More Keys to a Great Restaurant Work Culture
Last week, we covered RestaurantRockstars.com-founder Roger Beaudoin’s first four keys to developing a great restaurant work environment. This week, we’ll detail the remaining points of his philosophical roadmap for ensuring a great customer experience.
If It’s Not Fun, Why Do It?
Beaudoin poses an important question for anyone interested in joining a restaurant’s team: if you don’t enjoy it, why bother? The hospitality industry requires a lot of from its employees, and beyond collecting a paycheck, they should feel like it’s their calling to be in that world. If servers resent their jobs, that animus will surely worm its way into their performance.
When you’re interviewing potential candidates for your business, ask yourself, will they be a good fit? Beaudoin actually spends a lot of time posing thoughtful questions to his interviewees in an attempt to really understand what drives them, whether they enjoy meeting new people and are willing to make new friends on behalf of the restaurant. In other words, he doesn’t just ask the common questions that all interviewers ask, the ones candidates will know how to answer in order to tell you what you want to hear. You need people who will be engaged in what you’re doing and be authentic while they’re doing it.
Best of all, this culture that you create will ultimately result in high retention rates, meaning you won’t have to worry about filling new positions all that often. And the chemistry your staff develops will also help weed out any new hires who are a bad fit.
Every Table Is Your Table
How many times has this happened to you when you’re out dining: your server gets busy with another table or disappears into the back for several minutes, but you need a refill or another basket of bread or a replacement for the fork that fell on the floor? Even if your server is able to swing back in five minutes, that can feel like an eternity while you’re dining. Now, remember to those rare times when another server—someone you hadn’t even interacted with—anticipated your need and stepped in to help. How great was it when the problem was taken care of?
Teamwork is crucial to a restaurant’s success, but many servers tend to carve out their section as though it were its own island. They forget that the most important focus should be on the guest experience overall, not just for their tables. As such, Beaudoin requires his employees to treat every table like it’s their table, to not be siloed off from one another with their heads down and unaware of anyone outside their section.
Guests are everyone’s responsibility. All front-of-house staff should be trained to look out for problems, to communicate with each other, and to make sure no diner feels forgotten.
Be Safety Minded
Let’s face it: restaurants can be dangerous environments. There are open flames, sharp knives, heavy boxes, wet floors, and so on. All restauranteurs eventually become well acquainted with insurance companies as a result.
But Beaudoin found he was able to cut down on his insurance claims by simply talking about safety. You’d be surprised how most places don’t take the time, but he actually insists that his people spend a couple of minutes every day talking about it so that it’s always top of mind. What’s most critical is that everyone slows down; even if you’re behind, don’t rush to catch back up and risk injury.
At the time of this blog, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic, so this topic has additional importance. Talk about hygiene and the proper use of masks and social distancing. We’ve all heard it a million times, it feels like, but a daily refresher helps to ensure no mistakes are made, which none of us can afford given the potential consequences. It all may be annoying, but let’s not make any unforced errors.
Thank Your Staff
One of the most important habits we all try to install in our employees is to remember to thank each and every customer for his or her patronage. But let’s not forget to recognize the hard work our staff puts in.
Beaudoin talks about leading by example. He explains how important it is to be a member of the team, not just a figurehead in the back office. Get out on the floor to help and to also observe the good things your servers are doing. Spend quality time asking about how each of them is doing, and recognize them when they do good work.
Also. don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. If the dishwasher has a mountain of dishes, step in and help. If there’s a problem on the floor, help your servers by taking care of the situation. Doing so will relieve some of the pressure and make them happier overall.
These gestures go a long way. If we want to really promote teamwork and a positive work environment, we must remember to always be grateful and genuine.
Like we stressed last week, all of these points are perceivable by an independent third party. Employees who are underappreciated and resentful are easy to spot via their body language; a negative and selfish work environment is palpable; and a wet floor without a warning sign endangers everyone. Don’t let these crucial details go unnoticed.
Have you engaged a mystery shopping company yet? If you want to craft the ultimate work environment and exploit your customer experience advantage to garner loyalty from employees and guests alike, consider reaching out to us today. Let The Brandt Group bring our world-class mystery shopping services to your business, and together we’ll build a strong culture that you can be proud of and successful with for many years to come.
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