Restaurant Management Tip: How Clear Expectations Prevent Team Confusion and Conflict
Have you ever hired someone who seemed just untrainable? Or what about hiring someone who seemed great in their interview but seemed to be a different person when they showed up to work for their first day? As a restaurant manager, you already know that interviews can’t always be the best way to judge a candidate, so it’s important to learn what to do when you’ve accidentally made a bad call and hired a not-so-great employee. Setting up a new-hire for success is a skill that must be learned if you want to succeed as a restaurant manager.
We’ve all been there, we hire an applicant and they show up seeming like someone you wouldn’t actually have hired. They come out of uniform with unkempt hair. Often they may even smell like weed. But you hired them, so you can’t just fire them outright. Well, you can, and some managers will tell you that’s the right move, but in today’s job market, I suggest to you this alternative – treat this new-hire as an opportunity to train up someone who can use some direction, and let yourself be that opportunity to train them and mold them to your own standards.
Like everything in this business, it rarely goes as planned. More often than not, you will end up firing this person within the first few weeks. I’m not beating around the bush when I say this – you already know. But the question is how do we correct bad behavior in new-hires?
The answer is this – do not make concessions of standards just because they are new. They may need extra communication about standards because they are new to the job, but they cannot be coddled and given different expectations. It may be tempting to start easy on them and slowing add in expectations, but doing so would create jealousy in other employees and would poison your store with bad culture. Nip it in the bud. If you need to send them home on their first day for smelling like weed, do so. It will prove that you don’t play around with standards and expectations.
During their first week, they will try to test the waters to see what they can and cannot get away with. You need to show them very quickly that they will not be given leniency on things and that they will face consequences if they don’t follow your rules. From the outset, they need to know they work for you and that you are their boss. This is the best way to weed out the wheat from the chaff very quickly. Remember that problem where you want to fire them on the first day? It may not be a problem anymore – they may not come back after you introduce standards on the first day. Good riddance to them – you don’t want an employee who gives up so easily anyway.
Something I’ve done in the past has been to give the employee an opportunity to read the employee handbook and sign a note saying they understand and will adhere to the standards and expectations. Often, they will not read it, but it’s always nice to be able to refer back to a moment when the employee themselves admitted that they would play by your own rules, or at least the rules of the company. When you are able to show them that they committed to you, their own ego will often get in the way of themselves being a seen as a liar for saying they read it when they actually had not.
If you do not have an employee handbook or any sort of orientation for new hires, give them a day where you or someone you delegated to explain standards and expectations. Regardless of how you do it, during the first few days, you must spend the focus of your communication with the employee to be these expectations and standards, even more than knowledge of the mechanics of the job itself. It helps calm their nerves about the job and prevents them from being overwhelmed too early and jumping ship.
It is fine to give a grace period on a few things, like tardiness or uniform, but once you remind them of the standard, let that be the true standards. You do not want yourself to begin to have a reputation for all talk and no bark, especially at the beginning. Let them know you are serious about these expectations, even if it means delivering a write up on their second or third day. It may seem harsh, but that move will either tell them you’re serious and they must get their act together or they will quit early. Rest assured, if they quit because of something like that, you will only have saved yourself a headache.
On a separate note, the more you introduce the new hire to the other employees and integrate them into the crew, the more likely they are to adhere to tribal standards. They don’t feel the need to conform to the rules of the group if they still feel like they are outside of the group. When they feel like a part of the whole, they will contribute more to the whole. Introduce the employee individually to each veteran on a casual but meaningful level. This helps both the new hire feel at home and more comfortable with working, and it helps the veterans feel more patient with the new hire.
Your success will only be as much you set yourself up for it. Set yourself up for success by having those standards on the outset. It’s okay to be patient and understanding with people who may not yet know how you do things or maybe even do not know how to work at all, but it’s imperative that standards themselves are communicated clearly on the outset so that there can be no confusion as to what those expectations are and how to follow them. Once you set up each new crew member for success, you will be one step further to having a successful and stress-free restaurant.