A restaurant group HR manager keeps hiring moving for six to eight restaurants that lose hourly staff all year, and handles the paperwork, card tracking and policies that come with it. They back up GMs on discipline and investigations, and keep tip, break and scheduling rules straight in every city.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, full-service restaurants · BLS, May 2025
We're hiring an HR Manager for our restaurant group. You'll keep hiring moving for high-turnover hourly roles, run onboarding and paperwork, track food handler and alcohol service cards, back up managers on discipline and investigations, and keep our policies in line with state and local labor rules.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Run hiring for hourly and management roles with the GMs: job ads, interviews, offers and background checks where you use them.
Onboard new hires: I-9 forms, E-Verify where your state requires it, tax forms, handbook sign-off and training schedules.
Track food handler cards, alcohol service certifications and food manager certificates, and send reminders before they expire.
Keep the handbook current with state and local rules on breaks, overtime, minors' work permits and predictive scheduling, where they apply.
Keep the written tip policy current with [your payroll provider or employment lawyer], and train managers to follow it.
Coach managers on documentation, discipline and terminations, and investigate harassment and safety complaints.
Manage workers' comp claims and return-to-work plans for kitchen injuries such as burns, cuts and slips.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review new applicants and interview requests from GMs and move them along.
Answer manager questions on scheduling, breaks, overtime and attendance.
Process new-hire paperwork and send first-day schedules and training plans.
Follow up on open investigations, injury reports and unemployment claims.
Visit restaurants to meet staff on different shifts and check required postings and personnel files.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Hourly turnover by restaurant: [your target].
Time to fill open positions: [your target].
Early turnover of new hires: [your target].
Expired food handler or alcohol service certifications: [your target].
Workplace injuries and lost-time claims: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[3+] years in HR, including multi-site hourly workforces such as restaurants, hotels or retail.
Working knowledge of federal and state wage and hour rules for hourly and tipped workers.
Experience running workplace investigations and documenting discipline.
Comfort with HR and payroll systems [such as your payroll provider] and an applicant tracking system.
6. Preferred Experience
SHRM-CP or PHR certification.
Bilingual in English and Spanish, if many of your staff speak Spanish.
Experience with predictive scheduling or fair workweek rules.
Has rolled out harassment prevention training where a state requires it.
7. Physical Requirements
Office and computer work, plus regular visits to each restaurant.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Central office in [city], [standard weekday hours].
Some early-morning, evening or weekend visits to meet staff on every shift.
Driving between restaurants [several times a week].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new hr manager gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
In a restaurant group, most of the people HR serves are hourly, many work part-time, and nearly all of them work while the office is closed. The paperwork follows them in and out the door.
Hiring and paperwork never stop
Hosts, bussers, servers and dishwashers leave and get replaced all year, so HR runs hiring for every restaurant at once. Each hire fills out a Form I-9, even one who quits in week two. You keep each form for three years after the hire date or one year after the job ends, whichever is later, so the files pile up fast. Source: USCIS: Handbook for Employers M-274, retaining Form I-9.
In California, card rules start at the job ad
In California, an employer can't make a food handler card a condition of hiring, so "card required" comes out of the ad. Once the person starts, the employer pays for the course, counts the training and exam as paid work time, and relieves them of other duties while they take it. San Bernardino County gives new food handlers 14 calendar days to get the card. Source: San Bernardino County Environmental Health: SB 476 food handler FAQ.
Harassment training follows every hire
Every two years, California-based crew members need an hour of harassment training and supervisors need two, once the employer has five or more workers. A short-term hire, like a summer patio server on for under six months, gets it in the first 30 calendar days or first 100 hours on the clock, whichever is sooner. A cook trained at another restaurant within the past two years can skip the course but must read and sign your policy within six months. You still confirm the old course met the law. Source: California Civil Rights Department: Sexual harassment prevention training, information for employers (October 2025).
Complaints cross shifts and restaurants
A server on the closing shift reports a sous chef, and the witnesses work mornings or at a sister restaurant. HR books interviews around everyone's shifts, keeps the notes in one file and tells the GM only what the GM needs to know. If someone has to switch restaurants, make it the person accused. EEOC lists moving a worker who complained to a less desirable job as retaliation. Source: U.S. EEOC: Retaliation.
Kitchen injuries and the way back
OSHA's restaurant safety guide lists burns from hot oil and steam, and slips on wet or greasy floors, among the hazards of cooking work. When a cook gets hurt, HR files the workers' comp claim, keeps in touch while they're out, and works with the chef on a return plan, such as prep or counting stock, inside the doctor's limits. The GM needs to know what that cook can and can't do before the schedule goes up. Source: OSHA Young Workers eTool: Restaurant safety, cooking.
How much restaurant HR managers make
The closest BLS group for restaurant HR managers is human resources managers. Human resources managers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $119,870 a year ($57.63 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $149,280 median for human resources managers in all industries. About 190 of the 220,660 human resources managers in that survey work for full-service restaurants.
Salaried. Some groups add a yearly bonus when hourly turnover drops across the restaurants or GM and chef openings get filled faster.
Full-service restaurants
$119,870$119,870 median Middle half $64,540–$178,380 10th–90th $64,540–$178,380
All industries
$149,280$149,280 median Middle half $111,110–$199,290 10th–90th $88,200–$267,810
$0k$50k$100k$150k$200k$250k$300k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Full-service restaurants
$64,540
$64,540
$119,870
$178,380
$178,380
All industries
$88,200
$111,110
$149,280
$199,290
$267,810
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has handled HR for hundreds of hourly, part-time workers spread across more than one location
Can read a posted schedule and spot a wage and hour problem: a minor on too late, a missed break, a surprise overtime week
Runs a fair investigation: hears both sides, writes it up and keeps it private
Can tell a GM no and explain why without losing the relationship
Tracks dozens of expiring cards and filing dates without letting one slip
Keeps applicants coming in during the weeks when nobody is quitting
Teach these on the job
Your onboarding checklist, from the I-9 to the first training shift
Each restaurant's GM, shift times and hardest jobs to keep filled
The local rules in each city where you have a restaurant
How each concept pools tips under your written policy
How your workers' comp carrier wants claims reported
Kitchen and bar job titles and what each station does
Hourly hiring often runs through a restaurant hiring app such as Harri or Workstream, linked to the payroll provider and a scheduling app like 7shifts. Card expiration dates belong in that system, not in a GM's spreadsheet; have finalists show how they kept track of them.
Restaurant HR manager interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
No targets come with the template, just blanks. Pull a year of exits from payroll and a year of injury reports first, then set each restaurant's own target.
Hourly turnover by restaurant
Hourly employees who left during the month divided by average hourly headcount, for each restaurant. Compare restaurants under the same concept, and read exit reasons by GM.
Time to fill open positions
Start the clock when the GM asks for help and stop it at the new hire's first scheduled shift, not at the offer. Report busser and server openings apart from sous chef and manager searches, which run on a different clock.
Early turnover of new hires
Count new hires gone before the end of their first few months, by restaurant and by hiring manager. Pair it with exit notes to see whether training, scheduling or the manager drove them out.
Expired food handler or alcohol service certifications
Staff who are past their deadline with no current card on the day you check. Pull the list weekly from your tracker and get each one fixed before that person's next shift.
Workplace injuries and lost-time claims
Injuries reported per restaurant each month, plus claims where the worker missed shifts. Review each cause with the GM and chef. Push for every injury to be reported; the goal is fewer injuries, not fewer reports.
Career path
Payroll or HR coordinatorLearns tips, breaks and new-hire files across the group's restaurants.
Assistant general managerSome come from operations after years of hiring, coaching and discipline on the floor.
HR managerOwns hiring, policy and investigations group-wide.
Vice president of peopleSits on the leadership team of a bigger group, often with training and benefits staff.
Start with early quits, because that's where most fixes are cheap. Give each new hire a set training schedule, a trainer on their first shifts and a posted schedule they can plan around. Pay on time and correctly, tips included. Then compare restaurants: when one GM loses far more new hires than the rest, the problem is usually in that building.
How much does a restaurant HR manager make?
Human resources managers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $119,870 a year ($57.63 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $64,540 and $178,380 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Should HR or the general managers do the hiring?
Both. The GM and the chef know who fits their team, so they should make the final call on hourly hires. HR writes the job ads, keeps applicants moving, sets up interviews and handles offers and paperwork. That lets GMs interview during the slow hours between lunch and dinner instead of sorting applications at midnight.
Who should own the tip policy in a restaurant group?
HR, working with payroll and an employment lawyer. The written policy names who shares in each pool, how shares are figured and who can approve changes. Federal law bars managers and supervisors from tip pools, so HR settles which roles meet the federal test for a manager before the policy goes out. Then payroll checks that the POS tip-out settings match the paper.
How should HR handle a complaint about a chef or manager?
Start the same day. Talk with the person who complained, the manager and the witnesses, write it all down, and decide the outcome with the COO. Protect the person who spoke up. EEOC lists changing an employee's schedule on purpose to clash with family duties as an example of retaliation, so watch the schedules that manager writes during the case and after it closes.
What posters does each restaurant need on the wall?
Most private employers must post the federal minimum wage poster and the OSHA job safety poster; a state that runs its own OSHA plan has its own version to post instead. Private employers with 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks add the FMLA leave poster. DOL sends employers to each state's labor department for state posters, so a group with restaurants in two states keeps two different sets, and HR checks them on visits.
