How to Nail Enrolling and Retaining Talented Restaurant Management

Everyone at the recent Texas Restaurant Show in Houston produced by the Texas Restaurant Association wanted to know how to find, keep, and grow managers. 

Why? Because it’s vital – especially when operators are forced to fish out of a talent pool that’s even shallower than the kiddie pool at the resort you visit this summer. 

I was glad to be asked to talk about how I work with my clients to develop managers. All the data shows us that, if you want to attract and keep people, make sure they feel they can learn and grow with you.  

So let me make it simple: Make sure all your managers become better every year, and that they truly feel like they are going somewhere with and in your organization. 

If you want to run great restaurants in a labor environment like the current one (which shows no signs of ever changing) you have no other choice.
 

How to Deal with That Skeptical Voice in Your Head

When you recruit, enroll, onboard, educate, and train, do you hear a loud voice in the back of your mind saying something feels out of whack?  

Tell that voice, “I accept this current reality” – and take action to upgrade the talent level in your company. 

My best clients use my Think Chart to outline areas of short-term development for each and every management person in their company.

General managers respond to their multi-unit manager’s directive to look at that summary every day. 

For the general manager, that Think Chart also includes their own development path, and their multi-unit supervisor works with them on it as well as objectives for their specific location.

I call it a Think Chart since it summarizes and illustrates the most important things that multi-unit supervisors and general managers ought to be thinking about every day. 

Smart people direct that thinking to get the results they expect.
 

Triumph Over This Permanent Condition

Do your career managers work one year 20 times with no progress in their abilities?  

Or do they actually experience a new year every year?

If you want to feel proud of results that beat industry averages and build your net worth, use the system my best clients use to make every manager better every year.  

Make your brand stronger, your guests happier, your employees more loyal, and your P&L prettier. 

When you do this repeatedly, your organization builds immunity to all the frustrations of the labor market. 

You not only boost your success, but you reduce your moments of frustration, anxiety, and repeated eye-rolling. 

Over to you. What will you do to make sure each manager in your organization constantly improves? If you don’t experience this happening in your company, email me and I will help you.