Introduction

Employee retention is key in solving the restaurant industry labor crisis. While many restaurants has continued to struggle to being in new employees, others has success with keeping their employees by creating a positive culture, boosting benefits and also offering clear paths for a career growth among the employees. As argued by Frye, Kang, Huh & Lee (2020) successful employee retention can save any business from productivity losses. This is because high retention workplace tends to employ more engaged workers who can get the work done efficiently. Notably, engaged employees are more likely to improve their customer relationship, get commitment to the company as well as offer quality services which in turn leads to improved productivity. In restaurant industry, employee retention is important to keep the quality of food prepared in the restaurant constant and also retain the existing customers while also attracting visiting ones. Therefore, this study examines some of the employee retention strategies and measures in restaurant industry.

Improving training and staff communication

Oncse new employees has been recruited for the job, proper training is key to retention as far as career progression is concerned. Cross training is becoming more common in restaurant industries where it’s easy for the employees to swap roles since most of them work behind the counters either in the kitchen or at the cash registers. Employee training is one of the best approach to retain new employees as it equips them with new skills and knowledge how to manage customers well, improve their communication skills with other staffs and customers as well as improving their service provision (Bibi, Ahmad & Majid, 2018). By training employees, the manager will be able to tailor them services and ensure they provide restaurant services based on manager’s requirements and specifications and not how they wish.

As part of providing continuous feedback on employee performance, managers should help new employees to identify areas of their professional growth within the restaurants. Since there are various departments in restaurants such as chefs, cashiers and those who serve customers, it is important to provide training based on the employee competency and his/her area of specification to avoid conflict of interest in the restaurant (Baharin & Hanafi, 2018). As a restaurant manager, I would make it apriority to invest in my employee’s professional development. In this case, I will give them ample time to attend virtual conferences, provide tuition reimbursement for whoever need to boost their skills. This in turn provides motivation to the new employees, make them feel valued and appreciated and hence feel more comfortable to work in the restaurants which in turn improves their retention rate.

Increase wages to the employees

One of the most important aspect for employee training not only in restaurant industry but also in all sectors is offering lucrative wages that meets employee needs. As a manager revamping your employee package to meet evolving employee needs can improve employeemotivation and lure then to stay in the restaurant for many years. Due to labor shortage in restaurant industry in this post covid19 era, many restaurants are offering jobs with benefit packages in order to attract and retain new employees. According to Rosie (2019) 31% of the restaurant in United States are offering medical insurance to the employees while others offering parental leave and tuition help among other benefits. Offering insurance benefits to the employees and also enrolling them to the pension schemes can give assurance to the employees regarding their future growth and hence giving them enough reasons to continue working with the restaurant.

High wages is the ultimate need for every employees right now. This implies that offering higher wages is the most tangible way for the managers to show that they value them and wouldn’t wish them to quit the job. Although restaurant employers may not give their employees the wage requirement, trying to offer favorable wage bill and other incentives such as medical cover, insurance cover and pension scheme benefits can give employees an assurance of their better future.

Support employee mental health

Another significant strategy that can be used to retain employees in restaurant industry is by supporting their mental health. In many times, restaurant industry is taxing and the outbreak of covid19 pandemic has added more stress to the job. Additionally, restaurant industry is one of the most stressing sector as employees are required to work for long hours and get committed to the work all the day. According to Katia (2021), one of the main reason why employees leave restaurant industry is to find new work environment, many employees are always fed up with high stress of extreme working conditions, difficulty in dealing with customers and other staffs and hence looking to other industries to work. One of the approaches of supporting mental health is by providing extra paid time off to reduce burnout and also offer employees a chance to recharge.

As a restaurant manager, I would expose my employees to a free and affordable mental health resources. This involves encouraging breaks and transparency about the parts of the workthat are mote mentally taxing. Although these things may not erase problems from the employee’s face, but they will show that as a manager I care about them. Providing mental education to the employees, organizing charity works and outreach to the employees can help to reduce their mental stress and also help them to relax away from the job. By doing so, this is likely to lure employees to remain in the job and hence enhancing their retention rate.

Strengthening the restaurant culture

Company culture plays an essential role in keeping employees engaged at work whilealso enhancing increased productivity and overall job satisfaction among the employees. Buildings a more positive restaurant culture needs a multi-pronged approach which includes opening more lines of communication with employees, offering employees autonomy as well as providing better benefits to them. To retain new employees and keep them engaged to the restaurant activities, managers should strengthen the restaurant culture and enhance a good relationship with customers and other staffs (Smith, 2020). One of the approach of strengthening restaurant culture is by boosting employee morale such as organizing team outing and enhancing volunteer activities among the employees. This in turn is likely to provide moments to the employees to deepen their investment, improve their relationship with each other and also make them get commitment to the success of the restaurant.

As a manager, I would also build a strong working culture among the employees by providing career development opportunities, engaging them in an open communication to get feedback from them as well as improving communication between the management and employees. This in turn improves employee retention rate in the restaurant while also establishing a strong working team.

For those you lose and choose to separate what will you do then?

Restaurant managers should inform the HR that the employee is or has resigned from the work and make plans for the employee to finalize or transition the underlying projects. This also involves distributing the work and responsibilities initially done by the employees until a replacement is found. However, for the resigning or retiring employees, managers should offer accrued benefits to the employees and other cash outs such as severance pay, accrued vacation, overtime and sick pay. Restaurant managers should also provide retirement benefits to the retiring employees and ensure all their dividends and proceeds are well paid before they part ways with the employees. The retirement benefits consists of leave encashment, retirement gratuity and the amount they contributed to their provident fund account throughout their working service.

Making arrangements to recruit new employees should be initiated immediately after the other employee leave the work. This is prevent any working gap or cause delay in service provision. However, as a manager, I would first delegate services done the previous employee to the remaining employees before getting replacement. Finding replacement as soon as possible can help to keep the productivity constant and also ensure there no delay in offering services to the customers. Employees, however, should be encouraged to notify their managers early in advance if they are quitting their job to allow enough time to seek for the new employees.

Conclusion

This study has noted that high employee retention workplace tends to employ more engaged workers who can get the work done efficiently. Notably, engaged employees are more likely to improve their customer relationship, get commitment to the company as well as offer quality services which in turn leads to improved productivity. Some of the measures of retaining employees in the restaurants includes increasing employee training and staff communication, increasing wages to the employees, supporting their mental health as well as improving the restaurant culture. This study also noted that providing career development opportunities, engaging them in an open communication to get feedback from them as well as improving communication between the management and employees. This in turn improves employee retention rate in the restaurant while also establishing a strong working team.

References

Baharin, N. L., & Hanafi, W. N. W. (2018). Effects of Talent Management on Employee Retention: A Case Study of Hospitality Industry. Global Business & Management Research, 10(3).

Bibi, P., Ahmad, A., & Majid, A. H. (2018). HRM practices and employee retention: The moderating effect of work environment. In applying partial least squares in tourism and hospitality research. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Frye, W. D., Kang, S., Huh, C., & Lee, M. J. M. (2020). What factors influence Generation Y’s employee retention in the hospitality industry? An internal marketing approach. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 85, 102352.

Katia, D. (2021). Half of U.S. Hospitality Workers Won’t Return in Job Crunch. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/half-of-u-s-hospitality-workers-won-t-return-in-job-crunch

Rosie, B. (2019). 31% of restaurants offer health insurance to workers, survey finds. https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/survey-31-of-restaurants-offer-health-insurance-to-workers/559857/

Smith, R. (2020). How CEOs can support employee mental health in a crisis. Harvard Business Review.

Introduction

Database management system plays an essential role in improving business efficiencyand enhancing productivity of businesses. In production and manufacturing companies, database management allows businesses to manage company’s essential information while also improvingdata processes and increase business value. Database management topic is important as it free the users across the organization from repetitive and time consuming data processing tasks and hence resulting to more productive workforce, better compliance with regulations and better informed decisions. It was first designed by Charles Bachman in 1960 to help businesses to create and manage data more efficiently and improve organization’s transparency and accountability. The primary objective of this paper is to enlighten organizations and business entities on the importance of having a working database management system to protect employee, customer and client’s data.

Discussion

A research study done by Zhang et al (2018) aimed to explore the benefits of database management system in the manufacturing companies. The authors provided two distinct benefitsthat cuts across all the sectors and that should be embraced by the companies. These are 1) improving data sharing and data security and 2) effective data integration. The study showed that data management system in manufacturing companies helps the users of information and data to share data quickly and effectively and ensure data security and prevent cases of cybercrime among others. It also enable faster access to more accurate data which in turn helps end users such as salespeople to speed up their sales cycles and get more accurate in their sales prospects.

Implementation of database management systems in the organization helps to promote more integrated picture of the company’s operations by illustrating how processes in one segment affects other segments. Manufacturing companies are involved in making and selling products on daily basis. This implies a functional and efficient database management system is required to keep records of all details of quantity of products, bills, purchases and supply chain. Automating these processes and data management is the real deal as it reduces the cost of data management and other operations of the company.

Ushakov, Cherkasova & Shatila (2021) investigated the impact of database management in productivity of the companies. The study showed that deploying a working database management system results to increased productivity since it empowers employees and staffs to spend more time on high value activities and operations of the company such as strategic initiatives, research and development and also less time used to cleanse data within the company. On the other hand, Abed (2020) provided a contrasting opinion about database management in the performance and productivity of firms. The authors showed that database management requires educated and skilled experts to manage and maintain the databases. In this case, companies are required to train experts and spend more money in hiring new experts which in turn increases operational cost of the company.

Muhammad (2020) provided a conceptual framework of the database management system to showcase computerized data keeping system among the companies as shown in the figure below

Figure 1: Database management system (Muhammad, 2020)

Based on the above figure, it can be noted that database management system comprise of various components that aids to ensure management and security of data within an organization. These includes computer applications used to enhance data management, users of the company’sdata and the four types of database system; relational, hierarchical, flat files and objects database. While designing database management system, companies should consider application used to manage the data and the users of the data. Having a simplistic and user friendly application to ensure the users can retrieve information and data quickly and efficiently is the key to ensure proper functioning of database management system.

Zhang, Bai, Wang & Zhang (2020) examined application of database management in manufacturing firms and how it enhance business efficiency. The study showed that database management is greatly applied in manufacturing and supply chain management to track and manage inventory warehouse and enhance operational efficiency in the inventory storage. The study also showed that database management system is used in managing data for the supply chain applications that helps to track the flow of goods and services. This includes tracking the flow the movement of raw materials, inventory and storage of raw materials and finished goods and the sales of the products.

Regardless of massive benefits of database management system to the organizations, it is important to note its drawbacks before implementing it. For instance, database management system requires hiring data management staffs and experts, training software and hardware developers and hiring additional programmers to manage installation and integration and database management infrastructure. These activities require additional cost as they are very expensive and hence increasing the operational cost of the company while also reducing the profit margin. However, it cannot be denied that database management is the great deal to ensure operational and productivity efficiency.

Conclusion

It is clear the benefits of database management system are more and significant to the companies as compared to its drawbacks. Its two main benefits are improving data sharing and data security and effective data integration. For the manufacturing companies database management is essential as it’s used to manage data for the supply chain applications that helps to track the flow of goods and services. This includes tracking the flow the movement of raw materials, inventory and storage of raw materials and finished goods and the sales of the products. Therefore, this paper recommends for the manufacturing companies to adopt and implement a workable database management system

References

Zhang, B., Van Aken, D., Wang, J., Dai, T., Jiang, S., Lao, J., … & Gordon, G. J. (2018). A demonstration of the ottertune automatic database management system tuning service. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 11(12), 1910-1913.

Abed, A. H. (2020). Big Data with Column Oriented NOSQL Database to Overcome the Drawbacks of Relational Databases. Int. J. Advanced Networking and Applications, 11(05), 4423-4428.

Muhammad, R. (2020). what is a Database Management System (DBMS)?https://domainadmintools.com/what-is-a-database-management-system/

Zhang, J., Bai, X., Wang, X., & Zhang, X. (2020, November). Design and application of national reserved cultivated land resources investigation and evaluation database management system. In 2020 IEEE International Conference on Information Technology, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (ICIBA) (Vol. 1, pp. 1075-1079). IEEE.

Ushakov, D., Cherkasova, L., & Shatila, K. (2021, December). Environmental management system and its impact on productivity. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 937, No. 2, p. 022037). IOP Publishing.

Question 1

Diversity is defined as the differences that exist among the people such as gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and social-economic background and ethnicity among others. Multiculturalism on the other hand refers as the way the society deals with cultural diversity and it assumes that the society benefits great from diversity through harmonious coexistence of different cultures (Ferdman, 2017). The main difference between the two concepts is that the diversity acknowledge differences among the people while Multiculturalism tends to go a step further and accept and promote diversity and the social cultural differences in the society.

An organization that focus on compliance can be determined if it stays on the track with the changing laws and regulations. In this case, the organization ensures that it identify laws and regulations that apply to its operations and stay on top of changes. An organization that focus on compliance can be determined if it accommodate different views and diversity in the organization. This involves having employees from different ethnic groups, race and social economic background and respecting their opinions and perspectives in the workplace(Beachum, 2020). On the other hand, an organizations that promotes multiculturalism is the one that overcomes language and cultural barriers, accommodate different cultural communication style and also that involves cross-cultural training in the workplace. Organizing cross cultural training helps to overcome cultural challenges in the workplace and hence improving happiness, morale and productivity among the employees. Language and cultural barrier can be handled by enhancing universal language and adopting diversity in the workplace.

Question 2

The two jobs that I have had are nursing intern and a restaurant attendant. I got these jobs at different times during my vacations and I have gained different experience and skills from both jobs. For the nursing intern, I was recruited through social media advertisement where I saw an advert in the media regarding an intern vacancy and I applied. I was called for the interview and luckily I qualified for the job. For the restaurant job, I was recruited through web advertising. The advantages of social media in recruitment strategy can attract active and passive candidates, target the ideal talent pool to boost brand and companies culture of your employer and reduces the recruiting cost. The disadvantages of social media in recruitment is that it’s hard to escape bias and also you cannot rely on its present profiles and candidates representations and hence the healthcare facilitate can attract unqualified candidates. On the other hand, web recruitment is time saving to the restaurants as managers need to scrutinize applications in the website and select the best candidate.

My organization’s selection and recruitment method is through referral is its one of the best and appropriate method that helps to hire candidates who are more engaged and more productive. A research by Van Hoye (2013) showed that 80% of employers rated perceive that referrals are the best source of above average candidates who are able to meet the demand and specification of the organization. The study also showed that referred candidates are 60% faster to hire as compared to the outsourced and web based employees and hence showing its reliability and validity. The referral recruitment used by my organization follows the legal compliance by adopting diversity, practicing universal law, and choosing the right candidates who meet the specification of the organization without discrimination.

Question 3

The advantage of engaging in lengthier recruitment process is that as an employer, you can have enough time to read over the resume, conduct phone interviews and also in-person interviews. A disadvantage is that when business take too long to review the resume, the candidates can lose interest or get job in other places and hence losing an opportunity of a skilled and top talent. On the other hand, the advantage of streamlined hiring is that the organization can get a person working right away for the company and helps to acquire top talent employees(Muscalu, 2015). The disadvantage of this selection process is that by hiring fast, the organization can miss quality and skilled employees who make late application. My future career ambition is to become a human resource manager and I personally would prefer to undertake lengthier selection process as it will give my employer a good time to go through my resume and assign me the right job based on my academic qualification and my previous experience.

The job I was hired was a nursing intern which I was hired through social media recruitment. I saw the application in LinkedIn and applied by sending my resume and cover later. After one week the HR contacted me through email for an online interview. The interview was conducted using zoom video call where HR interviewed me based on my academic qualificationand previous job experience. To me it was effective was we chatted well with the HR and cracked some jokes as I also demonstrated my qualities through zoom call. However, I would not prefer this method as it lacks rapport and formality as far as professionalism is concerned.

Question 4

Currently am employed as business consultant. The role of the business consultant is to identify weakness and challenges in a business and provide possible solution to the business. The tasks required includes marketing, management of business activities, offering financial and business advice, determine business needs and identify weaknesses, assess and analyze business practices and procedures as well as developing a detailed project plan to enhance changes and improvement to the business (Campanile, 2020). The skills and knowledge required for business consultancy includes quantitative and analytical skills, good teamwork skills, problem solving skills and good interpersonal and communication skills.

Based on the above job analysis, the business consultants are required to specialize in different areas such as marketing, human resources, business management and finance. The responsibilities for business consultants includes determining the business needs and providing viable solutions to the business, assessing and analyzing practices and procedures of the business and compiling and presenting research findings regarding the business and offering recommendations as well as organizing and managing business projects.

A good job ana