Some records do not give the taste to celebrate. Especially when they lead to a series of frustrating financial consequences for companies, and dissatisfaction among their customers.
Posted at 6:30 a.m.
Talk to restaurants and merchants who have to reduce their opening hours for lack of manpower. The unemployment rate of 4.1% in Quebec, unheard of since this data exists, does not make them jump for joy. It’s obvious.
Owner of three Tim Hortons franchises in Saint-Sauveur and Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, in the Laurentians, Yves Forget experiences this record daily. I called it after bumping my nose on a locked door…when this chain is supposed to welcome customers night and day.
I suspected that he didn’t close his restaurants at night and in the evening, and even for whole days, for lack of customers.
If reducing opening hours was a difficult decision, keeping its employees happy is a daunting challenge. These, not quite numerous enough to meet demand, have to deal with frustrated and impatient customers. At a level beyond comprehension.
“Some exasperated customers do not understand why they are not served in 0.2 seconds. I saw it spit in the face of the employees. I’ve seen customers fight each other. The police often intervened. A lady hit a pregnant woman. A lot of things happened, ”says the businessman.
For employees, this creates a “pretty high level of anxiety” that is often verbalized. Some cry. The turnover rate is quite high.
Unsurprisingly, Yves Forget loses soldiers. “People are looking for a less stressful, less demanding and better paying job. And there are plenty. The large number of restaurants and businesses per square meter at the foot of Mont Saint-Sauveur raises recruitment to the level of fierce competition.
“Now is not the time to sell”
In such a context, this is not the time to be choosy. “If the person knows his left and his right, we take it! “Launches the franchisee with a burst of laughter, hardly exaggerating. Recruitment has changed, potential candidates must be convinced that they will enjoy working. Instead of waiting for the rare pearl, employers are taking more risks than before, despite the training costs involved. And they somehow learn to lower their expectations.
Yves Forget, who would like to swell his troops from 20 to 40 people, whispers that his level of tolerance has never been so high. He no longer has the choice to endure employees who, in normal times, would be dismissed for their low level of productivity. He does not come back from it himself.
Constantly rising salaries. Reduced opening hours. Food prices soaring. Costs associated with high staff turnover. All this is far from favoring the profitability of restaurants.
Yves Forget must admit that its franchises are no longer worth what they were worth. “Now is not the time to sell,” he sums up. But he says he is “optimistic” and confident of a return to normal in a few years.
The situation is more difficult for these franchisees who want to retire, but who cannot find a way to sell their business in the current context.
Other restaurants suffer a drop in sales by deliberately reducing their capacity for lack of staff. It happened to me twice, last summer, that I couldn’t sit in a restaurant that was half empty. The hostesses were very sorry to tell me that the cook was too overwhelmed to welcome me.
Fences and lights off
If occasional closures have been observed since 2018, “since the pandemic, it has been generalized”, affirms Martin Vézina, spokesperson for the Association Restauration Québec (ARQ). Mondays and Tuesdays are becoming days off in the industry. And establishments have abandoned lunch to focus on dinner.
We haven’t finished bumping into locked doors.
Martin Vézina reminds us that it will take 10 years, until 2032, for the pool of 16 to 25 year olds to return to its 2012 level.
Shopping centers are not spared either. At Promenades Saint-Bruno, many stores are closed on Friday evenings. A situation that is not unique in the province. It’s quite curious and even depressing to walk in front of fences and extinguished lights.
“It’s never been experienced,” says the director general of the Quebec Retail Trade Council (CQCD), Jean-Guy Côté. “Closing a shop not because there is a lack of customers, but of employees behind the tills, is not a natural reflex. The hardest part is finding employees for weeknights, he says.
There is a shortage of 25,000 people in the retail sector.
Shopping center owners are aware of this and are much more flexible than before. For decades, shops had to follow the schedule dictated by the owner, or face penalties. The same phenomenon can be seen in the restaurant world: franchisors are understanding.
To what extent do customers show the same open-mindedness in front of employees, few in number or inexperienced, who struggle to provide the expected service? That’s the big question.
Obviously, like employers, we need to increase our level of tolerance. Because exaggerated reactions risk exacerbating recruitment problems.