How To Retain Your Restaurant Employees

When you want to save on operational expenses, one area of expense that can be effectively reduced is the cost of recruiting and training employees. You may not realize how expensive it can be to find a replacement employee. In addition to the cost of placing a recruitment ad, spending time reviewing resumes, interviewing prospective employees and outfitting the person in necessary uniforms and name tags, you must take time to set up financial records and payroll records.

Once the person is on the job, there is time that must be set aside for orientation and training. These tasks could be done by the manager or owner. Alternatively, another employee must take time to explain processes and procedures. This tends to reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the employee who is doing the training. Some restaurants provide an employee manual to help in the training.

All of these training and orientation measures cost money which is often never recouped in later efficiencies. You would be far better off to put in place measures that retain trained and experienced employees wherever possible. You might make the pay level somewhat higher than other similar employers in the area. You could put training money into courses that allow employees to move up within your organization.

The retention of restaurant employees doesn't necessarily have to cost a log of money. Recognize good job performance with perks such as a parking place with a sign to honor the "Employee of the Month". When a person is praised for accomplishments on the job, it is a boost to the morale of everyone. Encourage praise cards from customers and share them with the employees.

Employee safety and health should always be of primary concern. In a restaurant, it is easy for food spills to make slip-and-fall accidents too common. Awareness of one's surroundings will help protect you from losing an employee to an accident that could have been prevented. Make sure that each employee has food handling certification and that proper lifting techniques are known and applied.

You can retain your employees by identifying common issues that can arise in a dining establishment and ensuring that the worker knows what is expected in each instance. These events could include things like choking, and allergic reactions to food items. When you own or operate an establishment that recognizes the importance of your staff in ensuring the success of the business, you will be encouraged to make sure employees are valued for their contributions.

Designing The Ideal Restaurant Opening Checklist

Before you decide to open your dream restaurant, it is vital to design a restaurant opening checklist in order to get the best business up and running. The checklist ensures that you budget is carefully spent on the activities that are most required to effectively boost your restaurant's reputation.

An ideal restaurant opening checklist is the key to the successful start-up of a restaurant. With clear and organized business ideas listed in the checklist, there is less room for error and the possibility you will start a profitable business. First of all, your checklist should include employee training. All your restaurant employees must be fully aware of their respective jobs and responsibilities at all times. Also, before you open your restaurant to the public, you need to choose the food suppliers and develop a firm understanding with them on price. The restaurant opening checklist will ensure that you have all your "i"s dotted in the correct place.

A checklist designed for a new restaurant also includes maintenance services and an advertising plan. Whether your restaurant is loaded with high-tech equipment or offers a simple coffee shop, effective preservation is highly recommended. From cleaning of windows to repairing of equipment, your checklist must include all the necessary maintenance services that your restaurant requires. Advertising, similarly, is extremely significant for any business start-up. A restaurant opening checklist contains the advertising plans that are essential to enrich the status of your restaurant throughout the city.

A restaurant opening checklist is hugely important for starting a new restaurant. The checklist will ensure that you get the best site location for a reasonable price and perform all the business setup tasks that are essential for a successful start-up. With a perfect restaurant checklist at hand, it can become extraordinarily easy to open a restaurant with a low budget.

Restaurant Inventory

Is not restaurant inventory the most daunting task on the planet?  I dread the end of month where all the liquor, food,small wear,beer and everything else in the restaurant needs to be counted.  There I am coffee in hand, a coffee I should probably not be drinking as it is my seventh or eighth of the day and I am ready to enter the deep freezer pen and clipboard in hand. Ready to freeze my hands and ears to count case after case of frozen product.  Can you image my dismay finding multiple boxes open, empty boxes, and product that should not even be on the freezer.  Ahhh the life of a restaurant manager!

I remember a time when smart phones 1st came onto the market and I owned one hoping to be able to save myself a few golden moments of data entry after counting so many items but I always found that my old trusty clipboard an pen was best.  Always hunting down the months invoices to adjust my pricing on my restaurant inventory forms.

I so wish they had iPads when I started on the restaurant industry.  How easy it could be to access all your restaurant forms on the fly and adjust pricing as each invoice came in.  Never mind the ability to have your excel inventory sheets almost the same size of tradition paper an pen inventory forms.

Heres a great trick to play on a fellow employee next time inventory gets you down.  You know the plastic swords behind the bar they use for olives, onions and soon for cocktails.  Next time your working on bar inventory find an easy target and ask them for help with your inventory and get them to found something easy 1st like the katsup at the server station.  When they come back and give you the inventory total ask them to help again and ask them to count the bar swords of an open box.  Now remember you CANNOT smile at all when asking or you will give yourself away.

Have fun!