With cities and states approving minimum wage hikes far above the federal $7.25 an hour, foodservice directors at colleges and universities, where students can account for nearly half of the employees, are taking a hard look at ways to cover escalating labor costs.
Cutting staff or raising prices are not easy solutions at colleges and universities where directors are under pressure to keep food plans affordable while also offering superior meals and service to stay competitive with commercial establishments.
“[Pay] increases have been minimal in recent years as the focus nationally has been on putting a lid on costs to attend,” says Dawn Aubrey, associate director of housing for Dining Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and incoming president for the National Association of University and College Food Services.
Discussions among NACUFS members about managing higher wage mandates from local and state governments usually center on ways to more efficiently use staff, Aubrey says.
A proposed $10 an hour minimum wage increase for Illinois would increase labor costs by $1.3 million for her university, which employs some 1,300 students, she says. A bump in student meal plans is not enough to cover costs, so they are looking at other ways to shave expenses.
Among the ideas to implement: more self-serve stations for students. This fall, the university also will roll out family-style dining at some locations where groups of students can order meals to share, reducing the need for staff to plate every dish. Prices also likely would increase for catering and at retail locations on campus, Aubrey says.
A decision this spring to adhere to Seattle’s new minimum-wage law of $11 an hour created a $500,000 hole in the dining services budget, says Pam Schreiber, executive director of housing and food service at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Her department is reviewing contracts and looking at ways to get the most out of its information systems and better track inventory and manage food costs, Schreiber says. The university is covering the deficit. With nearly 40 dining locations on campus, along with catering services and training tables for athletes, reducing staff is not a simple option, she adds.
“We use students pretty extensively, 800 to 850 at our peak,” Schreiber says. “We do not want to cut off our nose to spite our face. We have to be thoughtful about where we make changes so those changes have no negative impact on the customer experience.”