Voice of the Restaurant Industry
Top 10 Management gripes about employees
What are your top gripes about employees? What do you do to address them?
A couple of mine:
"That's not my job." - I can't stand it when an employee says this! Your job is to provide the best service possible to our customer. That's a pretty broad statement and means you should be able to do anything from hosting to bussing.
"Sorry, I can't do that for you." - I don't mind so much when staff says this to me (although it usually doesn't make me happy) but when it's said to a customer it drvies me nuts. Within reason, of course, staff should never make the customer feel like there's something we can't do for them.
What are your gripes?
A couple of mine:
"That's not my job." - I can't stand it when an employee says this! Your job is to provide the best service possible to our customer. That's a pretty broad statement and means you should be able to do anything from hosting to bussing.
"Sorry, I can't do that for you." - I don't mind so much when staff says this to me (although it usually doesn't make me happy) but when it's said to a customer it drvies me nuts. Within reason, of course, staff should never make the customer feel like there's something we can't do for them.
What are your gripes?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dwight Aubert on -
It realy kills me as a chef that has taken the time to prepair a dish only to have it die in the window because the service staff is to busy talking with each other about what they are doing after work instead of focusing on the job at hand "taking care of the customer"
A lot of times I will go to a restaurant and order what I know to be a pick up item, just to see how long it takes to get too the table. BBQ ribs are a good example they were prepped hours ago they only need be heated , or have been in a cres-core and only need to be -plated
We can go on for hours griping about this subject , the best defense is in pre-meal chats with the crew or post meal dicussions on what went wright or wrong and what we can do as a team to make it better .
At the end of the day it is all about service excellence !
Dwight
Duckkill2002@aol.com
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Permalink Reply by christiane on -
whoa! that has never happened at arugula.....we are a complete team here, both front and back...there are no food runners; each server is responsible totally for their table...and yet, each of them are there for each other....everyone knows the food inside out...so as far as teamwork, this bistro rocks
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Permalink Reply by Patrick O on -
Hi christiane.
I just wanted to take the time to say that it would be great to work in a place like yours with all the teamwork that you speak about. It's also great that each server is responsible totally for their table...but is this teamwork?
I think that in any workplace there is evident teamwork, but one must remember that teamwork is everyone's responsibility. When I do new store openings, I teach the concept of table ownership and how it can affect every server on shift. I also teach the importance of when walking by a table with dirty dishes on it how guests perceive the teamwork. This isn't to say that people will clear 100% of the time, but guest perception is everything in our business.
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Permalink Reply by Merrili Jones on -
I like the interview question about giving an example of teamplayer abilities !!
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Non-OperatorPermalink Reply by Pat Jack on -
You are not being lied to, you hired an alcoholic.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Adams on -
Man I gotta say, all of these gripes are real, but what's the basic issue? I think it is lack of trust, engagement, call it what you want. Leaders have to look in the mirror and create the culture they are asking for.
If I heard an employee say 'not my job' I would fire them. If I heard more than one say it in a day I would fire the manager. Seriously.
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Permalink Reply by christiane on
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you're doing alot of firing!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Adams on
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No I'm not . . .that's my point!
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Permalink Reply by christiane on
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you have already fired the ee and now the manager..who is left?....pooh asked anxiously
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Adams on
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I give up!
I was speaking figuratively, trying to make a point. We do very little 'firing', if anything most people fire themselves. Annually we have less than 30% turnover with 200 team members.
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Permalink Reply by christiane on
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which is what, exactly, your point? of course people fire themselves...that's a given.
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OperatorPermalink Reply by Tim Barath on -
Where to start?
Showing up Late - I once had someone tell me they were late because they were "doing other things." This person is no longer with us.
Lying - Myself or someone on my management team will find out. If you would have just told me, it would have been corrected, no problem, now that you've lied, I'm not going to be nice.
Cellphones/iPods - I like to think I'm pretty lenient, I let my employees have their stereo, because most of them get pumped up with music. What I can't stand is people constantly talking or texting or fiddling with the stereo. I once scared the guy off the other end of one of my employees phones.
"That's not my job" - With a serious lack of good talent at reasonable prices in Canada, especially alberta, some people get a bit of a prima-donna attitude and will laze about when it's slow, far too important to be bothered with dishes or cleaning or other menial tasks. "I'm a cook, not a dishwasher" is usually met by my team and myself replying in unison, "If you're gonna cook, you're gonna clean."
I think my number one is not asking enough questions. Seriously, if you don't know every last detail about how something should be done, why wouldn't you ask? With someone qualified to answer your questions always on the premises and usually working right next to you, why wouldn't you just ask one simple question and save yourself and everyone else a whole lot of grief?
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