Watch out for work stress in restaurants

It is no secret that working in a restaurant is quite stressful when shifts run too long.

You have to pay special attention to this issue, because sometimes, in an effort to save money on hiring more staff, we make the mistake of letting our employees work too much overtime.

It is true that the employee will gladly do it to earn extra money, but you have to understand that every person has a physical limit, and at the same time you have to keep in mind that breaks are mandatory once the body definitely starts to need them.

A case that will make you think

In 2010, a young Japanese man who worked at a restaurant took his own life because of his workload. It is believed that the cause that led him to make this fatal decision was the stress and the psychological burden caused by overwork.

It is a tragic story that undoubtedly hit the young man's family and everyone who knew him hard. That someone should end up losing his life for seeking more income precisely to have a better quality of life is quite sad.

On the other hand, from the point of view of restaurant owners, the consequences for the restaurant are truly devastating.

It turns out that 4 years later, according to this news story, the owners of the restaurant were ordered to pay 320,000 British pounds, which in US dollars comes to more than $511,000 in damages to the young man's family.

If the restaurant is high-end, that payment is undoubtedly too little. But if the restaurant is small or mid-sized, it will be a terrible problem.

Now, thinking a little more... have you asked yourself what would happen if a situation like this occurred in your restaurant?

Could you handle a similar payment? Many small restaurants definitely could not; for them it would mean practically the end and the start of a huge series of personal problems in order to make the payment. (loss of assets, jail in many cases, and so on).

For that reason, even though this case is quite unusual, you need to take action on this issue.

It is true that the consequences are not always as extreme as what happened in this case in Japan, but if your employees do not get enough breaks or work too much, they will be having a hard time, they will not serve customers cheerfully, they will not put the necessary effort into the kitchen, and in the end that will translate into lost revenue for your restaurant.

When you own a restaurant, you have to think in two ways: as a business owner and as an ordinary human being. That will let you make more humane decisions when it comes to thinking about your employees and also about your customers.