Tips for Hiring in the Hospitality Industry.

As the busy holiday season approaches many restaurateurs are realizing their needs for more staff. Hiring staff takes a lot of man power, costs money, and can be draining on current staff as well as guests, so you want to get it right the first time. Here are some things to look for on a resume:

1. Previous experience lasting longer than two consecutive years. - A red flag should go up every time you see a resume with a number of different restaurants on them lasting about 6 months each. It shows that the potential employee either cannot stay loyal to a restaurant or cannot hold a position. Seeing a resume with only a couple of restaurants lasting a couple of years each is a good sign.

2. Previous experience at a company known for their training. When I used to hire employees at a large pub I used to love seeing McDonalds work experience on resumes. McDonald's has a reputation for intense and customer driven training. The foundation for the way I wanted my employees to work was already ingrained by their previous employer, bonus!

3. Previous experience that includes hard manual labor. Landscapers, farm hands, and even construction workers work on their feet, using their body for a living and if they can manage that in hot summer temperatures then running around a restaurant or lifting kegs of beer will be a breeze.

4. Hobbies that include recreational team sports. Not everyone lists their hobbies on a resume and if they don't you should definitely ask about them in the interview. If hobbies are listed, look for team sports on the list. The ability to play a team sport translates well to a restaurant environment, its labor intensive and a team based atmosphere. The ability to work well in a team both in sport and in work is a highly sought after skill.

5. No restaurant experience at all. Depending on what position you are hiring for it might be best to hire someone with no previous experience. The bonus here is that you have a blank slate, someone who isn't bringing bad habits with them that you can train to be the employee that works best for your store.

When you're interviewing for new employees you should:

1. Pay attention not only to what the person is saying but HOW they are saying it. If someone speaks with low energy, little expression, and no smile, chances are pretty good that those qualities will translate into their presence at work and on the floor. You want people who are confident, sociable, and interesting to listen to.

2. Pay attention to what they're wearing - Everyone knows that dressing to impress for an interview is step one in the process so don't consider applicants that don't take the time to dress up a little for their interview. If someone appears sloppy during an interview imagine how much of a hassle it will be to get them to iron their uniform for work.

3. Not discriminate against tattoos, piercings, or appearance. You are looking for someone with the ability and personality to do the job. Just because someone has tattoos or piercings doesn't mean that they can't be customer service all-stars. You might very well be loosing out on an exemplary employee if you decide that you don't want to hire someone with visible tattoos.

4. Prepare for the interview just as you would expect the interviewee to. Write down your list of questions as well as key points you are looking for in the answers.

Some fun and helpful questions to ask while interviewing employees for the hospitality industry:

1. Ask about hobbies: What do you do when you're not at work? Team sports, socializing, baking, cooking, eating out, learning new things, working out, are all great answers. You want an employee who can work well in a team, has a passion for food and drink, and who can carry on a conversation. You also want someone with the stamina to work the long hours and at a fast pace like a restaurant requires.

2. Ask about previous experience as a customer: Can you tell me about a time you had great customer service at a restaurant? Can you tell me about a time you had bad customer service at a restaurant? What made it so good / bad? You want the interviewee to highlight aspects of great customer service and bad customer service so that you know that they know key elements of the difference between the two.

3. Ask about their passion for food: If you were hosting 6 of your friends for a celebratory dinner, what would you serve and why? This question is a great way to highlight your interviewee's passion for food and beverage. You're looking for descriptors that make you want to be invited to that dinner. If they are able to sell you on their meal selection, they will have no trouble selling specials to your guests.

4. Ask about conflicts at previous work environments. Can you tell me about a time you had a conflict with another employee or guest and how you overcame that conflict? This question is really a trick question. The best answer you can hope for is "I've never been in a conflict at work." Should they tell you about a conflict, look for mature ways of approaching the situation and resolving the issue. Conflicts with guests are usually a red flag.

5. Ask about their ability to ask for help: You were just sat 4 tables in a row, one table is extremely chatty, another has multiple food allergies, one table barely speaks English, and the fourth are regulars and very important guests. How do you effectively serve them all? You want them to respond with "I would ask for help from a manager or fellow employee." No one could effectively greet and serve them all on their own. The ability to recognize when you need help and be able to ask for it is paramount in this industry.

Happy Hiring!

The Most Important Hospitality Tool

I remember participating in a psychology study in my first year of University as a part of my Psych 101 course credit. Without knowing the terms or hypothesis of the study I was sat in front of a computer and asked to rate pictures of people as attractive or unattractive. Upon completing the task I sat down with the researcher to discuss my results. The study was on the impact of a smile on perceived attractiveness. Without realizing, I had rated all the smiling people as attractive and all the unsmiling people as unattractive. What I also didn't notice was that there were duplicate pictures of some people, one of them smiling, and one of them almost frowning. I walked back to my dorm room that day with a big smile on my face wanting to appear as attractive as possible.
A smile is a tool every hospitality personnel should have on them at all times. There are many benefits to having a smile on your face, all of which apply to the greater success of any restaurant. First, and foremost: smiles are contagious. If our goal is to make our guests happy at any cost then we should start with a smile.

"I decide to pop into little French cafe around the corner to grab a cup of tea while I’m waiting. As I sit under my little gray cloud, my pretty, young server Colette flashes me a dazzling smile that sticks there for the entire interaction. I can’t help but smile back. In fact, I even catch myself smiling while washing my hands in the bathroom. Suddenly my day doesn’t seem so bad. I finish my tea and head to my appointment equipped with a grin on my face, feeling as though I’ve slipped on a pair of rose-colored glasses. Today’s lesson? It turns out that when I smile, the world smiles back."  

- Sara Stevenson, Psychology Today 

In a fast paced environment like a restaurant, it is, often times, difficult to stop and smell the roses, we are consumed with the tasks at hand. Table 33 needs a bus, table 42 needs water, I need to take the order for table 45 and table 50 is ready to pay, 8 separate checks. The last thing any server is thinking about in this situation is their facial expression, but it needs to be on their mind and their face, as much a feasibly possible. If we can improve a guest's day just by offering a genuine smile then there is no way any guest should leave a restaurant without being smiled at by every single staff member they come into contact with. 

Smiling is like a floodgate for feel good neurotransmitters. The simple act of smiling relieves stress, improves your mood, elevates brain function, increases your immune system and lowers blood pressure.  

How do you make sure every guest leaves your restaurant with a smile on their face, their day improved just by having dined in your restaurant? You need to make sure your staff are smiling too. 

As managers in the hospitality industry we find ourselves putting out fires, or doing the best we can to stop them before they happen. We need to remember that we're not just managing a restaurant, we're managing people too. Your staff have lives and stresses outside of work and while we ask them to leave their baggage at the door, it inevitably seeps into their interactions with coworkers and your guests. Get your staff smiling by offering humorous anecdotes in pre-shift meetings, having one on one's with staff to get their feedback, and by keeping work fun, even when it's stressful. Don't forget to put a smile on your face too. Smile, and the world smiles with you.  

What's In A Title? : Re-Thinking Traditional Restaurant Positions

I was recently speaking to a fellow hospitality manager about difficulties she was having with some of her staff. Her complaint was that the food runners "only run food." and that her hostesses refuse to do anything but seat guests at a table.  I asked her if she ever considered changing their titles.
Restaurants seem to have very cut and dry positions: hostesses greet guests, servers serve guests, bussers clean tables, food runners run food, line cooks cook food, bartenders make drinks. Everyone's title gives them the outline of what their job requires of them based upon years and years of restaurant tradition. When we look deeper, at what our job actually entails, every position boils down to the same responsibility: to make guests happy. The time has come, restaurants and food service have evolved to the point where the titles of employees working in this industry need to change to reflect what they are really responsible for : ensuring guests leave with a smile on their face, with a belly full of food and nothing but nice things to say about the restaurant they just left.
If we take a look at the role of a "food runner" for instance, we expect that they yes, run food to tables, but we also require them to announce the dish and place it in front of the guest with a certain amount of poise and attention to detail. In most restaurants the food runner is also responsible for bussing tables, assisting the servers, heavy lifting, and odd jobs that no one else will sign up for. They are not just food runners, they are guest service assistants, and they are just as responsible for your guest's satisfaction as any server, host or manager.
If you want to get more out of your staff give them titles that warrant the hard work they do day in and day out. If you hire someone as a "food runner", that is exactly what you're going to get. If you hire someone as a guest service assistant their whole scope of responsibility changes even if the job description stays the same. As managers in the hospitality industry we are responsible for inspiring our staff to excel in customer service aptitudes every day and one of the difficulties we face is the insistent "that's not my job" attitude because someone was hired as a server, or a bartender, or a busser.
Do you find that your restaurant has reached a plateau when it comes to customer service? Do you find it hard to motivate your staff to do better, to care more, and to work harder? Maybe it's time to shake things up a bit. Change their titles.
At one of Minusha's training locations we conducted a little social experiment. We posted an internal job opening for a food runner position. We used the exact job description the restaurant generally uses for the food runner position except we changed the title to: Assistant Guest Services Manager. The pay was a mere $0.50 more an hour than the food runners generally make. After the posting deadline had passed we had received 5 internal applications for the position of Assistant Guest Services Manager. 3 of those applications came from servers, 1 came from a bartender, and 1 came from a hostess who had previously managed restaurants. It was surprising to me that none of the current food runners applied for the job. When I sat each of them down and asked why they didn't apply their answers shocked me. "I didn't think I was qualified." "I'm not management material." "I didn't think I had any chance of getting the job because I'm just a food runner." You should have seen their faces when I brought up their job description that they signed at the start of their employment and compared it to the posting. Unanimously their response was "I didn't think I was responsible for so much." They were already doing the job but didn't realize the extent of their responsibility because their title was "just a food runner".
The other members of staff who applied for the position had an equally perplexed reaction when we showed them the job descriptions side by side. They applied for an entry level position, one they never would have considered otherwise because it had the word manager in it. It seems that staff members were completely missing the scope of their responsibility in the restaurant.
Servers don't just serve food, they are Guest Service Managers. They are responsible for the general well being and satisfaction of your guests. When they come into contact with one of your guests, they are the most important person in the restaurant in that moment because your business hinges on the happiness and satisfaction of that guest. If you hire a Guest Service Manager instead of a server you get someone who is happy to relay specials and features to your guest, you get someone who is adamant about making a birthday celebration special for a first time diner, and most of all, you get someone who cares about what they do and who they do it for on a daily basis.
Hostesses don't just greet people at the door. They are Guest Relation Managers. They are the first point of contact for your guests. They answer the phones, they set up parties, they welcome people to your restaurant with a warm smile and are responsible for the guest from the moment they walk into the restaurant until the moment they leave. They are responsible for ensuring that your seats have bodies in them and that your restaurant is able to serve the maximum amount of people. If you hire a Guest Relation Manager instead of a hostess you get someone who will create meaningful connections with guests when they call to make reservations, you get someone who will go above and beyond to ensure that guests are happy from start to finish. They will do table checks, and log information about guest likes and dislikes, allergies, and special occasions, so that when the guests return you can serve them even better.
When you look at titles in larger, non-hospitality corporations, even entry level positions have titles that reflect the grand scope of what the position entails, not just their primary function. The person answering phones dealing with guest complaints isn't called a "Complaint Taker" they are called a "Client Relations Manager" or a "Client Services Associate", perhaps even a "Client Liaison". Why should the hospitality industry be any different? The answer is: it shouldn't.

Words To Avoid In Customer Service

For those of us in customer service rolls we understand how difficult it is to please everyone. There is no cut and dry manual for dealing with the public; even if you have the best of intentions, inevitably, at some point, you will offend or irritate someone. The best we can do is to familiarize ourselves with practices and phrases that most often offend and omit them from our greetings and day to day interactions with our guests.

I work in an environment with people who are just starting in the hospitality industry, many of whom are at least 10 years my junior. I cringe every time I hear the words "No Problem" or "You Guys" used in conversation with guests. For me, these two phrases are big no no's in the service industry and will inevitably lead to irritating someone in your charge. 

Addressing people for the first time and throughout a dining experience is a tricky task. For men, Sir, Mister or gentlemen work just fine. For women, it can be very complicated. There's Miss, Mrs, Ms, Ma'am, ladies, girls and so on. You can offend a young-hearted lady by calling her Ma'am, or a distinguished lady by calling her Miss, or a group of 40 somethings by referring to them as Girls. The verbiage can be very tricky to navigate, especially when your goal is to fly under the radar and make people happy. 

I recently read an article about gender addressing that changed my view completely on addressing guests in a restaurant. Have you ever approached a table with a big smile on your face and a warm greeting of "Hello Ladies!" only to realize that one of those 'ladies' is, in fact, a man? I have, and I felt terrible and if I felt that awful about uttering the word, I can only imagine how awful he felt after I said it. In my opening line, my very first approach at the table, I ruined the experience for the guest. It doesn't matter if the rest of the meal was absolutely stellar, the service impeccable, all he will remember is how I referred to him as a lady. I've also experienced the flip side of that scenario, where I referred to a lady with a short crop as 'Sir', again, feeling absolutely terrible. I did everything in my power to rectify the situation, but there was really nothing I could do to take back that inadvertent insult. Since then, and after reading this article,  I have abandoned all gender specific words in my service tactics. Ruining someone's day isn't worth the ease of everyday language.  

Guests should not have to identify their gender or make excuses for their appearance, nor should they have to be categorized by the person serving them. As professionals in a customer service capacity it is our duty to ensure that guests leave with a smile on their face and a satisfaction in knowing that the money they spent was well worth it, categorizing guests does not fall into that equation. It is inappropriate to refer to a group of people, both male and female, as "You Guys". I've been hearing it more and more in the younger generation as a casual grouping of people: "Let me show you guys to your table.". Why does the male prefix take precedent over the female members of the group? Why do you need to add a gender to that phrase at all? "Let me show you to your table." "How are you all doing?" .  Bottom line is this: there is nothing casual or friendly about ruining someone's day by either mis-gendering them, or insulting their place in society with a gender specific word: guy, lady, sir. Try: "Hello there!" or "Hi Folks! How are you today?". You'll find that most of your customer service phrases work just fine without the gender attached. 

Another irritating phrase I'm hearing more and more is the "No Problem!" when I ask for something from a service personnel. Albeit a casual, friendly way of saying, "Of course I can get you what you want", it implies that under slightly different circumstances that it might, in fact, be a problem. When conversing with guests avoid the use of any negative language, even if you mean it in a positive way. "No Problem!" could easily be "Absolutely!" or "My Pleasure." both of which use only positive language and avoid the suggestion that what they are asking for might be some sort of 'problem', or inconvenience to you. Keep your words positive to ensure that guests use positive words when it comes to describe you and the service they received!

Visit www.minusha.net for more training and development guides and ideas for your staff.