Restaurant Employee Evaluation Form (Useful Tips + Examples)

Your employees represent your restaurant. They are the ones that can create an amazing experience for your clients and get you more positive reviews. But the opposite is also true. A bad interaction with a staff member can lead to negative reviews and loss of clients.

That is why it is important to conduct a restaurant employee performance review periodically. Moreover, the evaluations will give you objective data on which you can base decisions like promotions or staff cuts.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create the best restaurant employee evaluation form and how to use the gathered information to advance your business.

What Is a Restaurant Employee Evaluation Form?

A restaurant employee evaluation form is a tool that helps the restaurant owner or manager gather structured data about each staff member’s performance.

By analyzing a clear set of factors, you ensure each performance review is objective. If employees feel they are treated fairly, they will be motivated to be more effective and will work to better themselves.

Some common criteria included in an evaluation form are:

• Communication skills: are customers happy after each interaction with the employee? Did they get any bad reviews?
• Task performance: are they taking care of all their duties in due time and with attention to detail?
• Teamwork: is the employee a good team player, collaborating with others to solve problems?
• Work ethic: notice if they are on time and if you can rely on them.

The Benefits of Restaurant Employee Evaluation

You should monitor your staff performance the same way you monitor your restaurant’s growth: by analyzing factual data. Because the restaurant industry has a high turnover rate, if you conduct employee reviews every three to six months, you will enjoy:

• Enhance employee retention: with each evaluation, you will notice highly productive employees. Make it a goal to reward them for their high score and good work to keep them working for you for a long time;
• Discover areas that need improvement: if a lot of employees have a bad score for a certain criterion, they may lack knowledge or additional tools to do their job well. Consider training them and implementing technology to make their jobs easier. For example, an online ordering system will make taking online ordering a breeze, without having employees stand by the phone;

• Encourage accountability: with an objective review, every employee is motivated to take ownership of their work;
• Improve restaurant operations: after you analyze each restaurant employee evaluation form, you get a chance to provide positive criticism and implement development plans to help employees do their jobs better. This will be visible in the increased efficiency of all restaurant operations.

Read more: How to Motivate Restaurant Employees and Increase Retention

Tips to Create the Best Restaurant Employee Evaluation Form

If you want to make your staff reviews a success, follow this step-by-step guide for creating and using a restaurant employee evaluation form:

1. Choose the criterion for evaluation

The factors that you consider when you evaluate your staff will be different for each employee. For example, a chef has different responsibilities and goals compared to a server so the evaluation criterion will be different.

Here are a few tips to come up with efficient criteria for each team member:

• Outline their daily responsibilities: if you have restaurant standard operating procedures in place, it will be easier to just take them from there. For example, for a server you could have knowledge of menu items, customer service, and the number of tables served in a specific period;
• Take into account your restaurant’s goals: for example, if you set an objective of increasing the number of online orders, how could every employee help accomplish the goal?

Moreover, you should also select what type of evaluation methods you will use:

• Ratings: such as Needs Improvement, Average, and Excellent
• Numerical scale: from 1 to 5, where 1 is Doesn’t fulfill expectations and 5 is Exceeds Expectations;
• Open-ended questions: are a great tool for self-evaluations because you get to know what is on your employees’ minds.

2. Select the people responsible for the evaluation

There are two types of restaurant employee reviews you can use, ideally both for a better all-around view:

• Self-evaluations: where you allow staff to review their growth in the company and notice if the results are similar to the ones done by a manager;
• Evaluations done by a manager: depending on the size of your restaurant, the evaluation can be done by the restaurant owner or the responsible manager. The evaluator must work closely with the employees to provide accurate feedback.

3. Create the restaurant employee evaluation form

When you create the restaurant employee evaluation form template, you must include:

• A space for the employee information, to not get the reviews mixed up;
• A space for the evaluator information, in case there are multiple;
• Guidelines on how to complete the form, especially if there is a numeric scale, explain what each number means;
• The selected criterion with the chosen evaluation method in the same line;

4. Let staff know when the review will be held

Surprise evaluations are no fun and can also deter employees from their work. Therefore, ensure that you:

• Make it clear when you hire somebody how often and when an evaluation will be held; Mention this information in your policies as well;
• Give reminders two weeks and one week before so employees can prepare;
• Ensure it does not affect employees’ work, such as taking a busy server aside for the feedback meeting.

5. Analyze results

Your work isn’t finished until you analyze the results to determine what should be done next to improve the restaurant. Follow these steps:

• Calculate the individual score: using the chosen evaluation method, calculate the average to get a final rating for each employee;
• Compare the current results with ones from previous reviews: to notice if the employee improved their performance;
• Compare all employees’ scores: this will help you determine what staff members achieved their goals and deserve a promotion and which need to be put on a performance improvement plan;
• Compare scores from manager evaluation and self-evaluation: to see if there is a big discrepancy and where it comes from.

What to Do After the Restaurant Employee Performance Review

Now that you have the results, it is time to use them to reward productive employees and motivate the ones with lower scores to improve their performance.

Conduct feedback meetings

No matter the evaluation score, you must set up a meeting with each employee where you can provide them with feedback after the evaluation. Keep in mind:

• Send employees a copy of the evaluation form to increase transparency;
• Stick to positive criticism and provide solutions for improvement to avoid demotivating employees;
• Encourage open discussions to allow staff members to defend their low scores;
• Schedule follow-up meetings to monitor if the performance has improved.

Recognize good performance

Showing appreciation when an employee has an outstanding score will encourage them to keep up the good work. On top of friendly words, consider these more efficient ways to recognize good performance:

• Offer promotions: in terms of salary increases or even helping some employees get a higher position in the restaurant;
• Provide benefits: to motivate staff to get a higher score at the next evaluation;
• Offer gift cards: for employees that did well, but were not outstanding, gift cards can be a great encouragement to do better.

Read more: 10 Restaurant Employee Benefits That Keep Service Staff Happy

Free restaurant employee evaluation template

The rating is from 1 to 5, where 1 is Below Expectations, 3 is Meets Expectations and 5 is Outstanding Performance.

Rating criteria:	Manager rating:	Manager comments:
Time management
Punctuality
Teamwork
Client service
Understanding of menu items
Execution of assigned tasks
Job knowledge
Attention to details
Handling difficult customer situations
Consistency in job skills

Final Words

Creating and using a restaurant employee evaluation form should become a natural part of your restaurant’s growth process. It allows you to both identify areas for improvement and reward good performance to increase employee retention.

You might also like:

• How to Attract Restaurant Employees to Ensure Your Business’s Success
• Restaurant Staff Hiring: How to Recruit & Onboard New Employees
• 16 Restaurant Management Tips for Happy Employees & a Successful Business