8 Great Things to Tell Your Staff Today

A consolidation of the TotalFoodService July 26, 2017 article by Roger Beaudoin

Given that the foodservice industry is a daily performance, your guest experience can be determined by how the manager sets the stage. Most successful foodservice companies, whether in a restaurant or a corporate employee foodservice location, strongly believe in the daily staff training.

Motive your foodservice employees to use these eight things every day to elevate their customer’s experience and keep them loyal:

1. Educate, inform and entertain – get to know who walks through your doors, greet them by their first names. Talk to the customers about the specials and/or upcoming themed events.
2. What does the customer see when they walk in? – Have all employees enter the location through the front doors to see if anything is amiss. Check for wobbly tables or dirty condiments, and keep an eye on the public bathrooms.
3. Teamwork and Respect – Keeping this daily mantra with your staff will become noticeable by your guests. When it is busy, jump in to help other staff members out.
4. Leave your issues/problems at the door – Negative comments can personally affect the dining experience of your customers.
5. Have fun! – All your employees need to earn money, but why not make it fun while doing so? Take the time to train the staff to be “entertainers” on stage. Have them be attentive to the customer’s need. Foodservice employees should be personable and present their unique personalities to the customers.
6. Every table is your table – This is a great refrain for staff to take ownership of the entire location, not just their tables or work stations. This way, if an employee notices a problem, it is taken care of as a team player.
7. Safety – Be safety conscious. If you see a spill on the floor, knives out on the counter, etc., fix the problem or let someone know so they can fix it.
8. Thank you – A little phase that goes a long way to a customer. As a manager, chef or director of the foodservice location, it is doubly important to provide positive reinforcement to the staff. This can be in the form of a handwritten thank you note, a bulletin board posting or a simple verbal comment to the employee.

A manager should leading by example, set clear expectations, and recognizing and rewarding their staff daily. This has the ability to lower staff turnover, allow staff to shine, and customers to smile.

Click here to read John Beaudoin’s entire 8 Great Things To Tell Your Staff Today article.