Motivating Your Restaurant Staff

Motivating your restaurant staff to work harder and smarter is a sometimes difficult task. If you are out of ideas regarding lazy, uncooperative, or surly staff members, here are some fresh thoughts to help you coax them into being proficient and effective employees.

What do your other employee’s think? If you have one or two individuals who you just can’t seem to get along with or understand, ask their co-worker’s opinions on the matter. It may be that the teenager who you consider sullen and uncooperative is dealing with a recent breakup or other personal issue. Perhaps one of the waitress’ has just the right idea to motivate the slower moving employees. Involving the staff in the planning and operation of the restaurant is one of the best ways to show them not only that their opinion is important to you, but also that they have a vested interest in helping the restaurant become more profitable.

When employees understand that a better bottom line directly impacts them in a positive way they are more interested in increasing the profits of your business. One restaurant manager included his employees by allowing the members of his kitchen staff to each feature a new dish every week. If the dish was popular, he would add it to the menu as a special. The kitchen member whose dish it was also got a percentage of all the sales of that dish. This is a perfect example of motivating and encouraging your staff to aid you in the goal of increasing your business. Another manager uses his employees as advertisers by having “friends nights” where the staff are encouraged to invite all their Facebook, Twitter, My Space, and other socially networked friends. By hiring people who have over five hundred friends each, this has become a lucrative and fun evening for everyone concerned.

“Encourage employees to take continuing-education courses and to read books that will help them acquire more skills.” Although this will initially be a cost for you, the benefits of having employees with more skill and proficiency will soon outweigh the initial investment. Continued training will also benefit the employee for future jobs and raise their value in the job market.

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