"Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
- Sun Tzu ("Art of War")
“If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” This would be another great quote for this area. Too many people restaurant work is a simple concept. And, well, in a lot of ways it can be. But, this is usually by those that have done it long enough that they can make it look easy – much like anything else. However, for the others out there they get caught up in the “concept” of a restaurant and not the actual concept of their restaurant. Now, what I mean by this is they think they just need to open the doors and people come in, you feed them, they leave, you clean up, and then you lather, rinse, and repeat. And, well, in a lot of ways that’s exactly what we are doing. However, even though the name of the game isn’t rocket science it doesn’t mean that there’s not a little bit of science involved. You can pretty much sum up the job of an owner or a manager into two main groups (and the best I can tell this isn’t just for restaurants this is for any business): 1) to get people in the front door and to instill a desire for them to want your services again, and 2) to maximize the profits of each of these guests that enter the building by upselling and minimizing costs. Now, how can you do either of those two things if you don’t have some form of plan?
One of the first things that should be addressed when talking about the plan is scheduling. After all, how could you possibly achieve either of those two things mentioned above without having some form of schedule? Scheduling is more than just filling in squares on a board and filling spaces with a body. I’ve seen this kind of place that just throws some bodies on the schedule just to say they’ve done it and, well, I just don’t see those places around anymore. Scheduling is the first step in building your plan. And, without doing it right and accurately could not only cost you guests but could cost you whatever profits are coming in. Now, with that being said it would be impossible for me to cover every possible scheduling requirement out there for every possible restaurant (this is similar to hiring needs mentioned earlier). However, I can still go over some universal truths that are good whether you’re writing a front-of-the-house schedule, a prep schedule, a back-of-the-house schedule or even a manager schedule.
Know your audience! This is the first step. It seems like the simplest, and in many ways it is and, yet, at the same time it is complex. Know your audience begins with your guests. It has too! Think about it. How could you possibly write a schedule for your staff if you don’t know what your guests want? When are you the busiest? When are you the slowest? Are there events near you that will draw a crowd? If so, what kind of crowd will it be? Do you have banquets or parties planned? Do you have catering functions? All of these (and more) are concepts that you should be thinking about before you even think about writing your schedule. And, in some method or another they should be noted to remind you when writing but to also alert your staff that is working of what to expect!
Think about the last part of that last sentence, “to also alert your staff that is working of what to expect!” You can’t possibly talk about teamwork and camaraderie if you keep information that will be directly affecting your staff. And, you want them to be prepared, as well.
So, once you know when the busy times are going to be, what events you have going on around your establishment, and what events you may have going on at your facility, it is now time to start making your schedule. It is a good idea to always work on your schedules to a point that you are twice as far ahead as the time it takes to train staff members. For example, if you can typically train a staff member in about a week, then you should have your schedule written two weeks ahead of time, at minimum. This gives you enough time to know if you need individuals, to interview candidates, hire them and get them trained before you would actually need them. Once again, when writing your schedules always have them written ahead at least twice the time frame as your training. The further you are ahead the more time you will have to make modifications to your schedule to be better prepared for upcoming events / shifts. You want to be proactive and not reactive!
You now have a schedule format that should have a list of what kind of events are going on around or at your facility. You should be aware of what your peak times are and what your slow times are. Now most schedules are written in fairly similar formats. You will have the days / times that you are open at the top of the schedule and you will have the staff members names listed down the side of the schedule. I typically will add to this by blocking out the times that staff members are not available to work and which times they prefer not to work. By being aware of which times staff members would like off it shows them that their time is important to me (and the restaurant) just like the time they give me is also important to me (and the restaurant). It also helps down the road if I need additional help for a specific time that may be abnormally busy for a particular unique reason.
Now comes the fun part – putting it altogether. Over the years of working in the restaurant business I can honestly say that shifts that went bad went that way because of poor planning, by reacting to situations. So, we have to begin planning now, during the schedule. We have to start being proactive, now. When putting together the schedule we should at least visualize how the shift will go and where people will be when we’re writing it. If our vision of the shift and the way we are writing it makes us uneasy, then we probably should rewrite it to make us feel a bit better. After all, if we’re uncomfortable with it, then how do we think our guests are going to feel?
Before actually filling in the schedule there is one other set up procedure that I do. I organize my staff listing by three groups. Now, I don’t actually separate them on the schedule with a line, box or category. But, I will put them in order from the best (on top) to the least experienced (on the bottom). The method that I go about doing this is by breaking the staff up into three groups: A, B, and C employees.
“A” employees are always ahead of the curve. They know all operations of the job (and possibly others). They consistently shine, incorporate teamwork and act as a leader for the rest of the team. “B” employees are consistent. They may not be the best but they have a solid grasp of their job and are able to maintain it under stressful situations. They have the potential to become an “A” employee but they may require more time, more guidance or possibly even a nudge in the right direction. “C” employees are in one of two categories. Either they are new on staff and haven’t had enough time to get the overall fundamentals down or they just are falling behind the curve.
Obviously, your attention needs to be on which side the “C” employees lie on. If it is because of lack of experience, then we need to make sure that we don’t overwhelm them by staffing them during the busier shifts. This will inevitably just frustrate them, other staff members, and our guests. This is a no win situation. Even if the staff member is showing promise you still want to bring them in at consistent pace. If the problem is that the staff member has been on staff for a while but is just following below the curve, then the next step with that is a bit trickier. First, you need to determine whether or not it is because of their skill or their attitude. If they are falling behind the abilities of others, then you need to speak with them and offer additional training. You’ve already invested a lot of time and money into their initial stages of training you can’t just let them go without giving it some more time and attention. If it’s because of their attitude, temperament or ability to get along with other staff members, then once again you will have to talk with them, and for the same reason. You interviewed them, you hired them and you trained them. You have a lot invested in them and there must have been something that you saw at the beginning to bring them onboard. You need to speak to them and explain once again what your expectations are and how they are falling short. You should never keep someone on staff out of necessity. The moment you allow this then you have become a hostage to your staff and their expectations not yours. So, when writing the schedule we have one other thing that we need to keep in mind: to improve the Cs to Bs, the Bs to As, and to help the As stay where they are.
As you begin to write your schedule you will want to begin with the shifts that are the busiest. During these shifts, you will want to staff the majority of your “A” staff members and a few of your “B” staff members. You definitely want to run, at minimum, 75% of your staff as the “A” individuals. If you’re going to be the busiest and have the opportunity to impact the largest amount of guests, then you want to have the best people available to give the best impression! There’s no point getting 400 people through the door if you’re just going to piss off 350 of them! And, your staff should know that this is how you work it! Now, if the staff members that work these shifts are tipped employees, then they will obviously receive instant gratification from working these busier shifts. However, if these individuals are hourly employees, then you need to make sure to compensate them justifiably; especially, if they have to work consistently on the busier shifts (busier shifts can mean more stress and they need to be compensated to help justify this). I’ve seen a lot of managers that have lost great people due to burn out factor! Being in the weeds is a real stressful situation and if you consistently keep hammering away your great people on busy shifts without compensation, then you will lose them! And, I’ve seen people lost for a quarter an hour!! Think about it. Let’s say an average shift on a busy night is 6 hours; heck, let’s say its 8 hours. And, let’s assume that you have 3 busy shifts a week like this and during these shifts you need 6 “A” cooks to work. So, to compensate these individuals perhaps you decide to pay them an extra $1 / hour. So, that’s an extra $8 / cook or $48 each shift for a total of $144 / week. Is it worth it? What if these cooks make less mistakes (saving food costs), follow proper recipes (saving food costs), excel at ticket times (satisfying guests and increasing table turns), and deliver fantastic meals that entice guests for future visits (increasing future sales)? Is it worth it now? What if by having just any “B” or “C” cook on you have to recook an average of 3 plates an hour? Or, you have food coming out slower or lower than your standards and as a result you are buying that food? What if your ticket times leaving the kitchen are slower and this impacts all of your guests entering the restaurant for that shift? How much will that cost you? $50? $100? $300 – or, worse? What if you realize all of these scenarios may happen and you decide to adapt your schedule to account for these “potential” problems and in the process you have to schedule one extra cook? Now, how much are you spending? Rewarding outstanding employees and having your schedule reflect this not only takes care of your staff members; it takes care of your guests, it takes care of you and it takes care of your restaurant. So, remember taking a little bit of time thinking about how you put together your schedule and compensating accordingly can go a long way. 