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All of us in the South African hospitality industry have a simple responsibility and that is to be a great and gracious host. We are not building bridges or designing software. We are providing a sanctuary for weary travelers, a home away from home or a luxurious escape.

In today’s business environment of endless financial analysis and reports, many in hospitality have lost the simple yet graceful art of hospitality. Most of us are stuck behind desks or in meetings rather than caring for our guests and their needs. Do not get me wrong – you must still pay great attention to the bottom line and profitability of your hotel. All I am saying is that, in many cases, the pendulum has swung too far in favour of financial results and in the process we are sacrificing the human side of our business and the guests experience.

How do we change this?

Firstly, get out of the office. Or better yet, move your office to the lobby or into your reception area.

One of the best general managers I know now spends her mornings working from the PR desk in the lobby. Yes, she has her computer open, but is fully available for guests and team members to approach her with questions or feedback. Staying in the public eye she has absolute awareness of all comings and goings and can ensure that staff is delivering on the promise of great service and in the process she feels the pulse of the people and of the business.

Most GM’s live by a promise of an open door policy, but by managing your day in the midst of the organized lobby chaos, the GM has managed to elevate the art of being a true hospitality leader. The key benefit from this action is that the GM knows of issues before they became problems or negative reviews.

Another great benefit of being in the lobby is that a GM can lead by example. Team members emulate their leaders, and if a hotel GM is constantly stuck in the office with the door closed, what is he teaching staff about the importance of guest interactions. In this sense, staff are deprived of a role model of how to deal with both happy and frustrated customers.

By being present in guest interactions, staff can learn from and reflect how great GMs mingle with guests and enhance the overall experience, and they can therefor act that example out in future.

We understand that the essence of hospitality may be straight forward, but to most of our people this does not necessarily come naturally. The GM and other heads of departments must display the desired behaviours so that staff can emulate and live that behaviour – and this is true leadership.

Building on this, staff must be encouraged to work with guests to address problems and requests immediately. Property leadership must empower frontline staff by permission and protection to solve problems and enhance a guest’s stay on their own. Such interactions will confirm training and improve guest satisfaction as problems will not linger or esculate. And if an associate happens to make a mistake or incorrect call, use that as a point of training. None of us were born with perfect skills, and as long as team members make more right than wrong calls, the hotel is gaining in the long run.

Finally, it is our responsibility as leaders to return the favour of mentorship to our staff and the greater hotel family, and an effective way to do this is to get out of the office and into the hotel. The reports can wait. As GM you should provide yourself as a public and positive role model for your team members by having memorable conversations with guests.

Be the host of your hotel, and then train your staff to be hosts too, so they can lead your guests through an incredible stay at your property, to a great review and to a return visit!

This service is simple:

A new restaurant (or an older one wishing to upgrade its quality) hires a well-known chef to create a menu, train kitchen staff, line up reputable suppliers and generally put his or her stamp on the place without officially taking over.

Our chefs accepts consultancy work as an added challenge and cooks at your restaurant for a few months and might hire and install trusted personnel from his or her own place to your restaurant, or train new restaurant personnel first-hand in the more established kitchen.

The new restaurant gets expert advice, and an added boost in its early days through its association with an established chef (who it probably could not afford to hire on a full-time basis).

The chef gets to perform his expertise through a commitment of time and energy and the restaurant gets good chef quality food at less than permanantly employed executive chef prices.

When the chef completes the project, they leave a kitchens behind that is streamline, profitable and productive.

Business as usual went out of business a long time ago. And restaurants that do not chance with the times are risking the same fate!

No matter what business you’re in, profit is naturally linked to efficiency. And when restaurants operate on tight profit margins you’ve got to be as efficient as possible, whether that means changing FOH or BOH, or changing your ordering to reduce kitchen costs, cutting labour costs, or establishing a reservation system to prevent diners from no-showing.

There are various methods that you can use to scale your business operations and make it more productive.

One of the easiest ways to get more efficient is by installing an online booking system. These can save you time and money, and it means you’re able to take bookings 24/7. There’s no need to employ someone to answer phones, respond to emails or confirm bookings – it’s all done for you. Many restaurant’s in worldwide are now taking more than 50 per cent of their bookings online, you can literally be taking bookings in your sleep.

Prevent yourself from bleeding revenue, if a diner no-shows on a Friday night, that’s revenue lost. No-shows cost restaurants big money each year, and preventing them is a sure way to keep your revenue rolling. Secure each booking with credit card details to deter customers from no-showing. Restaurants using payment systems have eliminated no-shows completely and this is a sure way to pump up profits.

And that’s just the start. Scale your in-house activity by using technology to your advantage. Become a fully integrated business using a POS system before, during and after service, to deliver a flawless customer experience time and time again.

The industry really has come a long way. But despite all the changes, some things will never change – one thing is and always will be true, your customers are your very best asset. By developing a solid customer database, you can drive revenue and scale your business choices accordingly. Build detailed guest profiles, send targeted messages about upcoming events or specials, nurture and develop a relationship with your database, and turn customers into repeat diners.

Whether you’re a small or large venue, restaurants need to look after themselves and scalability is the way to do it.

 There are and always will only be two ways to increase profits – increase revenue or decrease costs and expenses!! We will help you to turn challenge into opportunity!

Its not so much about getting a good review in restaurants these days, it’s about not getting a bad review.

Most restaurant guests induce venom into even the most hardened restaurateur as they check out your food, analyse your wine list and critique your service.

Let’s face it, once guests are in the door, there is not a lot you can do about the quality of your produce or the talent of your chef. So let’s concentrate on the things you should – and shouldn’t – do, to pick up those all-important points.

Don’t lie. When the guests asks if you baked the bread in-house, be honest.
Do check that all plates are clean underneath. As you would anyway, of course.
Do check the toilets. Every 10 minutes. All night. More guests have complained about dirty loos with paper on the floor than overcooked steaks.

Don’t panic if something goes wrong. Something will always go wrong.

Don’t panic when guests are not happy. You know what? You’re a pro. Just do what you do.

The way you handle a problem tells guests more than if it had all been plain sailing. Handle issues beautifully, earning your guests respect and loyalty all over again.

In the event of a critical review, don’t take it personally. Take it professionally. Fix the problem. Move on. Get over it.

So now you know!

 

With the end of the financial year fast approaching, here’s our tips for making the best of the end of the financial year and maximising tax deductions.

End of financial year financials is a great time to take advantage of asset write-offs. This allows small businesses to claim an immediate tax deduction for all small capital expenditure items purchased in the financial year.

The deduction is available per item, so every qualifying purchase can be deducted.

This means that if you make purchases between now and 28 February 2018, you can then claim the deduction in your tax return for 2017-18, this can be a great cashflow boost as well as giving you the chance to upgrade your café or restaurant.

Amongst the things you could claim are:

Kitchen equipment
Property fit-out, such as chairs, tables, bar fittings, and décor
Technology, such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, and POS system
Website upgrades

Other ways in which to save on tax:

Write off out of date or obsolete stock, such as alcohol, or alternatively do not include in your final end of year stock take, in order to claim the deduction.
If you have old, obsolete or non-operational kitchen equipment which is still being depreciated, write it off and claim a tax deduction for the residual value.
Calculate and make provision for leave pay and outstanding statutory payments.

Good record keeping is necessary for efficient business management and will also make life easier if SARS or your accountant ask you questions. Tax law requires that records be kept for five years, and they should include:
Sales receipts
Expense invoices
Credit card statements
Bank statements
Employee records (Salary advises, wages records including time sheets, PAYE declarations, contracts)
Vehicle records

Finding and retaining capable staff has never been more important. We offer some timely advice on how to avoid a high turnover and to drive business.

If you are finding the job market difficult, perhaps you should take a step back and have a look at why you need to replace staff in the first place?

The issue here is staff turnover.

Some hospitality operators seem to run the modern equivalent of prison camps and then wonder why they can’t hang on to people for very long.

The whole subject came into sharp focus recently when I called for the payroll records of a restaurant to discover that their kitchen had turned over 52 staff in the preceding 12 months.

This meant the chefs were spending most of their time recruiting and settling new staff into their positions, rather than concentrating on what they were really there for. To produce quality food!

It will also explained sky high wage cost in that kitchen.

Why was this happening? We found several reasons, and all of them were preventable.

The first thing we found was that they were recruiting on ten minute chats and quick trials without any consideration for what the job applicants were looking for, or how long they intended to stay. In other words, they were recruiting to satisfy their own needs (for staff, in desperation) without considering the needs of the job applicants. Many of the recruits were finding that the jobs were not what they expected and were leaving just after they had been trained. This is like tearing-up hundred rand notes in the street cause you start the process of employment again.

Secondly, the standard of training in the kitchen was appalling. New staff were thrown into jobs without proper instruction and then screamed at by the senior kitchen employees when not performing to the required level.

When we questioned this, the response was that this is the nature of commercial kitchens, it’s just the way it is’.  Crap, there are many calm, professional chefs out there.

This behaviour was a symptom of a problem, and not the root problem itself. Those chefs were struggling to do a job they hadn’t been trained to do. Like most chefs they had been trained to cook, and not to recruit, train staff and to lead kitchen operations.

In other words, that had been accepted into job roles they were ill-equipped to handle, and in frustration and desperation they resorted to quite inappropriate methods of getting the job done.

Moving on, the rostering of staff was unbelievably punishing due to the chronic short staffing (because of the high staff turnover), with 12 hour shifts and 60 to 70 hour working weeks the norm. To compound this, the rosters were only being posted two or three days ahead to cater for the ever changing staff needs, which completely shattered any chance for the staff to plan their recreational activities, or commit to future social events.

We also found that some staff were left doing the most mind-numbing jobs – like picking herbs – for extended periods of time without rotation to other jobs in order to relieve the tedious nature of doing the task at hand.

Inevitably, many staff were not prepared to accept all this for R20 an hour. Funny thing about that. Considering most of the staff who had quit were of Gens Y and Z, and had been educated to expect a work life balance.

This kind of management was always going to end in tears.

How did we find out about all this without camping in the kitchen full time? It’s easy – we initiated one of the key control systems that should be present in any business. We interviewed all staff (exit interviews) who resigned and ascertained their reasons for leaving and then set-out to systematically eliminate all the issues that were presenting themselves. This involved counselling the senior staff, replacing some, introducing proper recruitment, training and leadership procedures and giving the existing staff a secure forum where they could air their grievances without fear of repercussions.

The important thing to recognise is that to maintain high standards and a profitable operation you need stable staff.

All your staff view their job from their own perspective, and it’s their perception of the job that will determine if they will stay or go.

What you think is fair and reasonable is irrelevant.

The days are gone where we can accept punishing leadership, yet it is still prevalent in many parts of this industry. You may not think this is you, but have a look at your staff turnover, if it is high there have to be reasons. Why can other businesses have stable staff and you can’t?

If you have high turnover, do something about it. I recommend you interview all your junior staff at regular intervals to gauge their perceptions, and also exit interview all staff who resign and look for patterns of negative comment.

Then act on what you discover.

by Tony Eldred and mykitchenrules.co.za