Anybody who has worked in a restaurant knows that it’s hard and stressful. Many things can go wrong: the margins are tight, the cooks work near hot temperatures and sharp knives, customers can be demanding or even skip the bill, and lots more.
The pressure affects all restaurant employees, but the manager is ultimately accountable for everybody. Here are a few good tips to help your restaurant manager succeed in their job.
Restaurant Scheduling Software
Managers love new technology like restaurant scheduling software, which makes it possible to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to create a schedule that works for every employee. Schedules can be automated, while also permitting employees to indicate their availabilities and request days off.
In addition to creating schedules quickly, this cloud-based software can help manage your staff easily by delivering a full suite of other important functions, such as manager log books and convenient communicationtools. It’s really an all-in-one software solution tailor made for restaurants.
Feedback from the Best Source
Sometimes managers rely on technology to give them feedback from customers, but there’s a much more direct way to get it—walk up to the customers and ask them their opinions. Encourage your managers to do this graciously, without interrupting their meal. Digital feedback is great too, but looking at somebody’s face as they describe what they liked and didn’t like about the restaurant is invaluable. Plus, it builds rapport with your clientele, and shows them you care.
After talking with enough of your customers, you’ll have substantial ground-level knowledge about whether the restaurant’s concept is working, what dishes are the most popular, and countless other things a restaurant manager needs to know.
Help Them Cultivate Leadership Skills
“Leadership” is a word that gets tossed around a lot, and there isn’t only one way to become a leader. But there are some basic underlying qualities that great leaders have in common, and creating an atmosphere that develops leadership skills will make your managers better professionals, and help improve the restaurant overall.
- Patience: it’s understandable that your manager is stressed, but so is everyone working in a restaurant! Perpetually remembering how busy and stressed your colleagues are makes it easier to sympathize when they make a mistake.
- Positive attitude: workplace positivity is not about forcing the appearance of joy. Rather, it should result from fitting in with the restaurant’s core values and enjoying camaraderie with colleagues. Nobody is always positive, but the right manager in the right restaurant with the right team should be. If an otherwise happy manager is behaving negatively at work, show confidence in them: it could be a sign something elsewhere in the restaurant needs to be tweaked or adjusted.
When a manager is supported by modern restaurant software, direct feedback from restaurant patrons, and an environment devoted to fostering real leadership qualities, they will be on a path to success that is sure to improve the whole restaurant.