Restaurant and Foodservice Salary Tools

How to research the going rates for restaurant salaries

Foodservice salaries must be competitive and aggressive to ensure quality workers. Employees working in your establishment represent your company and hold the key to profitability and growth. But as a business owner or manager you must also watch your bottom line. How do you strike such a careful balancing act?

The foodservice industry employs more than 13 million people, second only to government. Experts project more than $550 billion in sales in 2008. Those numbers are only expected to increase in the next decade. With so much to gain, finding and keeping good employees with competitive restaurant employee salaries remains important to running a restaurant business.

Along with training and development, salary helps retain productive employees. Several foodservice salary tools are available to help you determine a fair yet favorable foodservice salary to offer potential job candidates or retain current employees.

When using restaurant and foodservice salary tools, be sure to include your own analysis of:

1. The candidate's individual experience in the industry and previous restaurant career salary.

2. The candidate's special training or other qualifications which would raise the potential restaurant salary.

3. The candidate's personality traits which could in turn boost productivity and restaurant salary.

 

Utilize available online restaurant salary tools

Salaries for restaurant professionals or at least a base rate to start from can easily be found online. Researchers make available their findings and you can easily search foodservice salaries in a particular occupation and compare those rates regionally. Obviously, a line cook isn't going to reach the same salary as an executive chef.
Try: View individual salary reports from comparable companies at Vault. Obtain national averages and compare results from your region at CareerBuilder. A free salary report is available from Salary Search.

Keep informed of foodservice salaries and changes in the industry

The foodservice and restaurant industry constantly changes. Stay up-to-date on management styles and techniques which could effect how you run your business as well as setting restaurant salaries.
Try: Sign up for e-mail alerts on the latest foodservice industry news from the National Restaurant Association's SmartBrief service. Browse articles from Restaurants & Institutions magazine.

Use foodservice salary tools to help you learn how to negotiate

Restaurant and foodservice salary tools warn that negotiations can be somewhat of a chess game. You may find seeking the candidate's limitations without pushing him or her too far can be maddening.
Try: Read expert tips at PayScale on how to manage pay negotiations without ruining your chances to bank an extraordinary employee. Read this article from Salary.com detailing specific goals to keep in mind when negotiating salary.

 

• Job seekers can access the same restaurant salary tools. Keep that in mind when you conduct negotiations.
• Along with salary, an attractive benefits package, flexible work time and bonuses may be bargaining chips.

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