3 Proven Strategies to Reduce FSR Turnover Using AI Resume Screening

What does turnover look like for Full Service Restaurants?

It's completely typical for an FSR to see anywhere from 80%–100% turnover of staff over the course of a year. Each staff member who turns over can cost the restaurant $3k–$5k in total cost — hiring activities, onboarding, and training.

Some restaurant groups, like Brasa Foods, maintain an incredibly low turnover rate (17%), but this is the exception, not the norm. Restaurants operate on enormously thin margins, so any reduction in attrition reduces cost — and brings additional benefits like better customer satisfaction.

What does the data tell us?

At Lighthouse, we screen resumes for indicators of success and match candidates to jobs, collecting hundreds of data points per application. When some of our FSR clients flagged high turnover, we ran an analysis to identify commonalities among candidates likely to leave — and to flag them at the time of application.

We found that 29% of applicants were very likely to turn over within one year — we ran a larger analysis across 50,000+ applicants with similar findings —, predicted by a pattern of turnover in their resume. The most predictive pattern was:

• Analyze the tenure of the past 3 employers
• Average tenure across these employers
• When average tenure was under 1 year, the likelihood of turnover skyrocketed

Our analysis looked at 4,647 applicants across four key roles — Servers, Kitchen Staff, FOH Managers, and BOH Managers — each with its own propensity to turn over. Unsurprisingly, managers tended to have lower turnover than entry-level staff.

The strategy for screening to reduce turnover

The data points to a simple prioritization when reviewing candidates and offering jobs:

1. Favor candidates with an average tenure of 5+ years across their past 2 employers. They have a 98% likelihood of staying with your restaurant after hire.
2. Next, favor candidates who don't show signs of leaving previous employers in quick succession.
3. Consider last the candidates averaging less than 1 year with past employers — they have an 85% chance of leaving within 1 year.

Using a tool like Lighthouse

• These functions are built in
• Use the “Jumper” flag to automatically deprioritize candidates likely to leave. Once you have the data, here's how to act on it quickly.
• Use the “Loyal” flag to automatically favor candidates unlikely to turn over

If manually reviewing

• Pay close attention to start and end dates on the resume
• Flag anyone spending short periods with previous employers
• Favor candidates with long-term experience at other restaurants

Applying these tactics can improve your turnover rate massively once implemented — saving cost and improving your likelihood of delivering a great customer experience.