The ‘All-Star Team’
In business lingo, it’s a commonly heard phrase – the ‘all-star team’ where everyone works co-operatively and performs at an exceptional level to make the business a success.
For the hospitality industry it’s a dream scenario but isn’t it a little harder to achieve in reality?
First of all, there’s the host of different roles to be filled – baristas, chefs, bartenders, cashiers, front-of house, housekeeping etc – all of which require unique skills sets.
Then there’s the issue of staff turnover. In a sector where an employee of 6 months might look like a long-term player, just how do you go about creating and maintaining that all-star team?
Of course, it all starts with recruitment. At this level, the key to attracting the right talent into your business is often about ensuring potential employees understand the goals, culture and brand values of your organisation, and can buy-in to them. In other words, you must give them a good understanding of who they are working for, the vision you have for the business, and how their role (alongside every other team member) contributes to that.
- Is your barista selling coffee or selling a ‘catch up with friends’ experience?
- Are your waiting staff seen as delivery bots or the face of your brand?
- Are you, as the business owner, playing Big Brother from afar or leading by example as a team player?
From our experience of supporting the hospitality industry with modern, feature-packed POS systems, there are two areas which, when done well, can help ensure every employee is fully contributing to the overall success of your business – performance monitoring and staff scheduling.
Performance monitoring
It’s routine for employers to sit down with their staff individually on an annual basis to conduct some kind of performance review or appraisal. That’s all well and good but you just can’t wait that long in the hospitality business! The performance of every team player must be constantly monitored so that you can provide effective feedback, support/ training or reward and praise when its due.
This is where a smart POS system like those provided by The Good Till proves its worth. You can use its clocking in/ out features to monitor hours and timekeeping while using real-time and historical sales data to identify top performers (e.g. sales per hour or average transaction values).
With this kind of data at your fingertips, you can then set realistic and achievable benchmarks and priority lists for each employee (in line with their shift timetable); identify top performers (learning from and rewarding them for their achievement); identify how and when upselling is at its best; and crucially reward exceptional team performance (rather than just massage individual egos).
Staff scheduling
One of the big challenges in the hospitality sector is how to optimise staffing schedules to deal with the inevitable peaks and lows.
Once again, the reporting features in your smart POS system can step in to help. With stats like sales per hour, you can pinpoint the peaks/ lows and schedule your best members appropriately! Just be careful not to fall into the trap of overscheduling top performers as that can lead to resentment across the whole team.
Having a factual understanding of what’s going on in your business at different times not only promotes effective staff scheduling but can also help you plan other areas of the business. Perhaps downtime could be used for staff training sessions or you might consider strategies to raise your game by introducing a promotional offer or front of house tasters.
Maintaining an all-star team is just one of the hospitality challenges that a modern POS system can help you achieve. To find out more about how the Good Till can support the overall success of your business, get in touch.