Mr. Escoffier

Food & Beverage

F&B Insight: Saving Your Best Personnel in These Tough Economic Times

By Marcel Escoffier, Associate Professor, FIU School of Hospitality Management

By now, you should have a handle on how bad your business really has been. You have closed as many facilities as you believe necessary; while maintaining a level of customer service required of a hotel with your ratings and strategies. Hopefully, you have taken my previous advice and have trimmed back on your menu offerings, are offering some reduced price items, and otherwise trying to keep your guests dining in-house. It is the start of the Fall, or, at least, the end of the Summer, and you are ready for that turn around in the economy that everyone has been predicting. Your marketing people should be finishing up their forecasts concerning how the general occupancy of your property will be in the upcoming few months. Hopefully occupancy is predicted to rise by the end of this year, or, maybe, by the first quarter of next year. Let's think of this period of time as a launching pad for what everyone hopes will be a better 2010! Even if all of what I have just written is not happening at your property just yet, it is happening at other properties around the country. Soon it will be your turn. It is time to plan for better times - whenever they may come. Management Basics: What's Important When Planning for a Recovery

The most important management activity right now is to plan for improved economic conditions. What will be your hotel's strategy when things improve? Can you out perform in your market? Irrespective of the property's overall strategy, the F+B Director needs to prepare the food and beverage department for certain inevitabilities in the months ahead. Eventually, hotel occupancy will rise. In most locations around the country it will begin with a rise in business travel. You do have a food outlet or two that caters to business travelers? You did revise those menus so as to offer less expensive options for the business traveler whose company has imposed travel allowance restrictions? Well, now is the time to consider offering some food and drink options which can allow the business traveler to celebrate a success or two during their hotel stay. It is too early to fully revise the menus to go back to the good old free spending days, but some opportunities for some of your business travelers to splurge would be both appreciated by them and profitable to you. Another market that you need to address is the tour and travel market. Marketing people tend to undersell food and beverage when contracting with this marketing. The Euro is very strong against the Dollar, so foreign travelers should be expected to pay a bit more for their food and beverages. Work with your marketing people on this, and be prepared for a better late winter and 2010 summer experience. If business is about to improve in the next few months, then you will need to consider staffing requirements. It is still too early to actually begin to hire staff, but now is the time to consider how to do it the right way. These decisions begin with understanding who you have now on staff and how they will be utilized to train and oversee any new people when business actually begins to improve significantly. A Personnel Inventory Tells You Who is Important

Just as your accounting people maintain an inventory or list of assets, your human resources people should be maintaining an inventory of your employees. Unfortunately, most hotel HR departments simply track the dates of hire, vacation or sick time taken, and disciplinary actions necessary for each employee. This level of detail (or lack of detail) mirrors what the accounting people do with your equipment.

What you need is a fair appraisal of the special qualities each of your employees possesses, and how those qualities compare between employees. You may have a cook who seems especially adept at coaxing the best yield out of your meats, or someone in the pastry department who can make really good breads. These production workers are well known to your chef and their skills need to be recognized and rewarded. There will come a time when their skills will be useful for training new hires. A record of these capabilities will help you schedule training as the economy gets better. On the service side, certainly your dining managers know which waiters seem especially good at selling those extra items, or bartenders who mix certain drinks with flair and expertise. If not, they should begin to record data that reflects these qualities at once. The POS system can generate data on comparative sales ability, guest appreciation (this is done in several ways) and efficiency (table turns, time measures, etc.) An inventory of these attributes will become a guide to designing effective training for your new service personnel. What you need to assign is an overall score to every employee; who are best at serving customers, who seem especially productive in the kitchens? While all of us were created equal in the eyes of the law, good F+B Directors know that employees are not all equal in their skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Some are model employees and some, well, are not. Incentives That Build Employee Loyalty

The challenge confronting the F+B Director right now is to retain those model employees until the hotel business picks up again. We want them as the core for what will, hopefully, be a bigger and better operation when things start jumping! Two impediments to realizing this goal are:

• First, the really good ones could see times improving and jump ship for better opportunities at other properties.

• Second, they could get discouraged with the lag between increased business activity (i.e., more work) and the hiring of new personnel. This may cause them to drop out of the business altogether. Our task is to maintain their loyalty so they are ready for the upcoming turnaround.

So what works? What can we do to keep these people? OK, here is a big revelation; in the forty-four years that I have worked in hotels and restaurants I've learned a couple of things. Most importantly, I have learned that there is no one, single magic bullet that managers can use that will motivate each and every employee all the time.

Step 1 - Forget what all those management textbooks say, or what management gurus who publish sure fire ways to motivate in all those business magazines would have you believe, or what you may have been taught in school or at various management seminars. The only really effective way to motivate a specific person is to push his or her "special motivation button;" the thing or things which specifically motivate him or her. But, it isn't impossible or even difficult to do, just a bit time consuming. You, as F+B Director can't do it all by yourself (unless you are in a very small establishment.) You will need to get your managers up to speed on this. Get them to assemble an inventory of who they consider to be their best employees. Quiz the manager on the criteria they used to determine "best". If it is something like, "the least screw-ups" or some other somewhat derogatory comment like that, then you will need to work with the manager to get him on the right track. "Best" should mean an employee who is efficient in their job (seems to be able to do their job with little supervision and seems to handle minor problems without the need to call in a manager), effective at what they do (in the kitchen that's production, out front its providing a positive customer experience.) And who seems to get along well with their fellow employees and managers.

Step 2 - Get the manager to uncover and report on those "best" employee's motivational "buttons". Without delving too deeply into motivational theory, suffice it to say that these "buttons" generally come from three sources; "buttons" within the employee (their personal likes and dislikes, their personnel beliefs and attitudes, and their own goals and aspirations), another source is job-related "buttons" (do we provide them with the necessary tools to do their jobs effectively, are our policies fair and reasonable, do co-workers and managers seem to be a help or a hindrance in doing their job), finally, there are "buttons" outside of work (like their family situation, or community or societal pressures.) No, I am not saying that the manager needs to psychoanalyze the employee, just get to know what the employee wants and needs. A hint; in my experience most of the time these wants and needs boil down to a need for self esteem, a feeling of belonging, or, perhaps, one or two very specific monetary or time needs (like time off to pick up the kids after school, or money to buy the kids new cloths for the upcoming school year.) Beware of vague needs (like, "I want to be a millionaire.") These unspecific utterances have never proven to be very effective "buttons" with which to motivate employees.

Step 3 - Once a manager has some idea of what the employee wants, step three is to work with, not against our employees as they strive to achieve what they believe is essential to them (i.e., allow them to push their own "buttons".) This boils down to positive statements and actions on our part, sometimes called "positive reinforcement," and the elimination of what the employee may perceive as road blocks to achieving their work goals. Our employees who derive their principal earnings through tips need to be kept busy. Some dining room managers like to have a lot of waiters scheduled just in case things get really busy. This is a mistake. Too many waiters reduce the tips received per waiter; good waiters will go elsewhere to get the kind of tips that motivate them. Too many waiters reduce service. I don't know why, and it isn't just me who has noticed this, but a dining room works more efficiently when things are jumping than when things are slow. And, too many waiters allows employees time to get into trouble ("idle hands are the Devil's playthings.") Not enough "buttons" will be pressed when you over schedule waiters. The non-tip earning employees derive their motivation in a couple of ways. Uppermost is self esteem. This includes recognition by the managers (the Executive Chef) for work well done, but also peer acceptance (recognition by their fellow cooks for outstanding accomplishments) and customer feedback. Another "button" is self-improvement, learning some new skill or becoming more expert in tasks they already perform. Culinary competitions, formal training programs, and recognition by others will all push this important "button". Paying for the cook to enter a competition or to take extra training is relatively inexpensive (or can be if structured correctly.) Think of this as pushing two small "buttons" - pay and self-improvement - rather than one big "button". As to pay, well, I started out this article by saying that economic times are tough but about to get better. The pay "carrot" need not be an immediate reward, but a promise to reward at some time in the not too distant future has worked. Also, pay "button" can also be pushed when we reduce effort (i.e., the work.) Pay considerations often boil down to some balancing of work versus reward. Reduce the work and, even if the amount paid stays the same, the reward seems higher.

The communal feel of many kitchens can be its own special "button". Does your culinary team feel like a team? Can't they work together in some community event? (A double "button" push here as it improves motivation and builds some public relations.) There are numerous charity events that you could participate in that would be inexpensive and rewarding. I just got back from a trip where several hotel culinary teams worked with local farmers to prepare meals for a charity event. The cost to the hotel was the cost of cleaning the uniforms and transporting the pots and pans. The cooks donated their time and the farmers donated the food. Using this kind of innovative thinking, costs need to be contained, we can easily get carried away here, but a few hundred dollars spent wisely can make a big difference in improving employee loyalty.

OK - Let's Build Customer Loyalty:

We now know who our "best" employees are. Now it is time to show off what our "best" people can do. Out front, we need to have a smarter than average dining room host or hostess. They need to seat our "best" customers at tables served by our "best" employees. Alas, the days when a Maitre d'h^otel knew the names of all the regular guests is long past. But here is where we can utilize two tools to help us. First among those tools is to provide our best customers with some kind of reward for being our best customers. A coupon in the form of a nice greeting card to be presented to the host or hostess upon entering the dining room would be nice. It serves the dual purpose of getting our best customers to dine with us. The coupon may be for a drink, a dessert, or even a discount off of the meal (that doesn't work as well when the guest is on an expense account.) Or it may provide entr'ee into the best area of the dining room, a view, a special area, something. The other way to help recognize our "best" customers is to ask all out customers for their room number upon entering and use the POS to look them up. Clumsy, perhaps, but it worked with my wife and me at one top flight hotel in Amsterdam recently. Why link our "best" customer and waiter? One reason is to push that loyalty "button" - for both people! Great service and a great gratuity solves both marketing objectives and our human resources objective.

But every F+B Director should know all this. The real challenge is making guests into "best" customers. That is, taking the first timer or occasional guest and encouraging them to become regular or frequent guests. Management gurus have been working on this challenge. In the days of TQM there was employee empowerment. Some chains encouraged their employees to address service errors with instant solutions. Often this involved some kind reduction to the amount due - a free room, or a free meal, etc. The idea has been revised by Hyatt and is now used to build customer loyalty. It is now called a "random act of kindness". This newest incantation entails a free drink, free meal, free in room movie, etc. This idea could work; who doesn't like something free? It could build, or certainly enhance, customer loyalty. But the downside is a possible reduction to employee loyalty. If the free item doesn't result in some perceived benefit to the employee (say, a tip) then it might reduce employee motivation. Why give something away when you get a more tangible reward by charging for it? To my way of thinking, this is a great idea with a potential for failure if not administered correctly. We will need to track these give-aways, just as we track coupons or other reduced fare transactions. Also, we will have to measure tip income and note any downward drift in them (you are tracking tip income?) Anything that increases customer loyalty at the expense of our employees is not acceptable. How about increasing customer loyalty through increasing overall customer satisfaction? This is done by increasing the service provided by all those employees who are not currently "best" employees. As I have said previously, there are three things we can training our employees to do better; increase their skill levels, increase their knowledge of the job, and improve their attitudes. That last one, attitude enhancement, is the toughest.

Perhaps the only advantage of tough economic times is that we need not tolerate employees who have negative attitudes; it should be easier to find new ones who have acceptable attitudes. We want people who care, who have pride in what they do, and who know how to be polite, even when confronted with someone who may not be as polite and mannered as they. The golden rule applies here, "do unto the customer as you would have them do unto you," is a very appropriate attitude; both in hospitality and in life! Knowledge needs are minimal. We can teach people what they need to know, an attitude I prize is an inquisitive mind; someone who wants to know and understand the world around them. It still amazes me when I confront front desk personnel who have no idea what stores, restaurants, theaters, etc. are within walking distance of the hotel. They commute to work and go home oblivious to what surrounds the hotel. When we do OJT (on the job training) we usually think of it as skill training; how to greet a guest, how to take an order, and so on. Rudimentary skills are a good requirement for hiring someone, but skills improve with repetition. A great waiter isn't great the first few days that they are working as a waiter, it takes time to develop the skills a great waiter should have. But, like any physical activity, skill training works best when the person doing the training is himself highly skilled. So as not to wear out your star employees, I recommend that you video record them and have new hires watch the videos during their orientation process. This speeds up the learning process and allows your great employees more time to be... well... GREAT. How Long Until We Are Out of the Woods?

Marcel R. Escoffier was an Associate Professor at the School of Hospitality Management Florida International University. He had over thirty years experience in hotels and restaurants throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, Mr. Escoffier passed away in September, 2009. We at HotelExecutive.com would like to continue publishing Marcel's articles on our website as a tribute to this brilliant man. The one thing we loved most about him most was his sense of humor. He would always make light of any serious situation, and this was reflected often in the articles he wrote for the Hotel Business Review. Mr. Escoffier can be contacted at editor@hotelexecutive.com Extended Bio...

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