Test of Thyme Episode 8: Employee Management Tips 101

hello everybody hi everybody Welcome to the test of time Jamie and Marcus here love passion and hustle in the restaurant industry episode number eight absolutely and today's a great topic it sure is we're gonna be talking about Staffing team team members team members and the culture you you build and how that is really important um in your in your business yeah just just how to build

building a great team and I've been I've done a speech a couple times now and I might have a course on it somewhere digital course I'm not sure restaurant growth secretsuniversity.com you might find some stuff over there I'm super excited um the final copy of the book is going to print awesome so yep so proud of you you too yeah this one was a collaboration collaboration

even though all of your other two books which are back here um were collaborations as well I just didn't get the uh my name on the book you didn't do the nitty-gritty no I didn't but I did the nitty-gritty because that I am part of the 50 mistakes you did the nitty-gritty so I could write about the knitting ready okay excellent so of course the first

book I wrote was 50 mistakes that business owners make 50 mistakes that restaurant owners make and when I showed it to a restaurant friend of mine uh very successful restaurant friend of mine he said of ours he says that's all he goes I could have written 250 mistakes yeah folks admit that you make mistakes and all those mistakes are in that book we've made so admit

ouch what are you kicking me for because I'm just kidding admit that you make mistakes and I know there's room for improvement across the board Jamie and I are really to go voted to personal growth uh development or into into having coaches life coaches business coaches to help us mentors Mastermind groups help us lead us through the way because there's always a way to improve and

I think we take that information that we've moved to our staff and and that's the important part is that we're using the knowledge that we're learning and we're bringing it to our staff and we can only hope that our staff uses that in their relationships and family and other things and as they as they lost them and leave us and go do other things hopefully they'll

take all of those things that they've learned throughout the years that they've been working for us or months or days um and uh and and grow upon it so whenever we listen to a podcast that's valuable you send out the podcast or you'll do some paraphrasing some quotes from them and send it out so all right so what so people the first question people ask me

is you know like like how do you how do you find your staff how do you keep your staff like like what's your big big big secret to this whole team thing for me and I I'm I believe you're on pay the page for this with me we're life coaches before we're bosses oh yeah our staff can come to us with anything we're life coaches and

we have to be helped so many of our staff members with with problems in their personal life um finances I do feel that we are their their coach their life coach yeah some of them don't have parents to teach them this some of them do some need a different angle of this but I see everybody who walks in the door as how how can we believe

in them believe in them because a lot of times they don't believe in themselves right and there's only a look if you think about your life right now like how many people can you actually count like go through and count that actually truly believe in you and tell you they believe in you right less than two three people in your life like it'll tell you I

believe in you keep going I believe in you if you pay a coach that's one thing because they're being paid to that but honestly people who don't pay like how many of your friends like are just pushing you because they believe in you um so it's odd because we can find a lot of friends to go to the bar with to run with to to be

around but how many people can we honestly find to sit down and be better people push each other in the right direction honest feedback set goals push us in business how many and sure we might get that from somebody here and there in our lives but we get far more people that say Hey meet you for happy hour hey let's play golf again hey let's go

to the game hey let's do that it's more of that coach kind of activities than the truly hey let's sit down and go over our goals let's then have a learning Monday where we're going to learn and listen to podcasts or listen to Tony Robbins or read a book and this and that so it's a unique opportunity if you're a business owner restaurant owner to be

that person that believes in your team and tells you to believe in them and give them the tools and empowerment and let them make the mistakes and give them guidance and watch them well and teach them teach them from their mistakes right exactly exactly I always tell our team members you know this is learning and process like when you watch a basketball game when you run

a wrong plane you've been taught this play a hundred times in practice 200 times in practice when you run the one player make up of an error in that play you're running the coach pulls you aside and tells you you should have been there and this is what I wanted wanted to do and this and that and you don't see the players getting a percent but

a lot of times when you're in the restaurant industry or if you're in work and you tell them like this is what I would have liked you to have done you have to really be very craftful and Artful in the way that you do this so it's not just demeaning them because a lot of restaurant owners will go straight out there what they're doing wrong right

in the middle of service and sometimes in front of other guests and sometimes in a not a nice way and I know it's a high pressure industry and all that but there are certain things you you could just not do you have to be that creative empowerment for them in situations like that on the job training that coaching you are their coach you're the life coach

or their business coach because they're in business with you when they're when they're representing you at your restaurant they're your business partners they are you know they're making a good impression a bad impression they're selling they're not selling they're making people come back they're making not people not come back right so they're your business partners at that point you're just the one is the owners that's

brunting all the financial burdens right we're having conversation with a car owner car dealership owner well you are I was having a conversation on the conversation and we were like yeah he he's the one who stocks the 200 Cars he's the one has the millions of dollars in debt yeah right and as a as a salesperson you have to walk in with a sharp pen you

know pen be sharp on your game and have no debt and be able to make good good good money if you apply yourself yes and but he has to at some point meet you at a certain level and give you the tools but then you as the owner of the employee has to then get yourself to the other direction right and I think the biggest no

you continue keep going you think the biggest I think that you have to take the responsibility for your team members and if a team member keeps screwing up you need to just say to them this isn't for you well thank you we were just talking about a team member today right about how you know they a lot of our team members don't message back if you

text them something or if you're looking for something they just don't text you back right and I don't understand why they don't just say I don't know I'm not sure let me get back to you so your text like all Texas staff member and say what um uh um describe your day in an emoji right a group text message well we have a group message going

on and I like to keep them you know like I just sent them this is going to be the best 2020 you're ever 2023 um I'm looking forward to our team call on on um Thursday and make sure you have your goals ready because we talk about goals right so and then I'll say so I make sure that they've read it please respond with an emoji

of how you're feeling today I only got three responses yesterday but if you send the message out saying I'm overstaffed this Friday who wants off people start fighting to send messages they they don't want to work oh I couldn't work anyway right right so it's just so it's always this sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't and if they don't want to respond if they don't

like what you're asking they won't respond not even not like it just like you just won't respond like it's easy to respond to how's your day going in emoji right smiley face thumbs up if you want just one for a run you send them Runner Emoji right that's how your day is going if you're with your dog you send the dog Emoji right yeah it's so

simple to do you ask a staff member hey can you work tonight you know I have somebody Ricketts nothing crickets so and so can't work tonight our shortest staff member who can fill in it's crickets typically there are staff members that will step up and do it but typically that's that's what we all experience is crickets like hey is anybody like getting these messages like even

if you can't work safe I can't work I'm sorry I have plans right whatever it is no I'm sorry yes I can just respond with something but we find that they don't respond with anything so you know that's a tough that's a tough one but but I try to get them to respond in positive so okay so here's the question so if staff's not responding why

don't you give up because I don't give up on my staff I'm never going to give up on my staff because if I give up on my staff and I'm giving up on my passion and my love for my restaurant so I'm never going to give up on them I'm always going to keep trying and I'm going to try different things every time what are some

things I really admire because you're the other one that that does all of the motivational spreading the disseminational all the motivational stuff throughout the through the group messages and things so what kind of things do you send out to staff the team members what are some quotes what are some things great weekend we just had an awesome weekend thank you so much for working hard for

us um you know here's a great customer comment um here's a quote um a quote of the day um let's see you know happy birthday to so and so um I caught so and so doing this this day thank you so much for putting in that extra effort um sometimes I'll just send them a private message being like we just really appreciate you you know thank

you very much sometimes I'll just throw you know um um uh scratch-offs into their checks you know just as like a thank you so much you know great job this week sometimes I mean I just do all sorts of things and I just do whatever feels right for me and I you know I I feel it's important to give them those positive things um because we

do sometimes become very negative um and find very easy very easy to become negative and if people can find all the things that are wrong instead of finding all the things that are right right you got to catch everything's right so I like to equate this as when you train a dog so we should do that in our relationship too all right yeah yeah I mean

in relationships in your business right exactly when somebody's doing something good let them know you don't train a dog by by reinforcing everything they did wrong you train a dog by reinforcing everything they do right so they repeat the right Behavior right you give a treat you give a treat you give a treat and a lot of people say well I don't feel that I should

reward my staff with anything you reward your dog like like you reward your dog because your dog always dogs always love attention as I hear I was walking over your dog your dog loves attention wants to be petted and that you're rewarding your dog because that's what your dog wants to go up to somebody and pets exactly and say oh you're such a good good boy

but you have to figure out like what is it what are the team members after a lot of them are not after the extra money they like the money it's like the they like the recognition praise yes the appreciation yes and your dog gets appreciation you appreciate a lot of things in life already and you don't realize it so when it comes to your staff just

get over it and go above and beyond and do something that's appreciative do something that's above and beyond and I know a lot of you are going to say because we say true to ourselves I'm already paying them why do I have to do more I'm already paying them why I have to do more you want to reward good behavior that's the bottom line and we're

stuck in that mentality sometime soon with the snap out of it yeah sometimes we're just not thinking right and then we're like oh my gosh why did I just say something that was negative let's say something that's positive to reinforce I think they say for egg every negative thing you have to say three positive things to reinforce the positive I like the sandwich effect sit somebody

down you're doing great you're a valuable asset here I really really like you do this this and this however I did notice that there's a certain thing that I need you to improve upon for the efficiency of XYZ or because this this and this and I know you probably already know about it I just yes I know like what can I do to help you like

how do we get to the next level like can we set some benchmarks some so so we can have a conversational follow-up conversation two weeks with some improvements and at the end of it it's like you know what again I we just really couldn't run this restaurant without you your expertise your knowledge your passion your caring your personality whatever it is we really honestly appreciate that

and that's why that's what we sat down with you because we don't we don't want to be in a situation where Ryan said to them and take some you're doing wrong and that formula right there the sandwich formula that kind of approach who's ever going to complain about that folks here's here's one thing that that you have to understand and I was just gonna I was

just gonna kind of put in there in in terms of our relationship wise we balance each other really well with that so like if you are about to say something super negative I kind of well if I already did if you did then I balance you with you need to say something positive and then vice versa go back there and say something positive the way you

understand that was nothing now go say something positive yes I was going to mention that too um where was I going right before that and that's the nice part about having a partner um that you jump off of back and forth right and I was where was I going before that part I'm sitting them down the sandwich effect helping them giving them the tools come back

the other direction sandwich effect after that I was gonna say something about sitting them down oh boy sitting them down communicating here we go so nine out of ten times nine and a half out of ten times before you even sit down with an employee they know they already know what they've done wrong they already know where they're wrong you could even ask them or when

they're weak a week so when you do a 360 review and we'll do about a 360 degree view a topic on 360 review this is a power powerful tool when they coded and review themselves they're not saying anything that's going to surprise anybody they already know that they're not that they're not on time they already know that they don't know the wine list they already know

that they don't smile enough they already know all of these things or the one thing that's where they already know that so you have to not act like it's a surprise and like it's like it's a deal breaker or this or that but however you take the responsibility if they don't change then you have to if it is a serious thing you have to get rid

of them so yep so those are some tools on how to build your culture or build your staff build them up so they want to work harder for you you are their life coach the life coach you're the life coach then you're their boss and you have to treat them just a really quick question like what are some things um or some tools that um that

you can that you as a boss can use um to be able to use those things towards your staff does that make sense like what what are some things that we do right we read books we uh like a podcast yeah what do we do to build ourselves to inspire be able to inspire them I think that's the last piece of the well it's always about

us learning like I said in the beginning always about us learning and we have to keep ourselves positive we have to keep training ourselves or to learn from ourselves we need coaches we need positive influence we need people to tell us we're doing things wrong we need podcast right we need stuff that we're listening to all the time because the more you put it in there

the more you're going to retain and and utilize the more you're reminded of it right like you could you know it's one of those things just because you did it five years ago doesn't mean you know it now and you do it now and you can teach it now you might be well off better off in other people on a certain topic subject running or whatever

it is but just because you did it once upon a time doesn't really give you the right to be the authority anymore keep learning keep learning keep learning yeah all right folks all right welcome to or test of time test of time love passion and hustle in the restaurant business and this is Jamie and Marcus signing off see you later