Hiring across multiple locations
Finding, screening and keeping hourly staff across every unit, without putting a recruiter in each location.
8 playbooks 3 tools
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Recruitment and retention is still a challenge for 77% of restaurant operators, according to the National Restaurant Association's 2025 State of the Restaurant Industry report. For multi-unit owners the problem has a particular shape.
Why does hiring get harder when you add locations?
The thing that made hiring work at one location was you being there. You met every applicant and you were the standard. None of it was written down because it never needed to be.
It also stops being an event. Accommodation and food services runs a 4.2% monthly quits rate against 2.2% across the private sector (BLS, 2025). At six units, someone is always leaving.
And you find out late. A short-staffed unit does not report a hiring problem, it absorbs one: first overtime, then a manager covering shifts, then somebody quits from the strain. The number that finally reaches you is a turnover number, and the gap that caused it opened weeks earlier.
Where do applicants actually drop off?
Five stages: apply, screen, interview, accept the offer, show up for the first shift. Most operators only count the first and the last, which hides where the loss happens.
The wait after applying is the one candidates notice. Hourly applicants commonly apply to several employers in a single sitting, so a reply that waits for a manager to finish a shift lands in a decision already moving.
Scheduling and the first shift are the quiet losses. An interview booked a week out competes with jobs that start sooner, and the same gap reopens between the offer and day one.
Should each location run its own hiring?
Split it. You own the process: job posts, screening questions, published pay ranges, how fast an applicant gets a reply, and the tooling. None of that improves by being reinvented per unit.
The manager owns the judgement: who to interview, who to hire, who works which shift. They have to work alongside the person, so the call should be theirs.
The test is simple. If two of your units would write a different job post for the same role, the process half is not done yet.
What should you measure per location?
Five numbers: time to first response, time to hire, cost per hire by source, interview no-show rate, and 90-day retention.
Split every one by location. A fleet average hides the unit in trouble, because the units that are fine pull the number back toward normal.
Protect the 90-day figure. The other four all reward hiring faster, and it is possible to improve every one of them while quietly hiring worse.
When is hiring software worth paying for?
When the process already exists. Applied to an undefined process, software automates the confusion and adds a subscription.
Three signals it will pay for itself: replies wait on one person being free, you cannot see your own funnel without building a spreadsheet, and the manual version now costs manager hours every week.
It will not fix pay below the local market, a location with a reputation problem, or a manager who does not follow up. Those get blamed on hiring, and no tool touches them.
Sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS Table 22, annual average quits rates by industry. Monthly quits rate, not annual turnover.
- National Restaurant Association, State of the Restaurant Industry 2025.
Tools
Free, no email required.
Hiring ROI calculator
Work out what your current hiring process costs per location, using your own numbers.
Playbooks
Step by step, for one specific job each.
Auto-replying to applicants in 90 seconds
SMS auto-replies with knockout questions, so an applicant hears back before a competitor has opened their application.
AI-generated job descriptions, role by role
Indeed-ready descriptions for any hourly role, with pay-range disclosure logic for the states that require it.
Voice-AI phone interviews for high-volume roles
Conversational phone screening for frontline roles. Transcribes each call and ranks against your knockout factors.
Multi-channel hiring poster campaigns
Push one role through Indeed, Facebook, Instagram and printed in-store posters in a single flow, tracked per channel.
AI candidate ranking from resumes
Score applicants against your knockout factors and the traits your best performers share, then surface a shortlist.
Re-engagement campaigns for past applicants
Text your dormant applicant pool when a relevant role opens. Sourcing you have already paid for.
Calendar-AI auto-scheduling for screens
Qualified candidates get a booking link inside the same conversation, removing the scheduling back-and-forth.
Hiring ROI dashboard per location
Time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and source ROI rolled up by unit, so one location cannot hide inside the fleet average.