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Sydney Kida | August 20, 2020 |
Business owners have to deal with a number of major operational costs: rent or mortgage payments, inventory costs, labor costs, and a few others depending on the industry. This post will focus on the last item in the list, and explore all the steps involved in how to calculate labor cost.
In the restaurant industry, average labor is about 30-35 percent of business revenue, making it one of the most costly expenses. This is often referred to as the restaurant labor percentage.
From the staff who cook and serve the food, to those who handle cleaning and management, the employee costs for all of these functions add up quickly. Many variables factor into labor costs. Being on top of these expenses is important for the survival of the business, and understanding restaurant metrics with an effective labor cost formula is crucial.
However, many owners struggle with the challenge of keeping their restaurant labor cost low. What is involved in this process exactly?
Labor cost is the total dollar amount your restaurant spends on employees, including pay for salaried and hourly workers, as well as taxes and employee benefits. The amount you spend on labor also impacts your prime cost – total cost of goods sold plus total labor cost – which is the labor cost formula that many restaurateurs use to examine their restaurant’s efficiency.
It's important to remember that restaurant labor costs are far more than hourly or salaried wages (though those are a big chunk of the total). But in actual fact, labor costs include such expenses as payroll taxes, overtime, health care, bonuses, sick days, vacation days, insurance, benefits, meals, supplies, training costs and more. This restaurant labor percentage may be much higher than you’d expect.
What that means for you, then, is that while you may pay your servers $15 per hour, your actual employee costs are much higher because you have to factor in all the other expenses.
Here’s how to calculate labor cost. Basically, anything that can be categorized as labor-related goes into your labor cost percentage calculation.
An acceptable restaurant labor percentage can run anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of a restaurant's gross revenue. High-end restaurants that devote considerable attention to creating a fine dining experience and making all menu items from scratch will land on the high end of this spectrum.
Fast casual restaurants with simple menus and items purchased from food service warehouses and reheated, usually land on the lower end.
To understand your payroll restaurant metrics and assess where there is room for improvement, track hours relative to labor functions such as front-of-house and back-of-house operations. This information can tell you whether parts of your restaurant are inefficient or overstaffed, and show you where payroll costs can be trimmed.
Labor cost is the total amount spent on the staff on your restaurant’s payroll. Some business owners make the mistake of only including hourly wage restaurant labor cost. Restaurant 365 defines these direct wages as “unburdened labor.” On the other hand, “fully burdened labor” refers to additional expenses paid out, like salaried employee wages, employee benefits like healthcare, and additional costs like payroll taxes and Social Security.
To calculate labor costs, you need both. Add up all expenses related to wages, benefits, and other fully burdened labor line items. A labor calculator can help you with this process.
However, the total cost alone doesn’t paint the full picture. For labor costs to mean anything, they need to be compared to your overall sales.
Labor cost percentage is the relationship between your labor cost and your total revenue over the same timespan. To calculate your labor cost percentage, divide your labor cost by your total sales for the same period. You can plug your total sales into a labor cost calculator to get your labor cost formula.
To calculate, we’ll set up a hypothetical employee who works full time, is paid hourly, and has a pay rate equal to $15 per hour.
When an employee works full time, they will potentially work 2,080 hours in one year (40 hours x 52 weeks). So you’ll start with this equation:
You’ll never know exactly how many times an employee will be absent, but you can hazard a pretty good guess using employee restaurant metrics. If you have past records for other employees, average their absentee numbers together and apply that number to a new member of your employee costs
Let’s say you come up with an average of 10 days lost because of holidays, vacation, and illness.
Convert that estimate to hours with the following equation:
Net Hours Worked = 2,000
Remember, restaurant labor costs include expenses other than just wages. Insurance, bonuses, taxes — all of these items have an impact on what you pay your employees.
You know your employee’s base pay rate ($15 per hour in this example), but it’s essential that you calculate their actual hourly labor cost using this restaurant labor cost formula:
That number tells you that when all the other variables are factored in, you’re paying your employee $17.60 per hour of actual work.
Lowering your labor costs doesn’t mean you have to pay your employees less. In fact, there are better ways to decrease one of the biggest expenses for your business. Here are a few tips to help you get control of your labor costs.
Planning your schedule well in advance is one of the best ways to lower your employee costs over the long term.
We recommend creating your employees’ work schedule at least a month in advance. This gives you plenty of time to calculate labor costs, tweak, and perfect the hours worked in order to minimize labor costs while still covering all shifts.
It also gives your employees time to find substitutes for days they can’t work so you’re not left short-staffed.
Calculating labor costs can be a laborious task. There are so many moving parts — who can work when, part-time vs. full-time, pay rates, overtime — it’s easy to get lost in all the numbers and become overwhelmed calculating the restaurant labor cost percentage accurately.
Plus, there’s the fact that once you have a schedule that works, something inevitably comes up that requires changing one or more pieces. And once you alter one variable, all the other variables and calculations usually change as well.
A rotating shift is a scheduling system in which employees move through a cycle of working the day shift, the night shift, and any swing shifts that may be necessary.
For some businesses, the rotating schedule may be first shift, second shift, and third shift. For restaurants, the rotating schedule may be opening shift, lunch shift, and dinner/closing shift.
Training your employees to be proficient at their jobs is essential for the success of your business. Consider cross-training them to be proficient at another job as well to help reduce your stress to reduce employee costs.
Monitoring overtime hours is another essential way to reduce restaurant labor costs. If left unchecked, overtime hours can quickly become a huge drain on your budget and affect your bottom line for the worse. It’s imperative to keep your employees’ overtime hours as low as possible so they don’t get out of control. The best way to do this is with software that analyzes data against a labor cost formula.
Many restaurant owners find it more useful to assess their margins by looking at prime costs, or ingredients and labor combined, rather than looking at labor costs in isolation. It may be sustainable to have higher restaurant labor costs if your food costs are lower or vice versa.
Food and employee costs together should equal about 66 percent, or two thirds, of your gross revenue. When you calculate labor cost, they may be higher because you make all of the elements on your menu in house, balancing the labor expense by saving money on ingredients. Alternatively, you may buy prepared items from another business or from a food service warehouse. This strategy may reduce restaurant labor costs but may increase your food costs.
Although labor is typically regarded as a variable cost, one that fluctuates relative to the amount of business you transact, your restaurant incurs fixed labor costs to maintain a skeleton staff, even if no customers walk in your door.
The dynamics of managing finances in a restaurant can be intimidating. Hopefully, this guide on how to calculate labor cost gives you a clearer path towards managing the financial future of your restaurant.
Revel Systems understands the unique needs of the restaurant business. Our iPad point of sale (POS) platform is designed from the ground up with business owners in mind. It can simplify day-to-day tasks to save time and trim employee costs and overall expenditure. Contact us today to receive a free demo of the industry leading restaurant POS system.
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