Get more bang for you’re buck out of your Restaurant Staff!
By: Mike Markham
Tags: Food, Business, Hospitality Management, Restaurant, Business Strategy

Regardless of what it is I purchase, I’m sure I want the feeling of more value than the money in my pocket!

Well, it should be no different when it comes to your staff, after all before a customer has bought a thing or even entered a foot into your establishment, they’re already costing you money.

Getting more value for money out of staff and business in general is not a new concept and when we employ this within businesses, we’ve not invented fire or the wheel even though many Restaurants may believe we have. We measure the Productivity of your staff and businesses and Countries have been measuring this essential element for years!

Measuring Staff Productivity is the equivalent to measuring how much fuel your car gets to the gallon or measuring the impacts of inflation on the household income. Its all about how far is my money going, how hard is it working and what’s the return.

Here is a little example, in a Restaurant you will know that there are periods when service is typically slower and busier, like a midweek evening having low footfall and Mothers Day being busy. Now, you can either trust to your experience that the midweek service will not require as many staff and conversely that Mothers Day will need more staff, but this is not an exact science and could cause too many or few staff being on shift. Either way, it will cost the Restaurant profits!

The alternative is to continually monitor and measure productivity. Why?

Simple. It tells you how many customers your staff are serving per hour and better yet it confirms how much it is costing your business to serve just one customer. If you discover that overall your Front of House staff are serving an average for 3 customers per hour, you’ve either very unproductive staff or potentially too many on shift. Equally, if your staff are serving 20 customers per hour, its most likely you were understaffed for that shift.

If you’re overstaffed, you lose profits because it costs more per customer for service. If you’re understaffed, you lose profits because quality of service is typically impacted, which results in poor customer retention and reviews.

So, how do you measure staff productivity?

Productivity is measured by dividing an Output by an Input. For example:

No. Customers divided by the Total Staff hours

Even better, you can actually measure an individual staff members productivity too:

No. Customers served by Person A on shift divided Person A’s hours on shift

This means you can identify the staff that provide more productivity and also any potential performance gaps within your team.

Maths is not my thing, although it is for sum…sorry, poor joke!

On a serious point, however, this mundane and relatively simple equation can give such an important insight into your Restaurant. After all, the most costly elements in a Restaurant are the people and the produce.

Let me ask you this, what if you could accurately determine how many staff are needed on shift? What if you could pin point those staff members that needed more training or had performance concerns? What if you could accurately determine how many staff it takes to give the level of service your customers expect and deserve but at a price which maximises your profits? What if you could increase the profits of your Restaurant?

Now, at this point I’ll be honest. If you’re saying no, or not sure to any of these questions, stop reading! If time is money, I’ve just saved you some, because this won’t help you. If you’re interested in actually having a successful Restaurant, then this is your blog!

How many of your other Restaurant friends/ associates are sitting down and calculating their staff productivity?

Answer, NONE! It’s Zero!

In all likelihood, every Restaurant around you is simply kicking their legs hoping to keep their head above water and blaming the rest of the World for their Restaurant failing. Great!

That makes this little sum worth so much more to you. Whilst their flailing their arms in a pool regretting not wearing the arm bands, you’re about put your flippers on an turbo charge your Restaurant. Providing high quality service and food to your customers at a rate that maximises your Restaurant profits, whilst simultaneously providing excellent food quality, service and atmosphere that increases customer loyalty, word-of-mouth and positive reviews.

The competition around you is going to wonder, why during such hard times you’re doing so well and they’re just drowning.

As I said before, this is not new! Its just so few businesses, especially restaurants employ it and if they do monitor it, they’re blissfully unaware of the impacts it can have. In some cases we can show a Restaurateur all of the above, give them the tools that we apply and even though they understand and believe in it, they still do not apply it. You can lead the horse to water, but short of drowning it, you can make it drink.

Unfortunately, so many business know everything we’ve described but lack the Action and Commitment to follow it through.

You may also be that person or Restaurant, but I hope for every one that passes on this because it sounds like ‘hard work’ there will be one that we can help ourselves and 5 that will follow it through themselves. I love the Restaurant industry and when an establishment performs as it should, you experience memories, celebrations with people you love in a venue that provides great food, service and atmosphere. Having so many great Restaurants with great potential fail, is a scenario we can help many to avoid.

So measuring Staff Productivity in an environment that barely recognises such a concept and doing it on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis is going to help you and your Restaurant to become more profitable. This is the starting point, not the finish and there are so many other elements at play here, but this tool will give you an insight into where your priorities should be!

If you would be interested in FREE support for your business to increase profits, click this link: