Boosting performance through employee engagement in Food & Beverage
The rapid rise of automation, AI and other technologies provides food and beverage (F&B) companies with powerful tools to improve performance – but they’re only as effective as the people who use them. At the same time, rising generational expectations, labour shortages and a post-pandemic shift in work attitudes are placing fresh emphasis on employee development, inclusion and purpose.
Equipping employees to thrive alongside new tools is not just a training issue – it’s a cultural challenge. And it’s made more urgent by shifting employee expectations. Surveys show that 79 per cent of Gen Z and 75 per cent of millennials would consider leaving a job without upskilling opportunities. In an industry facing labour shortages and high turnover, engagement and development must be part of the operational strategy.
Leading F&B companies are reframing engagement as a foundation of transformation – essential to driving agility, resilience, safety and continuous improvement.
Engaged, motivated and ready!
Engaged employees drive performance. On the shop floor and in distribution centres, engaged workers proactively solve problems, speak up about safety and operational issues and take pride in quality. These behaviours grow in environments where people feel valued, heard and supported.
Gallup data shows that highly engaged teams deliver 23 per cent higher profitability, 14 per cent greater productivity, and at least 18 per cent lower turnover. Yet only 23 per cent of employees worldwide are engaged. The cost of this disengagement is staggering: $8.8 trillion globally.
In the F&B industry, where frontline mistakes can mean product spoilage, regulatory violations or lost customers, engagement becomes a performance lever.
When employees understand the “why” behind their work and see how their actions contribute to business goals, they become partners in delivering value – not just workers filling shifts.
Case study: engaging employees to improve safety performance
Engaging employees isn’t just about productivity or morale – it’s also a powerful driver of safety. One of dss+’s core offerings, Safety Cultural Transformation, is built on the principle that engaged employees adopt safer behaviours, focused mindsets and deliver stronger safety and operational performance outcomes. In fact, organisations that reach the independent and interdependent stages of the dss+ Bradley Curve often see major improvements in safety and operational KPIs.
n the F&B sector, for example, a global leading food producer partnered with dss+ to embed a “zeroloss” safety culture. Over six years, it reduced injuries by 52 per cent, and brought its recordable incident rate down from 2.2 to 0.77 – the safest in the company’s history, with a target to go even lower than 0.5. These results show that when people are truly engaged and take ownership of safety, they not only prevent injuries but help drive broader operational excellence.
Upskilling to retain and grow
Forward-thinking companies are embedding upskilling and engagement into their growth strategies. Starbucks, for example, reduced its employee turnover to 58 per cent in the US and Canada in 2023 and to 49 per cent in 2024 – significantly lower than the typical fast-food industry average, which often exceeds 70 to 80 per cent and can be well over 100 per cent for many quick-service restaurants, according to the National Restaurant Association and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Starbucks’s College Achievement Plan, tuition reimbursement and emphasis on internal career mobility have built a more stable, adaptable workforce that’s eager to embrace new technologies and ways of working.
PepsiCo offers more than 100,000 frontline employees access to everything from high school completion to digital skills training and university degrees at no cost. This investment builds a skilled and tech-ready internal talent pipeline – reducing recruitment costs and boosting retention.
These companies know that developing people internally closes skill gaps and boosts morale and loyalty. In a labour-constrained industry, your next great line leader might already be on shift – if you invest in their growth.
Focus on leadership
No upskilling programme or engagement initiative will succeed without committed leadership. Building a performance-driven culture means developing leaders who coach and inspire trust, recognise contributions and foster open communication.
At dss+, we’ve seen this first-hand. Our structured leadership coaching model – rooted in daily operational routines – supports mindset and behaviour shifts. Drawing on our extensive experience and efficient methodology, we help companies evolve along the dss+ Bradley Curve™, from reactive behaviours to interdependent cultures where teams hold each other accountable and drive performance collectively.
These leadership practices translate into measurable impact. At one global food manufacturer, a safety culture transformation program led to a 28 per cent reduction in recordable injuries, 41 per cent fewer lost work-day cases and approximately $3.1 million in cost savings. These improvements didn’t come from process changes alone, but from a shift in mindset and behaviour. Engagement fuels performance – but leadership lights the fire.
Make engagement a strategic investment
To truly transform performance, engagement must be treated with the same rigour as capital expenditure. This means defining targets (such as engagement scores or internal promotion rates), measuring impact (for example, retention, productivity or safety metrics), and holding leaders accountable.
High-performing F&B companies are also tracking correlations between engagement levels and operational KPIs. This not only justifies investment but reveals where interventions are needed most.
Training must evolve with the business. Static classroom sessions won’t meet the needs of fast-paced operations or digitally native employees. Instead, modern F&B firms are leveraging microlearning, mobile training, AR tools and peer coaching – embedding learning into the flow of work.
Build a culture where safety and performance thrive
In our work with global F&B companies, we’ve found that companies with high engagement don’t just perform better – they’re also safer. When employees feel ownership and psychological safety, they’re more likely to speak up, report near-misses and stop unsafe behaviours.
In safety cultural transformation programs led by dss+, we’ve seen F&B clients reduce incident rates by over 50 per cent while boosting productivity – not by enforcing rules, but by fostering interdependent cultures. Safety and performance, when engagement is strong, go hand in hand.
Final thoughts
In today’s F&B industry, performance is no longer just about equipment, automation or analytics. It’s about people. The companies that engage their workforce – with purpose, training, leadership and culture – will not only adapt faster but thrive.
An empowered frontline becomes your competitive edge. Upskilling and engaging people is not just HR – It’s your next transformation strategy.
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