HOSPO HEADHUNTER BLOG

SIMPLE ENGAGEMENT

Posted by gmartin on May 15th, 2012 | 1 comment home title

Glenn Martin was born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario. Glenn has worked in almost ever aspect of the foodservice industry from food manufacturing, food distribution, and restaurant management. Glenn has recently taken his skills to the foodservice equipment field where he sells and markets a cost saving and innovative grease recovery device for restaurants and food manufacturing. (Goslyn at www.greasetrap.ca).

We will always have challenges with employee engagement in the restaurant industry.

Staff members come in all ages, levels of education, employment status (part-time, full-time or seasonal), career stepping stones, or just plain in it for the money.

There are always personal agendas, as well as staff getting along with each other. The chefs bother the servers, the servers do not want to help the kitchen staff. The kitchen staff does not always want to do any work outside of the kitchen area. Nobody wants to do the dirty jobs.

Check out Goslyn Grease Recovery Devices and see how they can save your business money!

What are the wait staff tips going to be like if the cutlery is marked, stained or dirty? What are profits going to be if the plumber is coming once a month to snake the drains?

The wait staff is always late. Why are my food costs going thru the roof? Is good food going into the garbage and being taken home later that night? It is time for some changes.

Changes:

will never occur over night

must be applied slowly over time
will only occur thru Management Leadership
will only occur thru employee motivation and employee engagement

A good manager or owner must be capable and willing to do any task in the restaurant, good or bad. What dishwashers want to work on busy nights? Which waitress wants to work on the slowest night of the week? Who wants to work with a group that doesn’t get along with each other?

Take an inventory of what motivational problems you are having at the restaurant. What tasks do not get performed to your satisfaction? You must have a starting point.

Never ask an employee to do a job that you would not do yourself.

A great management technique is to always take the garbage out with the help of the dishwasher. This technique shows leadership and gathers respect. If the manager can take the garbage out then the rest of the staff can perform any task required at any given time. Surprisingly, theft will be reduced in the restaurant with this technique.

I once had a boss that would sweep up the cigarette butts outside of the restaurant every day at 5pm. The whole afternoon shift would see the boss performing an unwanted task as they were to start their shift. The respect gained by this simple leadership technique was worth its weight in gold.

The same boss would help the wait staff bus tables thru the busy dinner periods. The wait staff loved the boss. They would do anything for her.

Simple employee engagement techniques start the ball rolling to achieve a better restaurant team, with little expense. Once the ball is rolling … don’t stop adding techniques. The fun is just beginning.