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12 January/February
May/June 2013 |2014
Canadian
| Canadian
Restaurant
Restaurant
& Foodservice
& Foodservice
News News
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The
Leadership
Effect
How hiring the right people can improve your
business operations
By Matt Rolfe
The hospitality industry has gone through more changes in the last five
years than in the previous 20. If one thing is certain, it’s that there will
be more change, and more competition, in 2014. How can you put more
daylight between yourself and the competition? At Barmetrix, we have
studied hundreds of businesses—many of which are now considered in
the top one per cent of operators. These locations earn multiples of
profit from average operations, have staff engagement and retention
rates much higher than the competition, and deliver a consistently
remarkable experience to keep guests returning time after time.
www.restaurantcentral.ca
www.restaurantcentral.ca
| January/February
| May/June 2014
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We cannot do all things in 2014, but what would it mean
if you focused on a few areas for maximum impact? Maybe
attracting only the best employees, and hiring only the best
leaders, not just managers, to actually lead your business?
If positive staff recognition became a regular part of your
company culture, what impact would it have on your
business, your staff and your guests? As ever-growing
competition enters the marketplace, the businesses that will
not just survive but will thrive are those that get really
focused on a few key areas of their business. They identify
and attack the areas that matter most.
This is often easier said than done. Our industry is known
for spending time on urgent business problems while
neglecting key areas that make a long-term impact. The
areas that need focus are important, but not urgent. Your
recruiting and filtering strateg y and your employee
recognition and company culture are two of these areas. No
matter how big or small your team or your operations, the
following exercises can have a positive impact.
If you want to see great things
occur more often in your business,
celebrate when you see them
happen.
Attracting Amazing Applicants
With so many openings for great managers,
servers, bartenders and cooks, how does your
business attract the very best? It starts with
the job ad. Before we get to the solutions, here
are a few questions for you to think about and
score yourself on a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being
terrible and 10 being industry-leading):
• How different is your ad from what the competition is
publishing or posting?
• How does your job ad describe your company culture and
what it truly means to work in your restaurant?
• Does your job ad use video or images to allow applicants
to get a feel for the people currently working in your
business?
I could go on Craigslist.com or Kijiji.com or even many of
the paid sites and easily pull down 20 job ads with the same
language and format: Requirements, start date and basic
skills. If I took the restaurant name off most of the
postings and put them side by side, it would prove difficult
to tell them apart.
An ad like this makes it next to impossible for “A” players
to identify with your company, which means that your
managers will be interviewing dozens of candidates in the
coming year that do not relate to your company culture or
job opportunity. This is a waste of both your and the
candidate’s time.
We urge our clients to look at their job ads like a magnet.
They are meant to attract the right candidates to your
business and repel the ones that won’t really fit. Be bold in
your job ad. Talk about what it is like to work on your team
and to be part of your culture. The fact is, not all applicants,
no matter how experienced, will fit your business—don’t
14 January/February 2014 | Canadian Restaurant & Foodservice News
apologize for your culture, celebrate it! Having a strong,
honest and candid job ad will have a huge impact on who
shows up to your interviews.
5 Tips for Creating a Great Job Ad
1.Think of your best employee in the role for which you
are hiring. Write down the top three things he or she
does, that you wish all of your employees did daily.
Include these in your job ad as an expectation for the
position.
2.Think of the last person(s) you had to let go from the
position you’re trying to fill. Why did you have to let
them go? What did they do that caused their exit?
Include those things as a cause for dismissal without
question in your job ad.
3.Include three of your core values in the job ad. Your
business does have core values, right? Explain that all
employees live those values every day, and make the
case for why they affect the guest experience and
company culture.
4.Include a picture of your team – front of house, back
of house or both. This image will give candidates a
human face for your business.
5.Take out your smartphone and video interview
someone currently working in that position. In 60
seconds, have the employee being interviewed list the
top three things they love about your business and
company culture, and make a short statement on what
they would say to anyone considering applying for the
role. This short video can then be posted on a private
YouTube channel and the link
can go in the job ad; it can also be
posted on your social media
pages and website.
Many of our clients have adopted
the points above and really put
some time into them. They in turn
have attracted great candidates to
their businesses who connect with
their culture – and saved thousands
o n p o o r h i r e s a n d e m p l oye e
turnover.
Management and Leadership Positions
No matter how large or small your operation is, you have
leaders in your business – people who not only manage
required processes, but whom your employees look to for
direction and guidance. For most operations this is your
management team. With more and more operations
opening across Canada, attracting great management is
getting more challenging each year. The process above
will help you attract more of the right management
talent to your business.
The next step is the interview. This is the time to fully dive into
the applicant’s experience and talents, as well as how they feel
about, and connect with, your operation. It is proven that staff
don’t quit your business; they quit your management teams! We
also know that the best businesses have great managers and
leaders in place. To make sure that your next management hire is
the right fit for your business, we recommend the following
exercise as part of your interview process.
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up being recognized for everything they do: Participation
ribbons for all sports, positive recognition from their
teachers no matter what the grade. We might not agree
with this but the fact is that these staff members are
looking for more recognition from you and your managers.
The great news is that recognition is free! The best
businesses have a strong focus on recognition programs.
This increases staff engagement and retention and
improves the overall workplace culture, which in turn will
positively impact your guest experience. Here are two
simple solutions to improve your recognition program.
10 Pennies (or other small coin if you no longer carry
the now-defunct penny) – This is one of the simplest
Management Candidate Mystery Shop
Once a management candidate has passed the initial
interview stage, have them perform a mystery shop on
your business. Provide the candidate a gift card or cash,
and ask them to come in and eat and drink during a peak
period in your business. Tell the candidate that, in the
next interview, they should be prepared to show your
leadership team in 30 minutes the three things they feel
you are doing very well, the three things you need to
improve, and any other insights they would like to share.
This will allow you to learn some important things about
your candidates:
• Do they see the core things you do with excellence the
same way you do? You know what you do at a great level
day in and day out, and your managers should share this
opinion and be able to identify what you do best.
•Do they see the opportunities that connect with your
current focus? Are they picking up on areas you are looking
to improve? Too often, we have seen a manager hired that
looks to take the business in a new direction and is in
immediate conflict with the ownership and staff.
• How do they take notes and share their feedback? We
have seen candidates come in with their notes written on
a napkin, and others with a Powerpoint presentation.
Allow them to choose how they will present to you, and
it will reveal a lot about their organizational perspective.
You will have different expectations depending on
whether your business is casual or formal.
The presentation will also allow you to see how they
convey important information: How they speak, their
body language, their eye contact. Remember, you are
hiring leaders! Monkeys can manage tasks, but people lead
people. How they present to you is how they will
communicate to your staff in the future.
processes and something we have learned over the years is
a great tool, although not our idea. Have each of your
managers put 10 pennies in their pocket at the start of a
shift. Every time they verbally recognize an employee for
providing great service or following process to a “T,” they
move a penny from one pocket to the other. At the end of
the night they can count how many people they have
recognized by the number of pennies they have moved
from one pocket to the other. This is a conditioning
process for your managers; simple but very effective.
Green Book – To build on the 10 penny exercise, we ask
our clients to have a green book. Each shift the lead
manager writes down three great things they saw happen
in the business that shift and who was responsible for the
great execution. This book should be left somewhere so all
staff can read it to learn by example. We also urge the
managers that are performing your pre-shift meetings to use
the book to publicly recognize someone for great best practice.
This does two things: Increases your frequency of celebrating
employees and also allows you to share best practice with
everyone on the team. This will increase your chances of these
best practices happening in your business more often. When
celebrating someone, have them explain if it increased their
tips, generated great customer feedback, or cut out time or
unnecessary effort in a process. Make it matter to the
employees and you will start to see this behaviour spread
throughout your business.
The thing that will separate average businesses from
excellent ones moving forward is their staff. Thousands
of new venues opened their doors in Canada in 2013, and
many are after your customer. In 2014, thousands more
will open and thousands will close. I challenge you to
focus on getting the best team possible in your business;
having a great leadership team to lead your business not
just manage it; and celebrating great behaviour or
performance more often. The best of operations do these
things by design.
Recognition Programs:
Celebrating Best Practice
If you want to see great things occur more
often in your business, celebrate when you see
them happen. It’s easy to fixate on the issues in
your business, or the complaints and challenges.
Focusing on the negatives for too long can
have a negative effect on your company culture.
Many of your staff are Generation Y and have grown
Matt Rolfe is the CEO of Barmetrix Global, a hospitality coaching and
consulting firm dedicated to helping their clients increase profits through
improved inventory control, staff training and engagement exercises and
retail pricing strategy evaluation. For more details or instruction on any of
the exercises above please email Matt direct for more information at
[email protected] or visit www.barmetrix.com
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