#财经新势力新春季 #
There is a serious shortage of manpower, and there is no way to do business; It is difficult to find temporary workers with high salaries, and it is impossible to recruit waiters at triple wages. The year is approaching, how can restaurants cross the hurdle of "tight employment"?
This article was originally published by Red Food Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Jian Yuhao.
As the year draws to a close, the phenomenon of the recovery of the catering industry is becoming more and more obvious, and the visit of Red Food Network found that Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and other places have seen the phenomenon of hot Chinese New Year's Eve meal reservations. In addition to Chinese New Year's Eve meals, throughout the Spring Festival, many restaurant reservations exceeded expectations.
The popularity of reservations would have been a great thing for restaurants, but many restaurant owners have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the recovery of customer flow means that the turnover of stores has the opportunity to pick up, and the new year can start well; But on the other hand, because employees go home for the holidays, many stores are seriously understaffed and cannot do business.
A large number of employees went home on vacation
Restaurants are not available before the holiday
It is often said that the Spring Festival stall is an important guarantee for the restaurant's annual profit, and the profit generally accounts for 30%-50% of the annual profit. For restaurants that have experienced the epidemic for three years, many people are reluctant to lose this piece of "fat meat". However, for the catering outlets that are still struggling to prepare for the Spring Festival, the pressure is not small. According to the observation of the Red Food Network, a "labor shortage" is sweeping the catering industry, and many restaurants are currently facing the problem of personnel shortage.
"We don't have enough cooks, and we're ready to close." At 8 p.m. on January 13, when Red Food Network passed by a tea restaurant to prepare for a meal, it was unexpectedly "refused" by the boss.
The boss said that because of the lack of manpower, his shop will close at 8:30. At that time, Red Food Network found that the employees of the store had indeed begun to clean up the table and prepare to leave work.
Coincidentally, another barbecue restaurant visited by Red Food Network also experienced a shortage of manpower. Liu Fang, the proprietress, said that after the news of last year's release, many employees were determined to go home for the New Year, "At the end of December, there were almost no people working in the store. ”
Liu Fang and her husband understood the employees' eagerness to return home, so when the employees proposed to them to go home for the early holiday, they both agreed.
"It's actually good to serve food now, but there are not enough waiters and logistics personnel." Liu Fang told Red Food Network that her shop is not very large, because of the lack of manpower, now she and her husband wear many hats, in addition to being responsible for the back kitchen, but also take care of cleaning up the table and checking out.
△Image source: Photo by Red Food Network
The problem of understaffing is not only plaguing restaurant owners, but also employees who are still on the job.
At 6:30 p.m. on January 16, the busyness of the waiters in the Haidilao store in Wansheng Plaza in Guangzhou was visible to the naked eye. Because some employees went home for the Chinese New Year, the Haidilao only opened 40% of its dining area. The crowd kept the few remaining employees in the store a little busy, and a waiter brother just put down the shrimp slippery spoon and immediately ran to the next table to perform a show for the birthday customers.
It is worth mentioning that the current shortage of restaurant labor does not exist only in Guangzhou. According to a previous report by the Beijing News, in Beijing, restaurants such as Hu Da Restaurant, Tao Taoju, and Cuihua Lou are also facing the problem of tight manpower during the Spring Festival.
In addition to recruiting hourly workers through third-party companies, Taotaoju Sanlitun store is also actively contacting employees who have previously taken leave to go home and leave, and all employees who are on the job during the Spring Festival will be given three times the salary.
In order to retain employees, Hu Da Restaurant will adjust the salary of employees in January to 1.5 times the usual time, and reimburse round-trip tickets for employees who are willing to return to work who have returned home on leave.
△Image source: Photogram Network
In addition, whether it is Guangzhou or Beijing, in order to retain old employees, this year's Spring Festival salary given by restaurant companies is higher than in previous years. Red Food Network columnist Zhai Bin said that according to his observations, many catering companies in Beijing are currently increasing their salaries by about 10%-20%.
It is difficult to find temporary workers with high salaries
Triple wages can't hire waiters
In the case of shortage of manpower, the recruitment of catering temporary workers in this year's Spring Festival stall has also become more and more hot.
On major part-time platforms, you can see information about recruiting temporary catering workers everywhere, such as waiters, chefs, and food delivery staff are popular positions for recruitment.
Bao Guanyu, founder and CEO of the online booking work platform Xiaobao Zhigong, said in an interview with Beijing Business Daily that due to the rapid increase in demand for employees in the catering industry, the platform's order volume recovered by 80% within two weeks.
Red Food Network noticed that in order to recruit people as soon as possible, many restaurants have opened higher wages than usual.
For example, in a video of an emergency recruitment posted by a northeastern restaurant in Heilongjiang, the boss said that the store urgently needed chefs and waiters, and could provide salaries of 6,000 to 10,000.
△Image source: Guangzhou recruitment public account screenshot
On the public account of Guangzhou recruitment, Guangzhou Taotaoju recruits temporary workers with a salary of up to 350 yuan a day, three times the usual salary, and the recruitment position is also advertised as "the highest paid catering winter vacation worker in Guangzhou".
However, the headache for restaurant owners is that even if they are given high salaries, they cannot recruit anyone.
Since the full opening of a net celebrity restaurant in Guangzhou, it has begun to urgently recruit winter holiday workers on major platforms to prepare for the Spring Festival, but the effect is not obvious. The store manager told Red Food Network, "Usually our part-time job is 17 yuan / hour, which rises to 30 yuan / hour during the Spring Festival, and there are benefits such as store benefits, New Year red envelopes and Chinese New Year's Eve meals, but the recruitment information has been hanging on major online recruitment platforms for more than a month, and only a few people have come to consult." ”
According to the statistics of Xiaobao Zhigong, the daily salary of some practitioners in this Spring Festival stall can even reach 700-800 yuan. However, although the salary and treatment of catering recruitment have increased, the problem of recruitment difficulties is still difficult to alleviate.
Due to the delay in solving the shortage of manpower, some catering businesses can only do less business, or close their businesses to miss the Spring Festival stall during the holiday.
A Fei, the owner of the "Feifei Delicacy" food stall, told Red Food Network, "I make so much money a day, and if you tell me to spend hundreds of yuan to recruit someone, then I might as well not open the door." "Fei didn't want to spend a lot of money to recruit temporary workers, he could do as much as he could, and when he was really busy, they would persuade some customers to do less business.
△Image source: Photo by Red Food Network
A Cantonese restaurant owner said that due to a shortage of manpower, some of his restaurants in Guangzhou and Foshan could only choose to close their markets and not participate in the Spring Festival stalls. Another Cantonese restaurant in Guangzhou, Silver Lantern Restaurant, also announced its closure in mid-December, saying that the resumption time will be announced separately.
It is difficult to recruit workers in catering, not only for the Spring Festival
From the law of market economy, as long as the salary of regular positions is raised, there will naturally be people willing to participate in it. Why does this law seem to fail in the catering industry?
In this regard, Hao Shrimp Chuan Jiang Yi said that this is not a small relationship with this year's special situation. "The past December was a miserable month for many catering people, and many restaurant companies decided to take an early holiday at that time and fight again after the year. This has also led to the migration of most people engaged in the catering industry to their hometowns, and after the large-scale return of personnel, the difficulty of finding relevant talents in the city will of course skyrocket. ”
The above-mentioned Cantonese restaurants also said that a major reason for the lack of manpower in restaurants was that many employees went home early for holidays due to the impact of the epidemic.
Secondly, after three years of repeated epidemics, the loss of catering personnel is already more serious, and the young people who are preferred by restaurant recruitment are becoming less and less interested in the catering industry.
The relevant person in charge of a restaurant in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, told Red Food Network that in addition to personnel who have been engaged in the catering industry, they are more willing to recruit young people when recruiting. "At present, the big gap is some waiters and food delivery workers, basically do not need a lot of experience, young people are physically good at learning things quickly, do a few more days to get acquainted." But the reality is that there are almost no young people who come to the restaurant to apply.
△Image source: Photo by Red Food Network
In fact, the problem of "labor shortage" in the catering industry does not only occur in this year's Spring Festival. Under the impact of the three-year epidemic, the problem of difficulty in catering employment during the Spring Festival this year has become particularly prominent.
Ren Jun, marketing director of Da Longyi Hotpot, once told the Economic Observer that every year when the Spring Festival is approaching is generally a time of lack of manpower, but this year is especially serious. Because after three years of repeated epidemics, the loss of personnel is relatively serious. There is a certain run-in cycle in the training of its own employees, and it takes a certain amount of time to re-recruit.
Zhai Bin also said that the difficulty of catering labor is not only a specific phenomenon during this year's Spring Festival. Since 2013, there has been a shortage of employment in the catering industry, and low salaries, hard work, and lack of decency are all reasons for the difficulty of recruitment in the catering industry.
In recent years, in order to solve the problem of catering labor shortage, many catering companies have also explored many new methods. For example, promote digitalization and realize digital ordering to optimize the personnel structure; Some larger enterprises will adopt a partnership system to attract employees to stay by allocating a certain amount of equity; Some restaurant companies even use robots instead of human labor to complete some simple food serving and welcome services.
Of course, no matter what method is used, in the Spring Festival such a special node with a large amount of labor, the most important thing for catering companies is to understand the periodicity of the industry's employment situation in advance and prepare a plan.
△Image source: Photogram Network
The person in charge of the above-mentioned Haidilao store told Red Food Network that during the Spring Festival, Haidilao will often give certain subsidies to the remaining employees, in addition to the store's Chinese New Year's Eve and three times the salary of the first day of the new year, it will also distribute red envelopes and orderly organize activities such as Chinese New Year's Eve meals and evening parties to observe the New Year, so that employees can experience the atmosphere of the Spring Festival. And the store will also carry out "dynamic recruitment" according to the actual business situation to ensure the normal operation of the store.
Jiumaojiu also told the media that before the arrival of this year's Spring Festival consumption climax, its stores have prepared for personnel replenishment in advance, and restaurants have also prepared for recruitment for the Spring Festival holiday in advance, and arranged overtime and subsidized expenses, Chinese New Year's Eve meals and other activities and benefits for employees who stay at work during the Spring Festival.
Conclusion
Labor shortage, recruitment difficulty... This Spring Festival, catering people are destined to face many challenges. I believe that the caterers who have survived the epidemic for three years can also cross this hurdle and usher in a long-lost warm spring.