8 Exciting Ways to Show Your Restaurant Staff You Appreciate Them

Ever seen the show “Kitchen Nightmares?” Even though it carries the stigma of reality TV, the show genuinely has some lessons for small restaurant owners to take to heart. The service industry is brutal when it comes to turnover rates. If you want to keep your staff around for awhile, you’ll have to show them you appreciate them to make them stay.

“The turnover rate for employees in the restaurants-and-accommodations sector was 62.6 percent in 2013, compared to a 42.2 percent turnover rate in the overall private sector” (National Restaurant Association).

One of the recurring themes in almost every episode has to do with the staff. Gordon Ramsay rails into restaurant owners who do not show respect to their staff who are working hard. Your staff is what makes your business a reality. Showing them you care can ultimately assure you won’t constantly be interviewing new staff.

Not all of these ideas were inspired from “Kitchen Nightmares,” but they ultimately the key ingredients for success.

#1 Have a recognition book.

Get a super cute notebook (it can be from the dollar section at Target), and encourage team members to write down praises of their teammates and managers. If you run multiple locations, you can have your General Manager lead the charge at each location.

This may seem somewhat childish, but it can do wonders for a team’s morale. The reason we love this is because words have power. Sometimes feeling appreciated, or recognized for extra actions they take assure staff is feeling valued.

#2 Flexible hours.

There are some crazy, unpopular hours that go along with keeping a restaurant. But understand that your team does not want to work every single undesirable hour.

Give your staff some breathing room, and let them have some flexibility with their schedules.

The flexibility can be worth a lot more in the long run. If you’re accommodating to their own schedule, they are more likely to stick around as happier and harder working employees.

#3 Be polite.

This may seem obvious, but the basic act of being respectful to your staff will do wonders for the feel-good vibes around the restaurant.

No one likes working in a hostile environment, or feeling like their boss is trying to put them down. If your team member has an issue or complaint, try and listen to them with patience and understanding.

#4 Day off pass.

You would be amazed what good a day off can do for your staff. Every quarter or so, give each staff member a free vacation day to pick. This acts as a sort of freebie where they aren’t calling in “sick” or take the day off without you planning for it, all the better if it’s paid!

#5 Snack basket.

Sometimes it’s hard to catch a break to sit down and eat in a restaurant. Being surrounded by food creates a tempting environment for your staff to eat food on the side.

This can add up to your shrinkage costs. Have snacks on hand for your staff to eat freely. This will cut down on your missing food costs, and overall make your employees happier. The same goes for drinks! Have a nice coffee maker for your staff to get in a caffeine break.

#6 Create a space for them.

Try and set aside a place in your building where your staff can escape and relax on their breaks. None of them (not even you) want to go sit down where customers are sitting when they are supposed to be taking a break from work.

#7 Give perks to your Part-Timers.

Not all employees are full-time workers but treat them like they are. Acknowledge their contributions. If they’re temps, write notes to their representative about their great work.

#8 Close early or open late.

Everyone enjoys a day off, sometimes it’s worth the loss of customers to shut down a bit early. Give your staff a half day such as the morning or afternoon off. Even better if you can give your staff part of a holiday off.

Remember, your staff is your family.

Don’t let the relationship with your staff fall apart. All the tips above can help with the dreaded turnover rate, and build a stronger team.

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The Secret Tool To Managing Multiple Locations In the Twin Cities

Sometimes, as a restaurant owner, you have to oversee more than one location.

Splitting up time between all your separate venues is a daunting, and exhausting task. Even if you manage to spend a fair amount of time at each location every day, there’s still a lot that can fall through the cracks.

You likely want to cut down on your commute time, and be able to track your multiple businesses without all the driving. So how can you simplify monitoring your restaurants and cafes, and keep better track of what’s happening?

There’s a solution with Restaurant Manager. Through the power of our smart phones, their ability to process information is one of the greatest gifts to small business owners today. Now you can use that technology to your advantage and manage your restaurants more effectively.

You monitor your restaurant without stepping through the doors

A handy little app created by Restaurant Manager (which was designed with the busy business owner in mind), called RM Monitor, gives you 5 minute real time updates of all your venues. It gives you access to keep in touch with all your locations by tapping into your Point-of-Sale system on the go.

Even further, the app goes into detail of how much you’re making at any of your specific locations. The tracking built into RM Monitor allows you to see labor costs, and the profit you’re turning over for that hour. This feature lets you know when labor hits over 30% of what’s sold.

Life without these kind of applications, means you’re constantly bouncing around from location to the next, and trusting your managers to assure you’re not losing profits on too much staff and slow hours.

You wouldn’t be able to catch that 30% line, and then you can quickly start losing money. Having a tool that lets you look track your costs on your phone, then call and say “Send someone home,” will save your business from losing profits unnecessarily.

There are two options for RM app

The classic app is used most frequently by Restaurant Manager users is RM Monitor v1.3. This version presents sales data in standard report format and has become the consistent.

Now Restaurant Manager users looking for enhanced functionality can try out the new RM Monitor v2.0 app. This app is also available for Apple products, and includes intuitive graphs and charts and the ability to monitor food costs as well.

“After seeing the great value the initial release of RM Monitor has provided to Restaurant Manager customers, we knew it was critical to make this technology more universally available by developing it as a native app for the Android platform,” says Alex Malison, CEO of Action Systems. “RM Monitor provides Restaurant Manager customers a real advantage in the ultra competitive hospitality industry by allowing them to access and utilize information more quickly.”

Want to learn more about Restaurant Manager?

Check out their options with RM Monitor here, or talk to a RM specialist and see what they recommend.

How To Solve The Biggest Problem With Food Costs As A Restaurant Owner

Chances are, if you’re a bustling restaurant in the Twin Cities, you’re relying on vendors to provide your food. Unlike retail, where the day revolves around scanning every item. Running a restaurant leaves little time for scanning inventory and counting lettuce leaves.

Usually, you leave it to vendors to keep your business well stocked. Food and drink vendors can make or break a business. If you have amazing vendors, the quality of your food will be amazing (provided your cooks don’t burn it).

However, when you work with vendors, sometimes you may feel in the dark about your food costs as a restaurant owner.

It can feel like you can’t audit your food costs

Being in a position where you only receive a bill twice a week from your vendor can quickly become a strained relationship. You often find yourself wondering when looking at the bill “Am I getting a fair price for this?”

This becomes even more of a headache when you’re trying to reconcile your costs at the end of the month, and track your profit margins.

You can make sense of your costs though

Food costs can be one of the biggest mistakes restaurant owners can make, so don’t ignore your vendor statements.

Using a great Point-of-Sale system like Restaurant Manager has built in tools that help you consolidate your vendor invoices and your menu prices to track your food costs.These features can work with an additional tool, called U.S Foods Menu Builder Pro.

U.S Foods Menu Builder Pro gives you real time data of the current prices for all your food items, whether it be meat, cheese, or wine, U.S Foods Menu Builder Pro has instant updates to food prices.

What this means for tracking your food costs

This nifty little tool integrates with Restaurant Manager and other POS systems, and lets you remove some of the haze from your food costs with your vendors.

You can take your receipt from your vendors, and compare it to U.S Foods Menu Builder Pro. It lets you know if you’re being overcharged, but also allows you to see the current costs of beef, cabbage, and the rest of your menu items.

Having that kind of tracking helps you plan for the future and lets you know if you need to raise your menu prices.

Don’t live in the dark about your food costs

You can control and stay on top of your food expenses. With the right tools, you can make sure your profiting off your hard work, and covering your business’ costs through your food prices.

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