Overcome the Shallow Talent Pool by Taking This Action Now

Right now, the kiddie pool in the hotel your family visits this summer is deeper than the management pool in the restaurant industry.

Every few days I have a conversation where one of my clients complains that the management talent in their organization is not prepared to operate up to standards. 

Owners are frustrated about their guests’ less-than-optimal experience and a P&L that could look better “if only.”

One of my clients told me, “I told the cook to boil water and he asked me, ‘To what temperature?’” 

Intensify Management Development

Laugh or cry all you want. 

Right now, people are occupying positions you wouldn’t have considered them for just a few years ago – making money you never would have paid them a few years ago. 

Only an economic catastrophe we don’t want (or an improvement in AI and robotics that thins out the labor force in other areas) will give us a deep management pool in the future.  

So address reality head on and deal with it. Intensify management education, training, and development. 

Devote extra resources to management development, including inspiration, motivation, culture, supervision, procedures, and standards to achieve the result you want.

Failing to activate this technique is like refusing to water your back yard because you don’t realize you’re living in a drought.  

Four Fundamentals of Building Today’s Management Teams

1. Involve them in decision making so they feel important, feel like part of something, and learn how to think critically. Don’t be tempted to just tell people what to do – this just freezes your people in time. They won’t be able to think for themselves and will feel completely dependent. 
2. Choose your words carefully. Set the best example and be careful to model desired behavior. Your managers watch you, and they don’t have many years of experience. Without a lot to fall back on, they say what you say. 
3. Be very specific about expectations. Many young managers just plain don’t know what they ought to be doing. The obvious to you may not even be on their screen. 
4. Preach guest focus at every opportunity.  Managers must know that our world revolves around guests, their happiness at the end of each meal and desire to return for more. 

Fundamentals build effective managers. Take the time to focus on them in a much more concentrated way than you have in the past. Rocket past those unwilling to put in the extra effort. 

Build the management team of the future – one that will stay bonded to your concept and your company and stick around.

Over to you. How do you boost education, training, and development activities to raise up today’s restaurant manager?