Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new talent can be a heavy lift if you don’t have the right tools in place to support the process. Thankfully, there are plenty of technology options available to aid you or your Human Resources department in managing all of it.
We’ve identified some of the best technology platforms on the market to help streamline your research process. They cover a variety of strengths to consider based on your restaurant’s needs.
Note: Instawork has over 4 million gig workers on their platforms right now, but aren’t working specifically with restaurant operators yet. We think that when they do, it will quickly become one of the best recruiting tools on the market.
Poached has a network of hospitality professionals with years of experience and a variety of skills. They can connect you with talent that is available to fill shifts temporarily, part-time, or join your team permanently.
Enterprise and multi-unit restaurants who want more visibility on their job posts.
Things to consider
There’s no membership fee (it’s a pay-as-you-go business model) but that can get expensive if you need to frequently fill positions and shifts.
Where it excels
They have a partner network and can boost your posts for permanent staff or fill-in positions across a variety of job search platforms, including LinkedIn, Monster, and Indeed. They claim that boosted jobs see an average of 67% more resumes.
Feature overview
The features here are pretty simple, given that it’s a job board. You simply have to create posts for the roles you are looking to fill, either for permanent staff or individual shifts.
Support
Their customer support team can be reached via chatbot or email at support@poached.com.
Pricing
Hire Permanent Staff: $59 per 30-day job post
Fill Temporary Shifts: $39 per shift worked + hourly rate
A leader in the restaurant space for gig work, Qwick pairs you with freelancers who have skills that match your needs for front of house, back of house, events, catering, and more.
Ideal for restaurants that are looking for a restaurant-specific job board for hiring and temporary shift-coverage.
Things to consider
There is a cost associated with this job board: you have to pay 40% on top of freelancer’s hourly pay rate, so this might not be a viable option for restaurants with smaller budgets. They are also not available in every city, so your options may be limited depending on your geographic location.
Where it excels
They have a tried and true approach to finding the right talent with freelancers who are vetted for you ahead of time. Their proprietary matching algorithm promises to find you the right talent with the right skill set for any shift.
Feature overview
Staff flexibly and fill shifts with qualified freelancers through the easy-to-use digital platform, eliminating the inefficiencies of traditional temporary staffing
A Qwick shift must be at least one hour, and must be posted a minimum of four hours before shift start time
The “to-do” tab allows you to verify the times your freelancer(s) clocked in and out and pay tips to your freelancer(s) for shifts worked
Each freelancer on the platform is reviewed and rated. If you are unhappy with the freelancer that arrives, let them know within the first two hours and there will be no charge
Support
Customer support can be accessed via automated chat on their website or via text.
Pricing
It’s free to create an account, but Qwik takes a 40% cut of the hourly rate of the talent you hire through their platform.
Harri was developed with input from hospitality professionals, and it provides mobile-centric tools that assist in talent acquisition, onboarding processes, workforce management, engagement, and compliance.
Enterprise or multi-unit operators looking for exceptional backend employee management.
Things to consider
Harri doesn't process payroll, but it does integrate with leading POS and payroll systems and manages pretty much everything else from hire to retirement. There is additional pricing for team management.
Where it excels
Built for and by hospitality professionals, Harri provides mobile-first solutions for hiring new talent, automating the acquisition and onboarding process, managing employee schedules, communication, and analytics, and streamlining compliance. It also has workforce management tools and team analytics via POS integrations.
Feature overview
Harri is an end-to-end platform, managing and streamlining processes from talent acquisition to workforce management.
Easily find, recruit and engage active and passive candidates that fit your unique hiring criteria
Streamline recruitment efforts for a better candidate experience and a more organized tracking process
Onboard team members from any device, and store completed documents in a safe, centralized management system
Optimize critical scheduling considerations, such as labor cost, compliance, sales performance, and publishing efficiency
Manage employee time and attendance through an engaging app that drives compliance needs and communications upon clocking in
Organize conversations, collaboration, requests, and awareness all in one platform to maximize efficiency and boost engagement
Gain better insight into performance with real-time reporting and analytics tools
Support
While Harri does provide customer support via phone and email during regular business hours, a regular complaint has been their lack of after-hours or weekend support.
What real restaurants say
“The one thing that I love is that when I send out applications, I can customize the questions. I feel very proud and confident about my job postings. I feel like it's one of those platforms that really gives you freedom to have them as specific or as vague as you want. I wanted to be very specific so I can get the best candidates. One thing I would change about the experience with Harri is that I wish the app for the iPhone worked way better. It's very slow and I barely use it because I don't wanna have a bad experience.” -Mariela G. (San Antonio, TX)
“Harri provides different solutions on a single platform. They also optimize the employee's experience and ensure very good skill acquisition, and data analysis. I wouldn't really change anything — I think Harri has been doing a fantastic job and it's really something that I appreciate.” -Patrick K. (Houston, TX)
Pricing
Pricing is available upon request. Schedule a demo to get more information.
HourWork makes hiring easier by re-engaging people who have already worked in your restaurant (or people who have previously applied). HourWork has a variety of tools for employee communication and retention, and talent can be onboarded quickly.
Franchises and multi-unit restaurants looking for hospitality talent with previous work experience.
Things to consider
HourWork is great for hiring and employee communication, but the cost might make it prohibitive for some operators.
Where it excels
HourWork makes hiring easier by re-engaging past applicants and former employees. You’re able to get qualified applicants onboarded quickly by potentially hiring people that have already worked in your restaurant. HourWork has lots of tools for employee communication and retention and is trusted by a variety of restaurants and franchises
Feature overview
HourWork’s recruitment messaging flows and staff engagement features makes hiring and retaining employees simple.
Keep in touch with new hires and proactively manage onboarding issues with automatic new hire check-ins
Get valuable feedback from current and former employees with pulse surveys and exit surveys
Celebrate important milestones with automatic birthday and anniversary messages
Re-engage past applicants and former employees with customized messaging flows
Support
HourWork has an online help center with articles to help introduce your team to the software, where they cover basic functions, features, and FAQs. You can also give them a call 9:00am-5:00pm EST Monday through Friday.
What real restaurants say
“HourWork is really easy and efficient to use. They made it a seamless process to transfer over our old applicant tracking system. After that was done, they contacted the people in our network to engage them with our open positions and then the applicant responses came directly to us. Whenever we’re low on staff, we always use HourWork now.” — Georgio R.
We’ve developed a process to find the best HR, staffing, and training systems for restaurants to keep things running smoothly when it comes to your employees. Here’s how we did it.
Surveys and other research with people in the industry
We conducted surveys and gathered feedback from operators and employees across different service models and segments with experience using these systems on a day-to-day basis.
Interviews with Back of House restaurant tech experts
We also gained insights from our staff of experts who have years of experience in the industry and with restaurant technology.
Secondary research
All of this was supplemented with our own research and participation in product overviews and training sessions with vendors on their products and services.
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Our tech experts can build you a free, personalized list of HR & Staffing systems that fit your needs with one short phone call.
Our tech experts can build you a free, personalized list of HR & Staffing systems that fit your needs with one short phone call.
