On a continual and consistent basis, you have to let them know that they are part of a TEAM and they play a vital role in the success of your business.

Simply hearing your enthusiasm for your business will only take you so far. You must live this every day. Make sure they see you consistently exhibiting your high standards of guest service, exceeding customer expectations, and maintaining high food quality standards. Don’t just tell them – demonstrate it in all you do. It’s the classic adage of “Leadership by Example”. Nothing works better.

Set the Standards

Statistics show that establishing a clear, easily explained structure for duties, schedules and standards is actually preferred by the average worker. This helps them know what is expected and it also helps management evaluate performance. This starts with an Employee Manual.

Having a standard Employee Manual is a common sense business practice. It should be reviewed before an employee comes in contact with any customer. The employee should also be required to “sign off” that they have reviewed the manual with management and they understand all the information provided. This not only sends a message of responsibility on their side but it also protects you from possible legal backlash in the future.

Scheduling For Success

Labor costs are not controlled by paying low wages. They are controlled through scheduling and improving employee productivity. Productivity is increased through training, better facility layout and the use of labor saving equipment and products.

Realistic productivity standards must be established for each job category. When you’re making staff schedules, create a job slot list. This will help you determine the number of people you need, doing a particular job, at a particular time.

This list will change for different day parts or different days of the week. It’s better to start off scheduling too few employees than too many. Begin by staffing lean. The greatest portion of labor cost is a fixed expense. There is a certain “bare-bones” staff that must be on duty, just to open the doors. At this point, labor can’t be reduced without lowering standards of the operation.

The variable expense occurs while adding personnel as business increases. As productivity reaches its max, additional personnel can be added. Management remains the key element in improving employee productivity. Explaining the “why” of procedures, policies and standards will help develop positive attitudes in your employees. They don’t want to be told “what to do”, they also want to know “why it’s important”.

Invest in Your TEAM

Setting expectations for personnel to multi-task is one thing, overloading key personnel to reduce labor cost is another. It will ultimately result in the loss of quality personnel. If the goal is to have employees productive, an investment must be made in THEM. This includes training, mentoring and coaching.

Training is essential for employee success. Talk with your food distributor to work with you on product and sanitation training. Educating your staff on your offerings with food tastings and menu descriptions will give them the tools they need to sell. You can’t sell something you don’t know anything about.

Sharing and Recognition

Communication plays a big role in solidifying your TEAM. Sharing numbers about the operation that you feel comfortable with will help create a feeling of involvement. Acknowledging success stories, best practices and promotional accomplishments will encourage similar behavior.
Shift meetings are a great place to listen to feedback on issues or concerns. Make yourself available to listen to your staff when they have something to say and encourage them to communicate with each other. Sharing and communication is the foundation of any successful TEAM. The TEAM will never gel until you have this critical piece in place.

THE NUMBER ONE MOTIVATOR FOR EMPLOYEES IS APPRECIATION AND RECOGNITION.

There’s no doubt, you must have a competitive compensation package. However, the quality, work ethic, honesty, attitude and dedication of your employees will rest on the recognition of a job well done.

Offer a positive comment – even if you have to search for one – before delivering constructive criticism of any kind. They will be more receptive to your message.

Daily and weekly contests are great way to generate enthusiasm and consistent recognition. Plus, it will help you steer improvement in those areas of your restaurant that need it the most. Again, look to your food distributor for help with this. For example, if you want to encourage sales of a particular menu items or limited time offer, see if your food distributor can pull some incentives from their manufacturer reps.

Sometimes the best form of recognition is randomly catching employees in the act of great service. You can even set up a system for this. Call it RA RA! (Random Acts of Recognition and Awards).

This is a simple system of rewarding employees on the spot when they go above and beyond. It can be something as easy as a stack of gift cards or movie tickets that your manager keeps in his pocket. When a random act of great service is committed – he gives one out on the spot.

The bottom line…you can spend all the money you want on marketing to get customers in the door, but unless you have a high performance TEAM to service those customers, it’s like throwing money down the drain.