Corey Harlock – Retaining Your Talent?
Corey Harlock has spent more than 20 years at the executive management level in the hotel and restaurant sectors, and interviewed and surveyed thousands of prospective employees. With his finger firmly on the pulse of the hospitality industry, Corey can help your company find the right executive, increase its staff productivity, lower turnover and create a healthy work environment.
I was out for a round of golf with my buddy Al on the weekend. We always golf at his “home” course which happens to be about an hour out of town, so we have lots of time to talk on our way to and from the course.
Last Sunday we got talking about our days working in restaurants in our previous lives. We exchanged stories and laughed about the people we worked with and the stuff we used to do and get away with back in the day. The overlying feeling of the conversation was “man it was fun!”
I then asked Al, “do you think servers/cooks these days have as much fun as we did back then?”
Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that but from what I see out there in the industry the overwhelming answer has to be NO.
When I was a young man (many, many years ago) I worked for an emerging corporate restaurant company in Toronto and I remember them encouraging us to be fun and “off the wall” while slowly adding more and more rules and procedures. I remember feeling conflicted back then and can only imagine how line staff must feel these days.
It used to be have fun, make our guest have fun and, oh yeah, here are some guidelines to follow. It was more of the cat box method. You know, keep your poop in the box and you are fine.
Now it seems to be “here is the comprehensive list of rules and procedures, if you can get through them all remember to have fun.” BUT if you are not clear, the rules and procedures come first, fun is a distant second.
How do you think your team (managers and staff) would answer the questions “Would you describe your job as fun?”
You may think it is silly but we know why people stay at their job and even more importantly perform at a high level at their job. Hint, it is not money; people can make money next door!
When is the last time you had a great day at work? When was the last time you felt rewarded at work? When was the last time your job was more fun than stressful, annoying or just hard?
Make no mistake, hard work can be fun if it is supported and managed correctly.
What do you do to make your workplace “fun first” and deal with the negatives as they happen?
Please share your ideas with the 100’s of other readers as the primary goal of this blog is to make our industry better.
Corey Harlock – the Hospo Headhunter
corey.harlock@questus.ca
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It is my opinion that work today or yesterday is what you make of it. If staff come to work with a positive attitude and management tries to promote a positive attitude (not a false attitude of care but an honest concern) the work place has to be positive even at the peak of any rush. A great thing to remimber and past along is “Everyday that you can get up out of bed, take norishment is a great day. If you don’t believe this drive through a cemetary or by a hospital…”
Some staff need to run with the ball others need to be more directed. It is a manager’s job to figure out who is who and feed their talents. When this is accomblished correctly you end up with a good working enviroment.