The Employee Life Cycle - Part 1

In this episode of The Restaurant Roadmap Podcast, we break down the first two, and most overlooked, stages of the employee life cycle: talent sourcing and recruiting. We unpack where your strongest team members really come from (and why job boards alone rarely deliver the best hires), how your reputation in the community directly impacts your applicant quality, and why culture actually starts long before someone ever fills out an application. You’ll hear practical ways to build a steady, proactive talent pipeline through referrals, partnerships, and local presence, and what it truly costs operators when hiring becomes reactive rather than intentional. We also dive into the recruiting side of the equation: how speed of response often matters more than polished postings; how most restaurants quietly lose great candidates in the process; and why being clear upfront about pay, schedules, and expectations builds trust faster than a generic “Now Hiring” message ever will. This episode is a must-listen for operators who want to stop scrambling for staff and start building a team people actually want to be part of.

What is The Restaurant Roadmap?

The Restaurant Roadmap is your guide to building and running a successful restaurant. Each episode explores the full journey of operations—from planning and development to menu design, execution, and growth. Hosts Danny Bendas, Amanda Stokes, and Chef Eric Lauer bring decades of expertise, joined by industry leaders and restaurant professionals who share their insights and stories. Together, they uncover strategies, tools, and lessons that help operators improve performance, strengthen teams, and elevate the guest experience. Whether you’re opening your first location or refining an established brand, The Restaurant Roadmap equips you to navigate every step with confidence.

Danny: Welcome to The Restaurant Roadmap podcast, powered by Synergy Restaurant Consultants, your go-to source for actionable insights and real-world strategies from the industry’s top experts, clients, and special guests. Whether you’re building a new concept or refining an existing one, we’re here to help you create a forward-thinking sustainable brand, elevate guest experience, streamline operations and maximize your bottom line. With decades of hands-on experience, our mission is simple: to deliver practical, proven solutions to the everyday challenges restaurant operators face. Let’s dive in and get to work.

Danny: Hey everyone, welcome to The Restaurant Roadmap podcast, powered by Synergy Restaurant Consultants. We are super excited to have part one in a series of the employee life cycle. And I’m sure all of you are experiencing labor challenges, finding people, keeping people, training people, so we want to give you a series of ways and pointers and great information on how to find the right people, train them, and keep them. And I think Amanda we decided once that somewhere over $3000 to train a new employee. Does that sound about right based on research that you’ve done?

Amanda: It’s actually more now. You know, that was a few years back. You know, it’s probably upwards of $4500 to $5000.

Danny: So, every time you got to change an employee. And I think managers were north of $30,000, right, to put them through a solid manager training program, right? So, we’re going to start off—and again, we’re going to be doing about six of these over the course of the next several weeks—the first round, we want to talk about, we’re going to go from the beginning to the end, is sourcing talent. So, I’m going to throw it over to Amanda. Let’s talk about sourcing talent. And this is where it all starts. You know, it’s like buying product. If you buy the wrong product, you get the wrong finished product at the end, right? So, let’s talk about talent sourcing a little bit.

Amanda: I think sourcing starts, you know, hopefully way before you need somebody. So, you should have a mentality of, kind of keeping your eyes out for great team members, great managers, and have that mentality of kind of we’re always hiring, we’re always looking for great talent. Because even if you don’t have an immediate need, you might be looking to potentially upgrade somebody. You know, unfortunately, we always don’t have all A and B players. In terms of sourcing, you know, I have a belief that some of your strongest people come from referrals. I love brands that have a really strong referral program because the best team members are usually—you know, people are going to refer people that they like to work with. So, I like to start there.

And then even sometimes, we could find people from our regular guests. Our regular guests, if they love us and they’re loyal to us, and they see the kind of culture we’ve created for our teams, they might want to come work for us. I’m a big fan of job boards. I think that’s a great way to find people. And just building relationships within the community. So, if you’re highly involved in things like high school sports, sponsoring teams, people begin to know you as a great organization, and if we could find a great high school student that journeys through us as they’re going through school, you know, we have that person for, you know, a couple of years.

Danny: Yeah, you can throw moms in there too, right, because oftentimes moms looking for daytime work make great hostesses during lunch.

Amanda: I think we talked about that. That was like Eric’s find.

Eric: That was one of my best employees ever.

Danny: Well, there you go. Eric, you want to add anything to that?

Eric: I’ll add on, you know, sometimes your vendors are a great source of referrals as well, right? They’re in a lot of restaurants throughout the days, and as they go through a restaurant, they have relationships with people in those restaurants. And sometimes that situation has soured there, and they’re looking for gainful employment, and those vendors can help you find people like that as well. But as Amanda said, my greatest success throughout my career has always been referrals. You know, the people that work for you and love working for you, they have friends that need jobs, and if you create the great environment where people can go to work, make money, not have the drama, not have to worry about anything, they’re going to find you. They’re going to come to you, if that’s the right situation for them. And for me, bottom dollar, best way to hire.

Amanda: Reputation is your most powerful recruiting tool. So, we always say that the hospitality world is one of the smallest businesses out there. That’s like that six degrees of separation. I guarantee you, if you say, ‘do you know so-and-so?’ May not directly know so-and-so, but I guarantee you, I know someone who knows so-and-so. So, I think your current culture and your reputation within the hospitality industry determines how easy it’ll be for you to recruit new team members.

Danny: All right. Incentives, bonuses? What does that look like? Is that worth looking at, give your employees a bonus for bringing in people?

Eric: A hundred percent, but make it time bound, too, right? Don’t just give them a huge bonus up front. Give them a portion of the bonus that you’re going to give them up front, then a 30-day, and then maybe a 60-day, you know, and then at 100-day, maybe you’re giving a bonus to the employee that referred them and then to the employee that stayed 100 days. But definitely, it’s worthwhile, especially if you’re in a jam. If you’re fully staffed, you know, maybe not the best business plan to pay out money to add an extra body to your schedule, but if you’re in need of people, I highly encourage you to do referral bonuses.

Danny: Anything else there, Amanda?

Amanda: I think referral bonuses also give people skin in the game. So, if I know that I’m going to collect a referral bonus when Eric is hired, and then I’m going to collect another one in 60 days, and another one if he stays after maybe three months. I’m invested in Eric, not just because I like him, but because I want to make sure that he’s going to stay and I’m going to be able to collect the bonuses that are at different milestones within the time that he’s been hired. So, I think creating, you know, some structure and framework around it and almost building that partnership really helps for that employee to assimilate into the culture.

Danny: Yeah, and then you want to help them succeed, right, so you’re going to ride them harder to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. So, you get your bonus, right?

Eric: That’s my favorite coaching, right? Peer-to-peer coaching. That’s some of the best coaching you’re going to get because they don’t hold back.

Danny: Yeah, so let me ask. There’s always different philosophies. We just talked with a client who’s going to go out and basically try to steal a GM. So, it can be a little dicey sometimes when you—you know, so what do you guys think about that? Good, bad? How do you handle that? I know Amanda, you had a suggestion once for that. I’d love for you to share it with everybody.

Amanda: Yeah, I’m not a fan of doing that. I think that your reputation within the community is really important, especially as you venture—you know, as you’re opening up a restaurant. What I’ve liked to do in the past, and I’ve done it my whole career, is I usually have business cards on me, and when I encounter somebody who’s provided really solid hospitality, I’ll give them my card, and I let them know how wonderful their hospitality was today, and if they know anyone even close to how great they are, I would love to talk to them. And so, then I’m not directly recruiting that person; I’m planting the seed. And if that person’s unhappy, it’s up to them to reach out to me for themselves.

Danny: So, it’s a nice subtle way of doing it without really—because, you know, you don’t want people stealing from you, either. So, you know, there’s sort of this partnership among restaurateurs. You try to help each other out. Eric, let me ask you, in a lot of instances, there are policies—or should there be?—about bringing in family members, right? How do you feel about that?

Eric: So, mixed emotions. I’ve worked with some great families—

Danny: A good story coming on here, right?

Eric: Yeah, I’ve worked with some great families, and I’ve worked with some tough ones. The one thing I did learn is I’m not going to hire my family to work under me ever again [laugh]. I’ve done that a couple times. I’ve had a couple cousins work for me. And some of them have worked out great and some of them have not.

I have, like, 50 cousins, so I have a lot to choose from. But within a restaurant, I’ve had siblings work for me, I’ve had twins—that was fun—and I’ve had parents with their children that have worked for me in the past. And you treat each person as their own and they get hired in that respect and you’re not bringing them on just to bring them on because they’re related to someone that works for you. As long as you do your due diligence in the beginning and you hire them on their own merit, I think it’s worth it.

Danny: Were the twins identical twins or—

Eric: They were identical twins. It was a lot of fun.

Danny: You were able to tell them apart, I presume?

Eric: Yeah. One of them never smiled, and the other one pretty much smiled all the time. And the one trait that they shared that I wish they didn’t, was they were both late all the time [laugh].

Danny: [unintelligible 00:09:18] to tell which one is which right? Amanda, you were going to say?

Amanda: Oh, I said it was genetic, in their bones to be late.

Danny: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I [unintelligible 00:09:25] the concern that I’ve had about families is, like, if one person leaves or you have to discipline one, then you lose all of them, right? So, there’s always that danger that, you know, you don’t just have a problem one, you have a problem with two or three, right? So, that can be a bit of a problem as well.

Eric: I’ll push back a little bit. I think that goes back to culture. I think a lot of times, the siblings or family members, they know when their peer or their family member is messing up and they’ll get on them just as hard as you will because it makes them look bad as well. I fired one of the twins, and the other twin didn’t leave. He stuck around. You know, they did a great job for me.

Danny: All right. And then the other thing I want to say, and then we’re going to talk about recruiting, how, where, all that good stuff, and I think, Amanda, you touched on it, but I just want to emphasize again, we used to always encourage and—you know, when I ran or worked with restaurants, every week, at a manager’s meeting, we went through manpower planning. You know, where are we, are we short, who’s going back to school in September, you know, what are we doing, so we’re always ahead of the curve. Because as soon as you’re not, you start making bad hires because now you’re just trying to, you know, the warm body principle kicks in, right? So, I think really, always staying ahead of the manpower and the planning, I think, is really, really critical. And to your point, Amanda, you just keep looking, right? You always get better.

So, let’s talk about recruiting. Where do we look? How do we do it? What are some pluses and minuses and really good ways to do it, to get the best people as usual? As usual, Amanda, I’m going to start with you, and then we’re going to jump in. You’re the expert in this field.

Amanda: Yeah, I do a lot of recruiting for [Synergy 00:11:08]. I believe that you know, different areas, you know, can leverage different platforms to recruit on. I don’t want to—I try to be agnostic, and I don’t want to mention any specifically, but I will say that just kind of leveraging one channel, so if you always stay with a recruiting platform, stay loyal to that because people who want to work for you are going to be checking that job board if they have an interest in your brand. But you know, what I would say about recruiting is speed matters. So, the worst thing you could do is place an ad and then very slowly get back to applicants.

So, if someone applies and they don’t hear back, they just assume that your organization is disorganized and then move on. So, especially in the team member ranks, when a team member needs a job, they need a job today. They need a job by the end of the week, if they start looking on Monday. So, if you start with a process that seems really cumbersome or there’s a lot of kinks in the process of getting hired, you’ve lost that person. They’ve already made the decision and they’re moving on.

And then the other thing I’ll say is, my least favorite thing to see on any hiring platform is ‘urgently hiring.’ So, ‘urgently hiring’ attracts people that you may not want in your organization because they know, they could smell the desperation in your job posting, and so they think, “Well, gosh, these people are desperate. I’ll be able to get this job.” And that’s never a position that you want to be in.

Danny: Or maybe they think they can want more, a bigger salary to start, even though they may not be qualified for it. It just gives them the leverage, as opposed to you, right?

Amanda: Yeah, and I think employer branding is what you want to do. So, you know, we could take any big brand, and I’ll tell you, Chick-fil-A, they have the pick of the litter. And the reason they do is because they have great branding and they have a brand that people understand the culture, even if they don’t work there. It’s very easy to identify what culture is within the building so that, you know, when a young person is looking for a job, they know what to expect before they even work there. So, I would always, you know, advocate for brands that focus on telling the story of their brand and their culture, versus relying on an ‘urgent hiring’ banner.

Danny: Eric, what say you, sir?

Eric: I don’t know how much more I can add to that. You know, I think Amanda hit it right on the nail, though. You don’t want to have a disorganized hiring cadence, so you’re checking that board, you’re getting back to applicants, you’re answering. Because it may be no now, but that person might fit your need down the road, and it might be somebody you can reach out to then at that point, and you don’t want to turn them off to your brand in the moment. So, always have a good cadence, be on top of it, and, you know, know your needs, right, and really be on top of that and keep up with that.

Danny: Yeah. And, you know, the thing that always I always sort of found interesting, is, “We only interview on Tuesdays between three and four,” right? And I know I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself in terms of the hiring, but if somebody really great walks in the door, you need to talk to them, right, because you’re always striving to get the best people that you can get, right? I want to ask one other question and I’m going to ask you, Eric because you know, you always feel like you’re playing second fiddle here, right? Promoting. I mean, that’s part of recruiting too, right? Promoting from within, offering a plan for people. So, tell us, talk a little bit about that from your perspective.

Eric: I always love to promote from within. It gives a lot of people hope and it gives them something to work towards, it’s motivation, especially, you know, if you’re running a restaurant and it’s in a neighborhood, right, you can get younger people and they can start as a busser or a host, and they can work themselves up to a server to-go, depending on what, where they are in life, right? And then they can—you know, they see a path for, you know, a future, and it’s always better. And then those folks, they stick around two, three years, they’ve done the host role, now they’ve done a server role, and now, all of a sudden, you have a front-of-the house manager position open up, that might be where you look to first to fill that role at that point. And now you have somebody who knows your organization, knows your culture, and it really helps you develop people in the long-term.

Danny: If you take somebody you just mentioned, a great server becomes a shift leader, any thoughts about, you know, now the person is telling people what to do instead of being a peer, and that can be a little bit of a challenge, right? So, how do you help someone make that jump? Because that’s a big jump, right?

Eric: Amanda has spoken about this a long time, right? She says, it’s not the keys. They’re not magic keys. If you’re going to take someone, you’re going to move them from one role to the other, take that time to develop them and really work with them, work side by side in the beginning, have a good training program so they understand what their new role entails, and it’s not just standing in a corner and barking orders, right? You want them to be a leader of your team, you need to show them what leadership is, and role model that, and really have that training program that gets them the ability to make a couple mistakes here and there, but they’re not held overly accountable for it, and you push them forward in that respect.

Danny: And I think knowledge is confidence, right, Amanda? So, if you train them right, and you give them the tools, they have the confidence, and then they earn the respect of the people to become their leader versus a peer, right?

Amanda: I agree with everything, you know, both you and Eric said. Succession planning starts the day you hire somebody, truly understanding, where someone visualizes their career in two years, in three years. And so, that when you have this person, you’re sort of cultivating a path for them organically, and that matches what the brand has to offer. So, if you have a true career path, if it goes from host to server to QA to shift leader, that everybody understands what that path is, and you’re always filling that pipeline so that you’re not making a reactive decision when you have an opening. Then the other thing I would say is the best leaders that I’ve had the pleasure of working with are never surprised when somebody leaves. So, they’re already sort of behind the scenes, looking to see how they could fill that position because they know that it’s coming.

Danny: Yeah, that’s really good. Well, I think that ties a pretty good bow on episode one right there. It’s looking for talent and then how to recruit it. So, we’re going to end it there, and we’re going to get ready for the next session, so stay tuned. If you have questions, feedback or comments, always remember, [e-mail]. Love to hear from you. And thank you, Amanda, thank you, Eric.

Eric: Thank you, Danny.

Amanda: [unintelligible 00:18:15]. I’m happy to be here.

Danny: Talk again soon. Bye-bye.

Amanda: Bye.

Eric: Bye.

Danny: Thanks for tuning in. We hope today’s episode gave you valuable insights you can put into action. If you have questions, want more info on today’s topic, or need support with your restaurant-specific challenges, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out anytime at [e-mail], and visit synergyrestaurantconsultants.com to explore our services, sign up for our newsletter, and catch up on past episodes. Don’t forget to follow and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook so you never miss what’s next. Do you have feedback or a topic you’d like us to cover? Contact us. We’re here to help make the world a better place to eat.