One of my team members recently asked for an article I wrote a few years ago on labour and sales growth. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find it, which means it’s time for a new—and hopefully better—version about the true cost of stress.
The importance of aligning supply with demand in our industry cannot be overstated. It’s one of the most challenging tasks we face, as it directly affects both customer experience and profitability. At its core, it’s about getting the right number of team members at the right time, which sounds simple but can be difficult to execute consistently. This is where two key principles should always guide our decision-making when planning labour: avoiding overstaffing and managing stress effectively.
First, overstaffing is a bigger threat to service quality than understaffing—something I find myself repeating more and more. As the saying goes, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” This saying holds particularly true in the hospitality industry, where staff performance tends to drop when they aren’t busy. Overstaffing not only increases costs but also often leads to worse service. When staff have too little to do, service is slow and lacks energy, and your team will often lose focus. This not only affects guest satisfaction but also wastes resources. If you need a compelling reason to avoid adding extra team members unnecessarily, this is it. Overstaffing doesn’t just cost more—it can degrade service, which is the opposite of what we aim for.
On the flip side, the more obvious breakdown in service and sales happens when you don’t have enough staff. This is where managers and assistant managers are most likely to raise concerns, as it leads to stress for the team—a feeling we’re all familiar with and something we can actually measure. Stress on the floor, whether in the kitchen or front of house, is a real performance detractor, and it’s important that we understand its dynamics. We divide stressful periods into two categories: short stress and sustained stress.
Short stress is when understaffing happens for a brief period, maybe an hour, but before and after that window, the team can still deliver the required service. This often happens at peak times—around 1 p.m. for lunch and 7:30 p.m. for dinner. During these short bursts, the team can step up a gear, temporarily delaying tasks like resetting tables or washing glasses. These short, intense periods of stress are manageable and, in many cases, preferable to overstaffing, as they don’t usually last long enough to lead to poor service. In fact, some level of short stress can actually enhance team performance, allowing employees to focus and work efficiently without the need for additional staff during the less busy portions of the shift.
Sustained stress, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing. When the pressure lasts for two hours or more, delayed tasks start to pile up, and the shift unravels into chaos. The team can’t maintain that higher gear for long, and as a result, service quality suffers. Orders are delayed, bills don’t go out, and guests aren’t offered second drinks. Dwell times increase, leading to more complaints. Worst of all, guests may tip less, complain directly, or simply not return.
But how do we measure the true cost of stress?
Wasted labour is relatively easy to quantify—most businesses can save around 10% of their labour costs by cutting slack. Our experience is that reducing stress can result in about a 6% uplift in sales, depending on how bad things were before. That can translate into a massive 40% profit increase, assuming a few factors I won’t dive into here.
So, what’s holding us back? Oddly, many managers deny the sales potential from reducing stress. The two biases I hear most often are “we cope” and “no one complained.” But these are just self-soothing lies. Being honest about the opportunity requires breaking old habits—and sometimes a nudge from someone with a more objective view.
Understanding the true cost of sustained stress—chaos, poor guest experiences, missed sales opportunities, and unhappy staff—is crucial for driving sales growth. Balancing labour and service levels might require a slight increase in spending, but the returns—more tips, fewer complaints, repeat customers, higher average spend per cover, and happier teams—far outweigh the cost.
