THE NEW REALITY: NO HUMAN INTERACTION

 

A new concept being tried by fast food chain "Chipotle" is a dark reflection on the sad state of our current times. Customers and employees will have no interaction during the food ordering process, all orders must be made through the Chipotle app, company website, or third party provider. There are no dining room, all orders will be either pick up or delivery.

 

There are uncountable thousands of carry out only restaurants throughout the US; however, in almost all cases employees can take food orders, or there is some method for customers to interact with restaurant staff when ordering food. Company executives claim this is designed to fit smaller stores in high cost urban area, and to minimize issues of contamination due to Covid-19. Many different fast food chains are trying the concept, in one form or another, and it all seems to have started with the Covid-19 lockdowns that began in March of this year.

 

Regardless of the reasons being given by Chipotle executives, or executives at other companies trying similar concepts, there are in fact two underlying issues which are driving these concepts: employee turnover and increased minimum wage requirements.  It may or may not surprise many readers, fast food chains have tremendous rates of employee turnover. In many cases the rate of turnover may reach as high as 150%. To put this in simple terms, at a rate of 100% turnover a 10 person staff will see all 10 staff members replaced in one year. At 150% turnover,  that same 10 person staff will be replaced by 15 new employees. The cost of hiring, training, and managing new employees can become overwhelming, and can have adverse effects of productivity. Productivity being one of most important aspects of every high volume fast food operation.

 

Robin B. DiPietro, director of the International Institute for Foodservice Research and Education at the University of South Carolina’s School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, says that six years ago, when she was in touch with Burger King, the average cost of turnover was about $600 per employee.

Cornell’s Batt said a survey of restaurants she helped conduct in 2013 put the cost of fast-food turnover at $1,600 per worker, and that was at a time when turnover was significantly lower.

The turnover cost estimates have kept going up.

The cost per employee now is estimated by the National Restaurant Association at $2,000 per employee. Those figures will vary by restaurant type as fast-food employees are still less expensive to turn over than those in upscale dining. Restaurant research firm TDn2K calculated replacement costs at $2,100 to $2,800. But all operators feel the pinch of the deepening turnover crisis, especially with a higher minimum wage, and higher recurring business costs.

 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/29/fast-food-restaurants-in-america-are-losing-100percent-of-workers-every-year.html

 The unspoken truth behind many of these decisions is the quickly rising minimum wage. Legislatures in many states and localities have steadily increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This may not seem like much, but for a business to pay several employees $15 an hour, even during slow times, can be a burden most smaller businesses can not endure. Many fast food businesses have raised prices in consideration of this added cost. If a particular task or function can be completed by robotics or automation, an astute business leader, will quickly replace employees with machines that cost less over the long-term and are not going to call in sick or cause disciplinary issues. 

It seems that no matter the reason, the fast food restaurant of the future will look very different than anything seen in the past. A hungry customer may never actually see a person when picking up their order. Customers will order their meal through purely digital means, as employees will not be taking phone orders. Robots will prepare the food, with minimal human supervision. It is conceivable that a fast food business such as McDonald's or Chipotle, that once employed 15-20 employees, will have a staff of less than 10, which will include management. A dystopian future in which consumers order food from a machine, have machines prepare the food, and then machines deliver food to customer's vehicle, may not be that far away. 

(Richard B. Levine/Newscom)