Contest

There are all kinds of fun contest to get the team excited for a shift. A few of them off of the top of my head would be bingo to help with suggestive selling... the pineapple game to practice full hands in full hands out/teamwork. I hear about all kinds of contest during powershift meetings but very rarely do I hear anything that involves the BOH.
My question is... Has anyone come up with ideas to get them involved? If so, I would love to hear them and actually practice them at my store to try to boost the morale in the kitchen. They're a very important part of the restaurant and I want them to have a great time everytime they come to work.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Urdan on March 25, 2008 at 8:06pm

Yeah...you trade out with gift cards to other restaurants and businesses for this purpose. for BOH you tell the guys (and girl) what the prize is and then you do one of these or one of your own:

1. First to finish closing duties and get checked out my manager wins a prize.
2. Line position with the fasted KDS times during happy hour wins the prize.
3. Have servers vote on the most helpful BOH employee during the shift, win the prize.
4. Line position that produces food closest to exact spec wins the prize...

Etc, etc, etc.

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by JP McLaughlin on March 25, 2008 at 8:22pm

I've tried to do the fastest KDS times before at the store I used to work at. The problem we came up with that is one station naturally will have a better average than the other. Fry has a large number of items that have a cook time under 8 minutes, when broil's average is usually higher because the cook times on steaks are much higher. I'm sure there is a way you could figure it all out but it seems very confusing to figure out who's going to win movie tickets.

Permalink Reply by Matt Urdan on March 25, 2008 at 8:26pm

Easy....over a week or two, find out what the average KDS time is for each employee at each position. Make the contest the employee that exceeds his average KDS time by the greatest margin wins the prize...This will encourage them to get faster and more efficient and give them real measurables to look at to chart their progress and give you tools you need when they come to you asking for a raise.

Cheers!

Permalink Reply by JP McLaughlin on March 25, 2008 at 8:39pm

Very good idea, Thank you!

Permalink Reply by Matt Urdan on March 25, 2008 at 8:40pm

Glad to be of assistance, my friend!

Permalink Reply by Kristen Siqueiros on April 9, 2008 at 6:22pm

We just had a contest for the BOH the other day. We told them that if we could get 100% ticket times, (they all had to help each other) during the lunch rush, then they all got a free smoothie. And they did it!! It was so smooth!!

Permalink Reply by Kristen Siqueiros on May 24, 2008 at 10:00am

Ok so here is a new one! We decided to tell all the FOH Associates to try and sell Perfect Beers, Shooters, and Perfect Portion Menu items for lunch. At the end of the shift, the manager printed out a sheet to see how many each associate sold. Then we had a basketballshoot off with old tickets from the expo line. We had three lines to shoot from. 1 point line, 2 point line, and a 3 point line. From those lines you had to try and shoot the old tickets into the garbage can. However many items you sold, you were allowed to shoot that many times. Plus you got to choose which line you shot from. It was a lot of fun and it made work different :o)

So we simply played Basket Ball, Applebee's style!!

Permalink Reply by Janet on March 27, 2009 at 10:16pm