Operations
7 tips for leading a modern brand
Effective leadership is not out of reach, and here are seven tips to help you lead your brand through the twists and turns ahead.
October 25, 2022 by Greg Staley — CEO, SynergySuite
With challenges and disruption more intense than the restaurant industry has seen in decades, effective leadership is critical to deftly navigate these challenges. Strong leadership builds trust and confidence from employees and drives customer loyalty.
You've made it through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now you have to face food costs spiking, labor shortages that haven't yet resolved, disruptions in the supply chain and new customer expectations and preferences.
Add on to all of this, the improvements made to off-premise technology over the last three years have been a valuable channel to grow, but restaurant employees are feeling the gaps in other areas. Effective leadership is not out of reach, and here are seven tips to help you lead your brand through the twists and turns ahead.
1. Use integrated restaurant technology. One measurement of leadership is being able to make well-informed decisions that move the brand in the right direction. However, making those decisions without accurate data to inform them is difficult, if not impossible. Harnessing your entire tech stack and integrating it so all your data is in a single place, gives you the information you need in way that provides real insight.
These tools can also help you target areas of concern to best improve your brand. If you're struggling with food costs, a back-of-house platform can help streamline inventory. If you're losing guest trust, maybe a customer experience software would help you pinpoint the cause. By relying on forward-thinking vendors, operators can make the kind of decisions that build franchisee confidence, meet consumer demand, and drive business growth.
2. Review processes and procedures. Good leaders care about continuous improvement. It's not sufficient in the restaurant industry today to set a process and never adapt it. Consider whether there are ways you could change workflows to save employee time, adjust how pick up orders are processed, or adjust training to make it "stickier" in employees' memories.
It's essential to identify (and fix) any safety risks, inefficiencies, and money wasters in your restaurant. With margins as thin as they are, regular reviews to catch those concerns will keep your brand more competitive.
3. Optimize labor and staffing. We know every restaurant operator right now is wrestling with how to keep labor costs under control and retain employees. With wages so high, every hour saved makes a difference. But simply cutting hours won't help and will quickly lose employees' trust.
Under-scheduling can drive away customers through poor service and long wait times, while overstaffing shrinks your margins. Labor and scheduling software builds optimized schedules based on sales forecasts, and empowers employees to manage their schedules in a way that works best for them.
4. Create an environment of transparency. Fostering transparency makes employees feel more connected, engaged, motivated, and productive. Hold regular check-ins with employees, both formal and informal, to listen to their questions, concerns, and suggestions. Communicate challenges the company is facing and how you are working to address those challenges.
You should also praise employees in one-on-one meetings and publicly. Recognition is important to employees and is one part of improving employee retention.
5. Plan ahead. Use restaurant software to create more accurate forecasts. Customers hate hearing that a favorite menu item is not available, and employees don't want to deal with frustrated customers when you run out of something two hours before close.
Restaurant technology can help you work through myriad issues, including labor, inventory, purchasing, drive thru, and more. However, it requires investing in tools that allow you to better plan ahead to address demand.
6. Motivate your employees. US restaurants have 1 million fewer employees than they had pre-pandemic. As turnover rates remain high, treat your employees well and motivate them to stay. Set clear goals, communicate effectively, provide support, and praise them for the work they do. If there's a problem, address it quickly and professionally. Give your employees credit (and bonuses, if possible) for hitting goals, spotlight employees for going above-and-beyond, and share best practices.
7. Train employees. During the Great Resignation, many restaurant workers cited lack of career growth or training as one of the top reasons for leaving the industry. Employees don't want to feel like they're struggling or failing, and you have the power to lead them toward a more successful career.
Evaluate and mix up your training. People learn best when given multiple ways to receive information. Reinforce on-the-job learning with "bite sized" microlearning modules. Gamify refresher courses. Link training to your checklists, so employees can always refer to best practices if they forget something.
There is an opportunity for restaurants with effective leadership to set themselves apart in this time of great disruption. How do you see restaurant leaders making a difference?
About Greg Staley
Included In This Story
SynergySuite
SynergySuite helps multi-unit restaurants simplify operations and increase profitability with easy-to-use restaurant management software. Global brands trust SynergySuite's mobile-first software with inventory, purchasing, recipe costing, food safety, scheduling, cash management, human resources and business intelligence.
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