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| Waiter Training Newsletter |
Hiring Inexperienced vs. Experienced People
All trainers in all industries make the same claim: “Training will retain employees!” Is it true or are we just telling you what you want to hear? According to a recent blurb from the National Restaurant Association publication, National Restaurant News Online, training isn’t a top priority. Note the following sentence from that publication:
“…While praising the benefits of employee training to the foodservice and hospitality industry, a panel of top executives admitted during a recent conference of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers that training programs account for 2 percent or less of their company budgets…”
In-house training is usually very corporate-minded and the reality of the business on the floor is swept aside like the days’ crumbs and trash. Learning the company’s policies and how to garnish signature drinks is important; showing and practicing how your staff can make more money and offering incentives is paramount to retaining good, reliable staff. Incentives can be as simple as schedule flexibility and as elaborate as holding stock in the company.
We tend to think of wait staff as expendable; people who choose to be waiters tend to think of themselves as expendable! We all need to change our perspective on this career. If we hire and treat waiters like employees instead of fringe staff that gets the food out to people, we will, in time, attract people who think likewise.
Successful businesses spend millions of dollars on their sales representatives because they are representing the company. Like it or not, your waiters are your sales representatives. No one represents your restaurant more than your servers, not even the food. Why create a beautiful plate of food only to have it presented by a slouch who didn’t sell it in the first place?
Be sure you have the best and the brightest on the floor selling your food – all of it. Have you noticed that entrees are being sold just fine? Have you seen salads and appetizers being sold as well? How about sides and extras? How about wine and premium alcohols? Are all of your people doing it, or is there a small group of people who just know how to sell?
You can tell your staff they must sell more of the extras on your menu and offer incentives to those who excel. You’ll notice it’s always the same people winning the incentives and soon you’ve got people leaving because they feel inadequate and alienated. Part of training and incentives is showing how something is done. Most waiters don’t have the first idea about how to sell more of anything! They just know how to take an order and deliver it to the right table.
Why? There are no schools in the U.S. training people to become fantastic waiters. There are culinary schools putting out some great artists in the kitchen. The front of the house should be so well trained. We continue to treat waiters like extras in an epic movie: this is the scene, do something that a person in this situation would do and don’t bump into the scenery. And waiters continue to behave like extras in an epic movie! They don’t think they have the right to be trained and treated like real and valued employees. They know they’re expendable and so behave as expendable people.
"A few years back, a teacher in New York was told that she had a class of gifted students when, in fact, she had ordinary children. She went out of her way to develop their intellect, spent extra time preparing lessons, and stayed after class to help them. The students responded in a positive way and scored higher than average on tests that had previously ranked them as average. Because they were treated as gifted, they performed as gifted."
-Tidbits Magazine
August 25, 2003
Issue 159I have restaurant training manuals available for sale, as well as my new book, “A Waiter’s Training,” for the individual server who wants to learn more about his/her career and improve on skills. You can visit my store at http://www.waiter-training.com/order.html.
Training and information is the key! Contact me, Susie, at Waiter Training, either by phone or email. My business number is (720) 203-4615, and web address http://www.waiter-training.com.
Susie Ross has been involved in the hospitality industry for ten years
. She has just written a definitive work on front of house customer service and techniques for waiters and waitresses. For more information about Susie's book, "A Waiters Training," her training manuals and training seminars please visit her at http://www.waiter-training.com or email her at susie@waiter-training.com.©Waiter Training 2003
Excellence is an act won by training and habituation.
We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have those because we have acted rightly.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.- Aristotle
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