Restaurants Are Battling it Out in a ‘War for Talent’

This morning, Darden Restaurants CEO Eugene Lee succinctly summed up what has been reiterated over and over this earnings season: There is a war for talent happening in the restaurant industry. Unemployment is down, the industry is hiring like crazy, and labor costs are such that restaurants are rethinking every step of the process in hiring and staffing in order to better retain their employees and keep those costs at a manageable level. In this war for talent, the winners will be the ones who are already thinking differently about how to support their employees so that they can, in turn, represent the restaurant in the way that these leadership teams need them to. Having delicious food is only one part of the equation to succeed. People are the most important part of a successful operation, and plenty of companies are rethinking how to become better employers in order to find and retain thos