OK, I’ve discussed creative employee retention strategies and how to build bench strength. We’ve learned that “what counts is what stays.” But now let’s focus on how to lose employees.
It’s not that hard. You and I do it every day. Here’s my list of the 6 Worst Practices Relative to employee retention. Hopefully, they don’t sound familiar!
1. Don’t ask new hires what worked, and what didn’t. After your “official” orientation, a good way to increase turnover is to forget to ever ask new employees for feedback on your recruiting system, your orientation, your training program, and your company goals. Your new team members are eager to be with you, so tap into that energetic feedback early on. Find out
what part of your recruiting process or which facet of pure dumb luck brought them to you. What elements of your company’s recruiting, training or reputation were the most compelling, what mattered least, and what had no impact? You can use this feedback to redesign your recruiting ads and improve your training programs to focus on retention.
2. Ignore Tomorrow, Hire for Today. “Next week” is tomorrow in Modern Time. Clearly define and understand what skills and knowledge your company needs today and in the future. Will you have fewer servers per section, more server assistants? Take a hard look at how the cultural gumbo of restaurant management (mixing generation, opinion, style and technology) is changing the very nature of our jobs. How will the preponderance of pre-prepped products affect the design, feel, and number of bodies in the kitchen in the next three years? What about the technology, the robotics, the data accumulated, and exchanged? What about the 3 generations in our workplace?
3. Don’t let your employees know where they stand - good or bad. What’s the old saying? ”Never let either good work go un-praised (if you see it, say it) or poor work go unnoticed (make it private and positive).” A big mistake is to make your orientation training dynamic and compelling and then offering no ongoing learning or motivation. It’s critical to keep the energy and enthusiasm going beyond the first week into the next 30, 60, 90 days. This helps avoid the classic “sophomore slump” of higher turnover from occurring. Nurture your team.
4. Not planning for turnover. As Michael McLaughlin said in a recent Workforce magazine: ”Maybe if you keep your eyes closed, you won’t see the rush for the door when the economy picks up again. “ Sound pessimistic…or prescient? You be the judge. Starting NOW, let’s invest in keeping our good people with us. And make our not-so-good better.
5. Fail to change with the times (or the times will change you.) Here is a GameOn! Law: the meaning of service is always changing since the customer is always changing. And, therefore, the meaning of any restaurant job or position is always changing because that customer (internal) is always-changing too. So make sure that you stay in sync with but slightly ahead of your customers (both employees and guests). As Norman Brinker says: “major in timing. If you get too far ahead of your customers, you’ll confuse them. If you get too far behind them, you’ll lose them.”
6. Play by the Rules. Lots of them. A sure way to turnover more people is to over-burden them with rules and regulations. A better philosophy? Strong culture, thin rulebook. And it’s helpful to also recognize the difference between rules and principles. Rules tell your people what they can do. Principles them what they cannot do. And as far as rules go, the bottom line is that only one thing matters anyway and Norman Brinker once again said it best: “Nothing is sacred other than that the guest returns.”
About Me
- Jeffrey Summers
- I am the expert you call when you need to learn how to increase top line sales, lower your operating costs, increase your profit margin, hire and train better managers and staff, evolve your operation into more and better ways of doing business, buy or sell a restaurant, improve your service, engineer (or re-engineer!) your menu, market your business better and less expensively, keep yourself from going nuts because you have no life anymore, open more and better restaurants, don't want to have to give up your first born child to pay a consultant and have more fun! My mission is to enhance the quality of life for my clients by providing the best products and services to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. I take great pride in my clients, my company, my commitment to service and the products I sell. I am a recognized expert in the hospitality industry with over 24 years of success at planning and executing strategies for delivering dramatic results, a former "GM of the Year" for 2 major, full-service, franchises, an Award winning Multi-Unit Executive with 2 of the largest restaurant chains in the U.S., published author, husband and father of two.