Five Key Ingredients to Engage Hourly Employees.
The employee engagement attributes below increased
employee engagement by more than 40 percent within the
hospitality organizations we partnered with, and provided over
a 300 percent ROI. Use these key ingredients to know, grow,
involve, inspire and reward your employees.
Know Them: The time managers and senior managers invest
in employees.
• Practice one-minute management: Spend one-on-one time
with every person a few minutes at a time. Ask them, “What do
you need to happen for you to feel successful at the end of the
day?”What is important to them? Career aspirations? What do
they like about their job? What could the company do better?
supervision empowers them to become better leaders, to take
ownership and to feel good about the results they can provide.
Inspire Them: Encourage innovative thinking.
• Encourage innovative thinking and have fun doing it. A
“Turning Fans into Fanatics”creativity lab challenged employees
to think of ways to increase customer service, recognize loyal
guests and increase patronage. Dressed in lab coats, glasses
and surrounded in an evaporating cloud of dry ice, each team
came up with new exciting revenue and customer experience
enhancing ideas achievable within their marketing budget. Hold
your own innovation labs or task groups to spur creativity and
increase ownership in business results.
• Empower employees by helping them to see that they are
resourceful. Instead of telling them what to do, ask them what
they could do in that situation.
• Open a portal for ongoing communication for creative
ideas. The comment box in the corner is no longer useful.
Have employees use technology to post ideas or be invited to a
management meeting to express their ideas.
•
Reward Them: Recognize employees’ efforts frequently.
Self-assess your employee engagement skills.
Grow Them: Give employees opportunities to improve skills
and capabilities.
• Invest in your employees. Many receive hours of training
on how to do their job but little on how to be a great employee
or a future leader. Building skillsets focused on communication,
logical thinking, decision-making, team building and leadership
not only increases professional development, but also retention
of employees willing to grow into management positions.
• Coach employees to take on new roles and responsibilities.
Show them you believe in their capability and challenge them to
stretch. Mentorship builds loyalty.
• Provide immediate feedback. On the spot feedback inspires
quick behavior change.
• Utilize technology to share information. Restaurants who
utilize technology such as Kriddik (www.Kriddik.com) also allow
managers to give immediate feedback from guests to employees,
quickly recognizing and rewarding positive feedback or making
fast recommendations for change.
Involve Them: The opportunity employees have to provide
input for decision.
• Allow employees to have input regarding decisions that
affect their daily work. One client established a private social
media portal where employees could vote on key topics, from
uniform standards to giving feedback on shift schedules.
The Bottom Line …
It’s easy to say,“I don’t have the time to focus on employee
engagement,”but can you afford not to?
Building a stronger workforce drives increased sales, guest
satisfaction, increases customer loyalty and builds a team of
employees positioned for future leadership roles.
Employee engagement is no longer a luxury but a competitive strategy that allows you to take the lead. Engaged employees
gain engaged customers, engaged customers spend more, return
more often and refer others.
Engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave your
restaurant, reducing the typical attrition that many restaurants
experience; 72 percent believe they can positively impact the
quality of service and focus on building customer loyalty; and
68 percent want to take a stake in improving cost control and
positively impacting the bottom line.
With these benefits, doesn’t that feel like a winning team? S
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DEBORA J. MCLAUGHLIN is author of “The Renegade Leader,”
“9 Success Strategies Driven Leaders Use to Ignite People,”
“Performance & Profits” and “Running in High Heels: How
to Lead with Influence, Impact & Ingenuity.” CEO of The
Renegade Leader Coaching & Consulting Group, she and her
team help business owners to achieve aggressive revenue
goals by unleashing the potential in their people.
SCORE | 2016 Issue 1
• Give hourly employees authority. Their ability to quickly
satisfy a guest, issue a gift card or go the extra mile without
• Reward failing forward. Mistakes made are not costly if the
employee learns from them. Observe what occurred, discuss it
without anger and recognize that the employee took a bold step
even it if didn’t work. Encourage growth through recognition.
THE
• Ask employees to volunteer to be a part of a task force team
to take on challenges or to improve upon an area. Start a reduction program to reduce loss caused by excess waste. Launch a
grassroots marketing campaign. Increase the use of the Blazin’
RewardsTM Program. Brainstorm how to improve guest experiences with the Guest Experience Captain.
• Rewards or recognition are easy. They take little time and
money. A stick of gum for “sticking around after your shift;” a
ruler “for going the extra mile;” time off for going beyond what
was expected, etc.