Hiring Quality Employees

May 16, 2017March 8, 2014 by Donna Schim

Hiring Quality Employees

The hiring process starts when the candidate comes into your restaurant and wants to fill out an employment application.

It is best to have on hand a candidate interview scheduling form to be used to schedule interviews. Schedule interviews only when applicants come into your establishment during peak times.

It is ideal that interviews are performed during the off peak times.

Use a telephone reference form to ask certain questions about the previous employer.

If you have time to interview a person than do it instantly. Have your greeter seat the applicant in an area away from customers.

Give the applicant a cold drink or a cup of coffee while they wait for the manager to interview them.

Give the applicant an application to fill out ahead of time before they are interviewed.

If you are scheduling applicant interviews it is best to screen the applicants by conducting past work experience and personal reference checks prior to the interview.

This process will allow you to weed out individuals that have bad reference checks, this saves time and money.

Ask open ended questions. The interviewer talks 20% and the applicant takes 80% of the time.

To get a second opinion have another manager conduct a second interview, two eyes are better than one.

Make the applicant as comfortable as possible.

After you decide if you are going to hire the applicant, you should schedule an orientation to explain the restaurant policies and procedures (Hand Book).

Have the applicant sign a form indicating that they understand the policies and procedures. By signing the form it will act as a paper trail in case it is needed in an unemployment hearing or a civil suit.

Always use employee warning notices, document employee related issues will create a paper trail if needed.

How to write up employees will help you in the long run especially in unemployment hearing and civil suits.

Before hiring an individual, make sure you are clear that following your rules, policies and procedures is a requirement of employment.

Hiring Quality Employees

You can not ask:

Ancestry, national origin, descent, or national
Private organizations
Religious affiliations
Date of birth
Ancestry, national origin, parentage, or nationality
Names and addresses of relatives other than a spouse and dependent children
Marital status or Sex
Height or weight, unless you can show that information is justified by business necessity

When conducting interviews it is very important that you ask legal questions:

Hiring Quality Employees

Questions that you can ask:

Addresses – past and current.
How long have you lived in your specific city.
The applicant’s home or cell phone number or how can we reach you.
If the applicant looks under aged than you can say can you furnish a minor permit to show proof of age. Never ask an applicant their age.
After the applicant is hired than you may have the applicant fill out a I-9 Employment Verification form to verify their identity and age.
You may ask language skills only if it pertains to the position.
You can ask if they are a US Citizen. If the applicant is not a US Citizen than they must have US Visa status.
You can ask about convictions and misdemeanors. You cannot ask about the specific conviction.
It is illegal to ask the applicant about disabilities. However, you can ask if they are fit to perform the specific position.
You can ask the applicant about office skills and professional schools that they may attend.
You can ask about their writing and reading skills, only if they pertain to the position.
You may ask about his or her employment history, names and addresses, dates, salary and why they left the job.
After you hire you can ask about their marriage status for I-9 and W-4 purposes.
They applicant may need to prove that they can perform the job position, heavy lifting, standing for long periods of time. A physical examination may be required.
You can ask an applicant about normal hours and days of work required by the job to avoid possible conflict with religions or other personal convictions.
You can an indicate that your restaurant is an equal opportunity employer.

Cash Control and Food and Drink Waste Control

October 19, 2017July 5, 2013 by Donna Schim

Cash Control and Food and Drink Waste Control

The subject of cash control is a critical one in the restaurant business. To put it simply, the less hands that are involved with the cash, the easier it is to control. This also lessens the opportunities that people would have to steal any money.

Cash Control

It is important to get a reference and background check done on any person that will be handling the money, whether it is a manager or a cashier. There is a fool proof procedure, that if followed correctly, will make it impossible for anyone to steal money from the cash drawer. When the drawer is first given to a cashier at the beginning of their shift, the cashier should verify the drawer funds in front of the manager. The money should be physically counted. Then the cashier will sign a sheet that says they are accepting the drawer and the correct amount of money is in it.

After accepting the drawer and placing it in the register, the cashier should be the only person allowed in the drawer. Not even the manager should be allowed in the cash drawer. If the manager wants to make change, the cashier should open the drawer and give the cash to the manager. This is because a manager could try to steal money from the drawer and blame it on the cashier. The cashier should be the person that is accountable for the money until the end of their shift.

Food and Drink Waste Control

It is important for management to be proactive in order to eliminate potential problems before they get out of control. A manager should be on the floor 90 percent of the time and in the office 10 percent of the time. Management must keep a close eye on employees to make sure they are not giving away free food and drinks. A manager should also do something called a figure eight. This is where the manager starts in the parking lot and walks through the entire restaurant looking for potential problems.

Reasons Why Restaurant Fail

July 9, 2013June 9, 2013 by Donna Schim

Reasons Why Restaurant Fail

I have been in the corporate restaurant business for over 20 + years. Corporate restaurants do have working systems. As long as management follows through on closed-restaurant-why-restaurants-fail executing those policies and procedures consistently, the restaurant will succeed.

About one in four restaurants close or change ownership within their first year of business. Over three years, that number rises to three in five.

While a 60%, failure rate may still sound high, that is on par with the cross-industry average for new businesses, according to statistics from the Small Business Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The most important point is that your business needs to be better than the person next door. Word of mouth is the number one way to advertise, and best of all it is free advertisement.

Too many restaurant owners do not have a working system in place such as:

Labor and food cost control
A Training Program
Systems and Procedures

Well trained managers who consistently follow procedures, give direction and do follow ups

These are just a few working systems that successful restaurants need to prosper. Statistically the cost of a restaurant’s food and labor should not exceed 60% of their sales.

Labor and food cost control

What is Labor cost? The cost of labor is the sum of wages, benefits, and payroll taxes. If you pay too much then you lose money. If you pay too little, then you lose employees. You have to have the right balance based on your sales. Sales include all your food sales, including beverages.

The formula: cost of labor/total sales (x 100%)

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For example if you sell $5000 in a day, and spend $1400 in labor for that day, your labor percent would be 1400/5000 = 0.28 (.28*100%=28%)

The labor percent for restaurants should be from 25% – 35%. This percentage depends on your restaurant style and mix of sales. Fast food restaurants may have labor costs as low as 25%. Restaurants with table service may have 30% – 35% labor costs.

Food costs

Food cost is the percentage of total restaurant sales spent on food products. So this means you need to keep track of your food inventory and how much you paid the vendors for that food. This varies based on what type of food you sell, the costs of food in your area, and how much you buy locally. Food cost is typically in the range of 28% to 30%. A steakhouse will have a higher food cost—30% or higher. You must accurately track your inventory and food costs to determine the total profits for the restaurant.

Training program

There are restaurants that fail every day in the industry because of poor training programs or no training. Training is a part of our lives from birth on. Sometimes training may be by examples, but for the food service industry, it needs to be much more than just an example. You need to make sure that your employee’s understand the importance of sanitation, food safety, portion control, cooking temperatures, storage temperatures, and more. Your service staff needs to know the menu, the style of your restaurant, and the customers you serve. They need to know how to sell the menu—meaning up selling and suggestive selling. They need to know how to Wow the customers. They need a friendly demeanor, a positive attitude and a personality where they can focus on the guest’s needs. Employees do not typically walk into your restaurant with all these skills. They need to be developed and trained properly. They need to be shown the right way, time to practice their skills, and focused management to help them stay on track. The managers need to be well-trained in each area of the restaurant. The management also needs to know how to motivate staff. They should know what each employee should be focused on throughout each shift—what to do when it is busy, and what to do when it is slow.

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