a small change, but one that can save hours of prep time if used well—and time is money. “It just helps me schedule my day better,” Morse says.
8. Convert to self-service
In January 2016, Wooster students returned from winter break to find the deli station at Lowry Dining Hall transformed into a self-service station. After the mechanical failure of an existing cold table, Shamp says her team seized on the opportunity to purchase another table more geared to self-service. They also added a panini grill so students can press their own sandwiches, and moved bread and dairy items to the same area. Now, instead of dedicating two full-time employees to the deli counter—one worker on the day shift and another at night—the dining hall attendant keeps an eye on the area, and the whole staff pitches in to restock the station.
9. Reward and retain
One of the biggest challenges of labor shortages is the strain it puts on existing employees. “It means that staff members have to work harder,” Shamp says. But recruiting and retention are important tools for making sure a bad problem doesn’t become worse.
As a potential solution, she recently implemented a Turn Up the Heat award at Wooster: Each month, employees nominate one another for going the extra mile in their work. The winner is awarded an Employee of the Month parking spot, a coveted prize on a congested campus. Shamp argues that awards like these are just as crucial during thin times as are the more practical efficiency solutions. “If you’re going to ask your people to do more work, you’re going to have to show them recognition for it,” she says.