High Five! How to Hire for the Five Core Attitudes

What? An article that identifies the five attitudes every restaurant employee needs?

If you are like many operators in the current labor market, you might be happy with finding employees who just show up on time and can get the job done. You might be thinking that this is not the time to seek superstars.

If this describes your approach, then we feel your pain. Unemployment is low. Young people are not as interested in service jobs or positions, such as hospitality and construction, which are physically rigorous and do not take place in a comfortable office environment.

That said and as this article explains, there are employee traits that you cannot improve via training. You can quickly train an inexperienced host, who can be trained to be a busser, who can be trained to be a server. If the person has the right "DNA" for the job and enjoys his or her work, in a few years you might have the next GM.

Those workers are out there, and your most formidable competitors are finding them and keeping them. In fact, for many positions in your restaurant, including hosts, bussers, dishwashers and prep cooks, you might be required to hire employees with little or even no experience. For critical positions that require experience and training, such as assistant general managers and sous chefs, you might be willing to trade a few years' experience on their resume for outstanding character traits.

Consider the traits "cooperation" and "self-control", which we discuss below. What good is the hot-shot chef who loses his temper easily, can't get along with staff, and is continually challenging your menu decisions?