Restaurant Consulting NYC | An Attitude Adjustment - Hiring for Attitude as well as Skill | 4Q Consulting, LLC

An Attitude Adjustment - Hiring for Attitude as well as Skill

Technical skills, such as the vocational expertise of a chef, while important in making hiring decisions, should not be your only criteria.  You can teach technical skills, but you cannot train people on the personal attributes that make up soft skills such as listening, communicating and empathizing.  By evaluating these characteristics you can measure whether a candidate will fit with your team, company culture and core values.

Bad hiring decisions are costly: they can increase turnover, pull resources away from other projects, be disruptive to other employees and your establishment as a whole. This can negatively impact your bottom line.   

Here are 4 ways to hire for attitude as well as skill:

Take Advantage of Candidate Self-Selection – By listing desired soft skills that align with your company core values and culture in your recruitment ads, candidates will evaluate whether or not they should apply.   This will give you a more focused applicant pool to choose from; reducing your time spent on recruiting, as well as improving the quality and value of your hires.

Be Proactive in your Recruiting - Don’t just wait for people with the right attitude to apply for a job, spot them in the marketplace and make your pitch! When you see someone who clearly embodies the qualities you want on your team, give them your card and invite them to apply for employment. As any great business owner knows, that extremely attentive waiter, remarkably patient sales associate, or well-spoken hostess could be your next great hire.

Use Behavioral-Based Interviewing - This type of interview, focuses on how the interviewee acted in the past to give insight to future behaviors and actions.  Multi-segmented, open-ended questions get to the heart of behavior in relation to soft skills.  For example, when interviewing a restaurant manager you might ask:  “Tell me about a time when you had to manage a difficult employee.  What was the challenge and how did you resolve it?”  Select questions that pinpoint the attributes you seek.

Observe Applicants Outside “The Interview” - Want to see someone’s true colors? Find out how they behaved when they thought no one is watching.  In conjunction with behavioral-based interviewing, this can give you a true read on a candidate.  How did they treat your receptionist or hostess? Did they strike up a friendly conversation with the bartender while waiting for you?  What the candidate says and does outside of the hiring manager’s view can give you a glimpse into their true personality, which may differ from how they present in an interview. 

To build a great company, you must hire great people.  Great employees are those who have both the technical skills required for the job as well as personal attributes that gel with your company culture and core values.   Focusing on technical skills without enough consideration for soft skills and personal attributes can leave you with a dysfunctional staff that can’t work together due to misaligned values. When in doubt, hire for attitude; you can train almost any skill. See the candidate who lacks hard skills as a cause for concern, but see the employee who lacks soft skills and enthusiasm as a giant red flag.

Don’t know where to begin?  Ask yourself, do you have the proper written procedures and operational guidelines in place to help you be as profitable as possible?  4Q Consulting can develop customized operational guidelines and training programs to meet your needs.  Email us today for a free business consultation!

All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2012-2013.

Restaurant Consulting NYC | Restaurants Fight the Flu! | 4Q Consulting, LLC

Restaurants Fight the Flu!

The current influenza season is the most widespread since the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-2010. Restaurants, where multiple people are handling food, utensils and glassware, are breeding grounds for influenza germs.  Special consideration should be paid to keep both your employees and your customers safe from the influenza virus.  There are financial implications if half of your staff calls in sick and your customers get sick from eating in your restaurant.

Here are 4 Ways to help stop the spread of the flu in your establishment:

Send Sick Employees Home - Whether for fear of losing their job or missed pay, restaurant workers often come to work when they shouldn’t. Sick employees, front-of-house or back-of-house, should never be tolerated in your restaurant. They will only infect others.

Enforce Hand Washing Procedures - Make sure you have written hand washing procedures in place.  All employees must be trained on how and when to wash their hands and these policies must be enforced.  Hand washing is advised after touching any part of the face, coughing, smoking, taking out the trash, and in between food handling jobs, just to name a few. Frequent hand washing greatly reduces the spread of the flu.

Sanitize - Have hand sanitizers readily available for both employees AND customers in as many areas as possible (e.g. wait stations, bars and bathrooms).  Remember Hand Sanitizers to not replace, but work in conjunction with, proper hand washing. It is also important to sanitize items or areas in your restaurant that customer come in contact with – menus, table top signage, hand rails, door knobs, etc.  Work these items and areas into your shift cleaning checklists.

Train Proper Health Habits – People have an unconscious habit of touching their face, which is the primary way germs are spread. Your staff must understand that they can transfer germs to themselves or others, as well as onto service items through their actions.  Train your staff to be aware of this habit and that they must wash their hands afterwards.  Also train your staff on how to properly handle items that touch or have touched guests’ mouths, both when setting and clearing tables. 

Beyond getting vaccinated, keeping sick employees out of your restaurant and following good health habits can keep your staff able-bodied and your customers coming back throughout this flu season.

Don’t know where to begin?  Ask yourself, do you have the proper written procedures and operational guidelines in place so your manager can help you be as profitable as possible?  4Q Consulting can develop customized operational guidelines and training programs to meet your needs.  Email us today for a free business consultation!

All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2012-2013.

Restaurant Consulting NYC | Are Your Pre-Service Meetings a Waste of Time? | 4Q Consulting, LLC

Are Your Pre-Service Meetings a Waste of Time?

The pre-service meeting is often the most underutilized time in a shift, if the meeting is done at all due to being in the “weeds” before service.  Managers usually just end up doing a uniform “Line Up”.  

A well-run, well-planned meeting can be a valuable tool in enhancing staff knowledge, product quality and your bottom line.  Train your managers on the keys to conducting a productive and time-effective pre-service meeting: Plan it, Keep it Short and Simple, and Make it a Positive Experience.

Here are the 4 parts to a well-planned pre-service meeting:

Praise – Set the tone for a positive meeting by praising the staff’s achievements: high sales from a previous service; having received a positive customer comment; someone lending a hand when they weren’t asked to; and highlighting the number of days without a safety incident - always aligning the praise with the company’s core values. 

Information - There will be specific information to communicate each service - menu changes or specials, service items, safety and sanitation updates.  Additionally, this is a good time to give a daily reminder of the restaurant’s and team’s goals. This communication is essential for all the staff to hear together as they head into battle for the shift: it reminds everyone that they are on the same team.

Training – There should be a portion of your meeting dedicated to training and skill building. This can be a wide range of topics: wine tastings, suggestive selling, safety, customer service models, etc. Write a topics list and build mini-training modules - now you’ve discovered how to add hours of training without additional expense.  During the training module of the meeting, let the staff talk. Too many meetings are filled with a one way flow of information, with managers lecturing their staff.  Have your managers lead an open discussion and engage your staff in role playing exercises. 

Wrap Up – Have your manager’s wrap up their meeting by summarizing the points discussed earlier.  Managers should remind their teams that they will be on the floor with them if they have any questions or issues during the service.

The expression “those who fail to plan, plan to fail”, fits the bill here.  If planned and conducted properly, pre-service meetings can be a tool which greatly improves the staff’s morale and product knowledge. This in turn can reduce the number of mistakes, resulting in a better customer experience, a safer work environment, improved food safety and sanitation, decreased costs and increased profits.

Communicating and discussing a topic at a pre-service meeting then addressing it during a busy service is a very effective way to manage employees. 

Don’t know where to begin?  Ask yourself, do you have the proper written procedures and operational guidelines in place so your manager can help you be as profitable as possible?  4Q Consulting can develop customized operational guidelines and training programs to meet your needs.  Email us today for a free business consultation!

All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2012-2013.