"Turnover up... again" - People Report

11/20/06

I found this in an article in today's NRN.

Acording to a recently released People Report, average hourly worker turnover in the restaurant industry continues to rise and now sits at 107%. Management is also unstable with a turnover average of 29%. Joni Thomas Doolin, People Report founder and chief executive adds that the replacement of 700,000 hourly employees and 15,000 managers in the next 12 months will cost businesses $1.8 billion.

NOTE from Craig: These numbers represent only People Report clients (100 restaurant companies that operate 11,000 businesses. There are over 1,000,000 restaurants in America). In other words, the actual number of employees needed and the costs businesses will incure for employee turnover this next year are TEN TIMES GREATER - 7,000,000 employees, costing $18 billion!

"Restaurant operators are going to have to change the way they tackle their people practices if they are going to survive in a tighter labor market," Doolin warned.

“Within the next five to eight years, the winners and losers are going to be determined by the availability and quality of the employees who work for your businesses,” she said.

The report also noted Latinos now account for 1 in 5 workers (20%).

The complete NRN article is available here:

Now in its 11th year, People Report collects data for more than 100 restaurant companies, which collectively operate more than 11,000 restaurants and generate systemwide sales exceeding $42 billion. The firm’s database contains records for more than 82,000 unit-level managers and 1 million employees.

NOTE from Craig: We can help you decrease turnover. TV Trainer is proven in helping faster train and longer retain your valuable Latino employees. For more information on how we can help, write me: craig.evans@tvtrainer.tv

"They Came Here to Work."

11/16/06

A just-completed study by Dr. Elaine Lacy, research director for the Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies at the University of South Carolina, provides enlightening and encouraging news about America's Newest, Fastest Growing Workforce. Among her findings:

The immigrants were older than we expected and more educated. Mexican males had an average of nine years of education.

Lacy said undocumented immigrants are ineligible for any public assistance, and approximately 70 percent of the Mexican immigrants interviewed were undocumented. "Overuse of public funds is simply not an issue among the state’s Mexican immigrant population," she said.

Other than public education, the only other public service utilized was WIC, a Medicaid program available to qualifying families when their children are born in the United States. Only 15 percent of the families interviewed had children born in the U.S., but not all of those qualified for the WIC program.

Of the 181 immigrants interviewed, only four were unemployed. "They came here to work," Lacy said. "They want to help with living expenses for family members in Mexico and to save money for housing, businesses and retirement in Mexico."

Read more of this report at: http://www.wltx.com/sports/story.aspx?storyid=44073

One last finding to highlight:

Nearly half the respondents said they were making efforts to learn English. One-quarter said they were taking formal English classes, while nearly an additional 25 percent said they were learning from purchased tapes, watching English television and reading English publications. Lacy said 30 percent cited learning the language as the biggest need of the Mexican community.
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TV Trainer recognizes the importance and long-term need for ESL (English as a Second Language). The average American adult knows 10,000-40,000 words. For businesses wanting to teach English to their employees, that can be an expensive and time-consuming proposition. TV Trainer's scenario-based programs, designed to teach how-to-do-a-job, have incorporated a more cost-effective approach to teaching English. It's called VOCATIONAL ESL (or VESL). We've identify and include the English Actions, Words and Items necessary to the performance of a task in each show. Our VESL approach teaches English "a job at a time." This cost-efficient approach starts paying for itself in higher performance and happier, more competent employees from Day One.

Craig Evans for TV Trainer
"Recognized by Restaurant Business Magazine as one of '50 Great Ideas' for the Fast/Casual Dining Industry."