— By George Lessmeister —
Navigating staffing trends for 2025.
As 2024 wound down and the new year came into view, we asked our managers across the country for their insights about what’s happening in staffing. They were asked similar questions that resulted in some consistent trends.
The team also offered input about how retail and restaurant business owners can navigate the sometimes-tricky waters of staffing while continuing to provide high level customer service. While regional variations exist, these are the trends our managers identified most consistently.
Budget Consciousness
From East Coast to West Coast, and North to South, one issue is front of mind for most businesses, and that is keeping staffing costs low. During the pandemic, operators had to pay workers higher wages, and that trend has continued. Some states and localities have raised the minimum wage, and business owners are feeling the pinch. Some have even voiced a hope that wages will return to pre-COVID levels, but that seems unlikely.
To cope with rising labor costs, some owners are turning to 1099-based staffing companies that supply independent-contract workers, despite the potential risks related to unpaid overtime, workplace injury expenses, and government penalties and fines. These owners are either unaware of, or choose to ignore, the significant risks associated with employing misclassified workers when using 1099-based staffing agencies. Bottom line, trying to cut wages comes with risk and little reward. Buyer beware.
Skills Gap
Increasingly, business owners are looking for candidates with specialized skills or certifications. Restaurant requests for hosts, chefs and bartenders have seen an uptick, and cooks of all kinds are in high demand. More requests are coming in for multilingual employees. While it varies by location, many gig workers come from immigrant backgrounds and can fill these needs ably.
Despite the overall atmosphere of budget-consciousness, many business owners are willing to pay more for these specialized skills or certifications. Consider finding people with great behavioral skills who are eager to learn and offer certification opportunities.
Trends in Seasonal Demands
Fall is the usual time for upticks in requests for stadium concession workers, as college and NFL football maintain their massive popularity. As some facilities are allowing nonprofit organizations to staff their concession stands as a way of earning funds, however, that source of staffing requests is not quite as reliable as it once was.
Convention center events usually increase just after the first of the year, and demand for workers to staff those activities is fairly steady. Likewise, spring and summer wedding events continue to pull in a consistently high demand for cooks and servers.
Navigating Current Trends
For the budget-conscious business owner, being strategic with staffing can help keep costs under control while still providing good service to customers. Many business owners are developing staffing plans to help project their staffing needs down to the day and hour so they only pay for the labor they need. Temporary staffing agencies — especially those that combine in-person customer support with immediate-response apps — can recruit talent to fill openings on short notice.
The lowest price doesn’t mean the best, or even cheapest, option when it comes to staffing. Fly-by-night companies that promise the moon but deliver poor quality candidates don’t save a company money. The cut rates that many 1099-based hiring apps offer become very expensive very quickly when the business owner is hit with government penalties, back wages and workers’ compensation claims resulting from misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
To meet the skills gap, employers need to be realistic about what skills they can expect candidates to bring to the job and be willing to hire for aptitude and attitude, even if a candidate is missing key skills. Operators can look for ways to teach skills on the job or through a course taken as part of the employment package, especially if it’s a temp to perm position.
Paying attention to seasonal fluctuations and staffing accordingly can help control labor expenses. In some cases, operators will find that hiring full-time staff (even if temporary) and part-time staff with longer shifts will build employee loyalty while meeting the company’s needs.
Final Tips
Our managers report that clients who invest in ongoing employee training and career development to maintain high skill levels and engagement see better retention. Those that implement flexible staffing models, such as temporary or part-time roles, and optimize scheduling with workforce management tools see better results as well.
— George Lessmeister is CEO and founder of LGC Hospitality, a national staffing firm headquartered in Indianapolis. LGC has offices in over 40 U.S. cities. Team members work with hotel and restaurant leadership to place executives and temporary workers.