There are a lot of new habits and skills to develop – by nature we hospo people just ‘walk around and do it’. Working from home or away from a venue doesn’t come naturally or easily, and if we have to keep a ‘social distance’, we need very different tools and ways of working. We need to sit down more… Here’s a bunch of resources to help make your remote work almost as good as
We must plan for the worst. Now’s the time to be like swans – floating calmly on the surface, and paddling very quickly under the water. This is real folks – take a lesson from what Chinese restaurants have gone through in the last 3 months, with customers almost completely disappearing. What if half your business disappeared in two weeks? You need to plan for a specific scenario. This is not like ‘sales are down
Video conferences and meetings are becoming a part of daily work life, allowing remote staff to share and interact more fully. There are many opportunities to use it in restaurant, cafe and event management – any opportunity to work from home is a good one! Skype has been around for a long time, and Zoom is very popular. Other conference systems include GoToMeeting, Join.me, BlueJeans and Google Hangouts Meet. Conference Etiquette: Integrate meetings into work
It was great to share my thoughts with the Facilitation Queen Leanne Hughes, about how to make webinars more engaging and interesting. With looming restrictions on live gatherings, they have to be in the toolkit of every trainer and meeting facilitator. The SilverChef webinars I’ve started have had a great response, and this method of teaching and learning is becoming much more familiar and popular. Here’s Leanne sharing her experience, and drawing on the ideas
News about the spread of Coronavirus is not good, and people are starting to panic – we need to stand as islands of calm and true hospitality, while taking important precautions. It’s also time to take urgent management action to protect your profitability. You can stand out from the crowd by being spotlessly CLEAN and HYGIENIC. Here are some quick ways to make this obvious to customers. There also need to be special precautions with
The last time we had an impact like this in Australia was back in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in New York. Then there was the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 – 2009, which affected Australia to some extent, but a rapid economic response by the government stopped it from having the effect here that it had elsewhere. I wrote a fairly lengthy article back in 2001, with advice on how to manage the effects
Where did we learn that self promotion is a bad thing, and why do we accept that as the truth? Marie Forleo feels you should feel ashamed if you don’t promote your skills and achievements. This should resonate with people in hospitality – by definition most of us have to be ‘out there’ with the public and promoting the next event, tomorrow’s lunch or just an extra round of coffees. In many small operations, the
Had someone quit unexpectedly? It’s costly, especially if they hold an important position. A colleague found out her operations manager was planning to leave, when the news slipped out accidently. She moved fast to cover the gap, and reflecting on it later, said: Part of the problem is that most staff don’t know how to resign or handle these situations professionally… Sound familiar? No-one wants good staff leaving, ever, but if it’s going to happen,
Ever seen staff help themselves to food, drink or even cash, and they seem to think it’s OK? You call it shrinkage, waste, ‘unders’, discrepancies or theft. What do they call it? It’s the grey areas that cause problems: drinks or food for friends and family, sloppy work that results in waste, or taking home left-overs. Grey has to become black or white. Does the culture you’ve created reward honesty, or overlook those who break
Here’s the thing: we don’t mind giving staff a pay rise if they plan to add more value. But most times, they don’t know how to negotiate for a raise in a convincing way. Ramit Sethi’s Briefcase Technique, outlined in the video below, is a great way to help them understand what you really want to hear. If they do plenty of preparation, you only have to say yes – the case they make is