Planning to not just survive but thrive in 2025?
Ensuring a healthy team, brand, and bottom line in the year ahead!
We asked our friends at More Fun Tomorrow to give us their tips on how to meet and exceed the challenges the hospitality industry is faced with for 2025. We loved what they came up with, and because we can’t help ourselves, we added a comment here and there because we can, (it’s our blog, we do what we want).
#1 - Rightsize your team to your business and rightsize your business to your team.
For the long-term health of your organization, you may need to make some short-term calls to shed holiday staffing to levels that meet the revenue realities that often come during peak winter months. This may also include reducing operational complexity by pausing some offerings whose sales don’t justify the labor required.
POACHED: What are some examples of ‘Operational Complexity’ and how to spot them?
Well, some of the more significant adjustments you may want to look at making post-holiday could be shortening hours of operation during certain days of the week or shifting menus to streamline the prep hours required to be ready to open the doors everyday.
Also, depending on your concept, eliminating one or two items from a menu may be the difference-maker needed in order to redistribute work across fewer stations to execute service. Fewer stations to staff during service means less labor dollars per day. We recommend that folks start by looking at current and previous years’ product sales mix reports to get a good sense of any menu items whose sales numbers don't justify the prep time and labor deployment required to be at the ready just so they can stay on the menu and maybe get ordered a few times a day.
As for making the call on hours of operation, your POS should be able to provide an hour-by-hour sales summary that you can use to identify the specific hours per week that you are staffing your restaurant to be open but not actually generating meaningful revenue to offset those costs.
We often see a dip in later evening post-holiday, and it's not uncommon for folks to move to "winter hours" post-holiday. The key is to look at the data and make the call now versus waiting another month, bleeding money, and then making the change.
#2 - Prevent future overwhelm and manager burnout by mapping out staffing adjustments for the year ahead.
Look back at 2024 and use the data and learnings you have to make an even better plan for 2025. When were you busiest? What week did it actually slow down or ramp up between seasons? Were there any surprising spikes in business you can better anticipate this year?
POACHED: We can’t agree here more. What we see is that a few smart managers and owners see the curve in the road and prepare for things like patio season, student population, big events and holidays… but MANY still panic and start looking for candidates to fill out their team way too late to have them ready for the impending rush. Starting early can cost you a little, but being unprepared for your busy season can cost you quite more!
#3 - Engage and develop your best team members.
Identify those that are ready to grow skills and take on new challenges. Start planning conversations now and allocate time every week to connect, coach and train your best people to keep them engaged and get them ready for more in the year ahead.
POACHED: Hiring from within is a fantastic strategy, and upward mobility is proven to increase employee retention, create a stronger team overall, and make a more productive and resilient workforce! Showing your team that there are opportunities to move up increases engagement at all positions, and those results will be clearly felt in your business’s success.
#4 - Plan just-in-time hiring, ahead of time.
Determine the number of team members you’ll need in each role and by what date they each need to be ready and available. Set deadlines and work backward from those dates. Plot a timeline to have job posts ready, allocate time for interviewing, onboarding and training.
POACHED: Couldn't have said it better, but here is another place where you can look back at 2024 and note how long the process was to fill any open positions during that time. If you need help looking back at your hiring activities, reach out to social@poachedjobs.com and we can likely pull your history to fill any gaps in your memory!
#5 - Calendarize it all!
Decide where you’ll make notes and plans visible to everyone involved. Use whatever you feel most comfortable with (paper, Google Calendar, a whiteboard etc.) but make sure you have space to add and track enough detail to create a useful tool. Use this common reference to check and adjust your plan, fill in further detail, and guide decision-making.
Let’s go! A little planning now will make all the difference towards preparing a more capable team ready to serve more customers & guests in 2025.
Have a tricky hospitality situation that you're grappling with?
Visit morefuntomorrow.com and drop us a line.
