Have you ever wondered why McDonalds, Dominos and KFC are such successful, global businesses? Often they are staffed by 15 – 19 year olds and yet everything runs efficiently. It’s called a system and everyone is trained in the system, so anyone can cover any station. The system is documented, so if in doubt, there is usually a checklist for the employee to refer to, ensuring they get it right.

Has your club, pub or restaurant got all your policies, procedures and checklists in place? If not, you might be thinking “Is this why we always have stuff ups and confusion amongst the employees?” Probably yes. One of my favourite cliché extensions is this – “Knowledge is Power, but the true power of knowledge is in sharing it.”

By this I mean, when you train all your staff to do all possible jobs and provide them with simple checklists to ensure they get it right, you have shared the knowledge required to gain maximum efficiency in your team.

Policies

Have you got a Staff Policy? – the handbook that lets all the staff know what is expected of them in the workplace? Great if you do! And do the staff sign the last page and give it to you to acknowledge they have read and understood the policy? This should be filed in their personnel file, and this is the audit trail of managing staff performance, with the acknowledged consequence of not adhering to the policy standards.

If you don’t have a policy, talk to me to provide a template policy to contextualise to your business. Then ensure every employee has been given one as soon as possible, for existing employees, and provide one at employment commencement for any new employees.

What should be included in the policy? There are so many other policies to include like Work Health and Safety, Social Media, Drug and Alcohol, Gaming and Wagering whilst at work, Bullying and Harassment Prevention and others, pending your particular business model.

Have you got a Privacy Policy? - this is of particular importance for clubs, and some pubs, where membership information has particular standards to be observed. Do you have a Cybersecurity Policy to support your privacy policy? And where are you on disclosing information about employees to an external enquirer? Very few organisations have caught up to this particular situation, as employees suffering at the hands of, or potentially escaping from abusive or violent partners, need your protection from random external enquiries. It is a difficult area so talk to the specialists to work out what your policy should be and then implement it through training.

Procedures

Most franchise businesses will have Standard Operating Procedures documented, so that anyone can step in and do any part of the job – flipping burgers, frying fries, making pizzas, taking orders or wrapping and delivering to the customers. I would include in your food outlet procedure things like portion sizes, recipes and cooking processes, to ensure consistent delivery of each meal, drink or dessert, regardless of who is cooking. 

Similarly, procedures for waitstaff on how they perform their duties – taking orders, running food to tables (where applicable), clearing tables etc. – and bar staff – how they pour a beer, mix spirits or make a lemon, lime and bitters (don’t get me started) – will ensure consistency in your venue.

Opening and closing procedures, shift change procedures are all critical to the smooth operation of your business, and where you have sporting and other facilities, there are procedures to managing bowling greens, golf courses, tennis courts, caravan parks and motels, so document it all, or talk to me about some templates to save you reinventing the wheel.

Procedures ensure consistent delivery of operations and they spawn checklists – a critical training and performance management tool – that can and should be used to ensure the procedures are followed to the Tee!

Checklists

Every area of your operation can use a checklist. In clubs and pubs, you need as checklist for opening procedures for the bar and gaming areas and if you have a bistro or restaurant, the set up and opening procedures too. Then shift change and closing checklists. 

Checklists to cover off how cash is handled, tills are rung off and reconciled. The management of gaming and wagering operations can also be facilitated by a good checklist. Making sure that every aspect is covered to remind key employees of the things they need to make sure are done, and advise and guide new employees, or casuals, what needs to be done.

Even the administration operations can use a good checklist – daily, weekly and monthly checklists – to ensure things are done at the right time from a governance and management perspective.

Restaurant management can also benefit from a good series of checklists, to ensure consistency in preparation, presentation and delivery. Service standards can be enhanced by the use of checklists that spell out the best way to interact with the clients. There is a reason, for example, that pilots go through a checklist on every flight, before they depart, to ensure everything is ready to do what needs to be done during the flight operation.

Another critical checklist is the “Par stock level” check list. Whether you run a club, pub or restaurant, you need to know what your par stock levels are – the stock you need to run your operation every week. And (being a little OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- myself) I love a good ‘Planogram,’ that diagram that shows you where every item should be when in stock. And interestingly, it will tell anyone what is missing when it is completely out of stock.