5 Simple, Effective Ways to Manage Restaurant Staff and Service

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

A restaurant's success usually begins with the right staff management strategies and — more importantly — actually executing them. It is a classic mistake for managers to spend a great deal of time and effort setting up all the right processes, but then fail to enforce those rules or make sure their employees are following them.

In today's article, SimERP will share 5 secrets to make managing your restaurant's workforce easier and more effective!

Why Is Restaurant Staff Management Important?

In any business — especially in the restaurant business — staff are the first touchpoint when customers want to buy your products or use your services. The team, from chefs and cashiers to bartenders and servers, are the people who interact with diners directly and most often, and they significantly determine how satisfied customers are with the restaurant's quality of service.

Therefore, to attract and retain customers, staff management is the top priority, covering skills training, professional development, and reasonable compensation. Beyond improving the restaurant's business performance, it also helps boost employee satisfaction so they stay committed and give their all to the business.

5 Ways to Manage Your Restaurant Workforce More Effectively

Organize restaurant staff by department and assign work accordingly.

Managing servers and waitstaff

Servers, waiters, and cleaning staff make up the majority of employees at most restaurants. They are the ones who interact with customers most frequently. That is why a manager must know how to manage the restaurant's service staff comprehensively.

Depending on the restaurant's size and customer traffic, the manager must add service staff accordingly. Then plan and assign specific duties and responsibilities to each person. Note that you should consider each person's capabilities and soft skills to place your staff in the right position with a suitable salary.

Managing kitchen staff and bartenders

For a restaurant to do well and attract and keep customers, it depends not only on service attitude, safety, and cleanliness — the most important thing is the flavor of the food and drinks. That is why chefs and bartenders are critically important people. Their skill and experience are decisive factors for customer traffic and can create the pull that turns diners into loyal customers.

The restaurant manager's task with this team is to recruit and select highly skilled people, especially for the head chef position. Everyone should be assigned positions suited to their abilities. Typically in restaurants, the sous chef assists the head chef with prepping ingredients and preparing simple dishes, while kitchen staff are responsible for cleaning, errands, and so on. This helps avoid unnecessary sulking or conflicts.

Managing accounting and warehouse staff

Accounting and warehouse management are jobs that demand care, honesty, and high professional expertise. The restaurant HR manager must understand this and monitor these roles meticulously and accurately; require staff to submit daily, weekly, and monthly reports so they can keep a full view of income and expenses as well as inventory movements. In addition, thorough, close oversight of these employees also helps you minimize unnecessary risks and address issues promptly.

Establish weekly and monthly methods for evaluating work performance

To manage restaurant staff, managers should set specific goals and objectively evaluate each department and team on a weekly and monthly cycle. One staff management approach recommended by many experts is setting SMART goals. These may be goals you assign to employees, or goals they set for themselves based on the following criteria:

– Specific

– Measurable

– Achievable

– Realistic (Relevant)

– Timely

Example: In Q1 2021, 100% of employees will use the SimERP software proficiently

• Specific: become proficient in using the SimERP business management software

• Measurable: 100% of employees

• Achievable: since most employees were already familiar with the software beforehand, this goal is entirely attainable.

• Relevant: SimERP is software that helps manage a restaurant professionally and effectively. When 100% of employees use it proficiently, it creates operational efficiency for the restaurant.

• Timely: must be completed by the end of Q1 2021.

When the deadline arrives, the manager's job is to rank employees on a scoring ladder based on how well they achieved the goal.

This way, you can easily categorize your staff and offer appropriate benefits and incentives, motivating them to contribute and strive even further.

Communicate and train regularly to keep restaurant staff management tight

Regularly organizing staff training is very important. It not only reinforces and raises employees' capabilities but also helps them understand their own specific jobs and those of other departments, leading to smooth interaction and support between teams.

As a restaurant manager, the first thing after recruiting staff is to train them — both professionally and operationally. After that, you need to hold regular exchange and training sessions on a monthly or quarterly basis for each department. This helps you understand your staff better and helps them improve.

A good manager is someone who can listen to employees; a good employee is someone who absorbs and tries.

Build a reasonable and attractive compensation system

Employees in any industry hope their contributions will be rewarded fairly. As a restaurant HR manager, you should view and evaluate employees' work performance objectively, then offer a full and attractive salary and bonus structure. This not only earns you their respect and affection but also motivates employees to work hard, making them loyal and fully committed to the restaurant's growth. This is extremely important.

In addition, the manager should also establish a set of house rules. Any employee who violates them will face penalties proportionate to the offense. Of course, these rules must be agreed upon unanimously by the restaurant owner and all employees.

Use restaurant staff management software

Thanks to technological advances, many restaurants today use management software to make staff management more organized, easier, and more effective. You can manage HR costs, working hours, and employee productivity all in one system. This saves restaurants a great deal of time and bookkeeping expense, and it also gives the HR manager a clearer, more comprehensive view of the workforce.

Today the market offers many restaurant staff management software products. Depending on scale, headcount, and needs, managers should choose the software that fits.

If you are a small or medium-sized business looking for staff management software, consider SimERP, whose HR management module is trusted by many Vietnamese companies such as Flexfit Furniture, 24hVISA, and others.

SimERP's HR management module has all the essential features of restaurant staff management software, from organizing employees by department and designing policies to managing employee records, timekeeping, and performance evaluation.

Example: In the past, at the end of each month you had to sit down adding up and writing out the employee timesheet to calculate payroll. With SimERP, payroll calculation is built in, based on timekeeping and leave data. You can easily calculate salaries even for dozens or hundreds of employees.

It is fair to say this software not only helps managers monitor staff comprehensively and tightly at any time and place, but also gives employees more motivation to work and contribute more.

Conclusion

Managing a restaurant is like managing the gears of a complex machine, and restaurant HR management is the most important gear. These are the tips that can make managing your restaurant easier. Above all, consider using restaurant staff management software to make your business simpler and more effective.

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