Office Organization

It's just after the end of the rush. You're trying to get the store put back together, get people off the clock, do cash drops, till changes. Time is flying by, things are chaotic, decisions are being made in split seconds based on routine and a dash of information. To say time is a precious commodity is to call China a well-populated nation.

Jimmy comes up to you, reminding you about the vacation time he wants to use. That means finding the approval form in the office.

Right. Finding...the approval form. In the office.

You walk into the office, and there's papers and small wares everywhere. A new spatula for the promo sandwich starting next week is on the printer. New PoP materials are half out of the envelope, sitting on the desk chair. Cash reports, last week's Key Business Items sheets, applications, employee files, and a coffee cup are all laying at random in the 4 square feet that make up the work area. Post it notes with random, unexplained numbers are stapled to the wall. Notes about schedules, requests, product outages—dammit, looks like you need to find some more ketchup packs to transfer in—are everywhere they'll stick.

The filing cabinet is jammed shut and won't open. That's where the vacation request forms are supposed to be...but considering there's a Gamer's Monthly magazine in the Nightly Paperwork in/out tray, you're fairly sure nothing is in it's right place.

By now, you've got three other employees looking for guidance, a customer wants to “talk to the manager,” and Jimmy needs to go to his second job. Oh well, maybe you can get the form in tomorrow and still be ahead of the cutoff for vacation hours...

You don't have time to hunt for things. Not on the line, where you'd never think about starting the rush with utensils missing and the food in a different spot every day. You have even less time to spend in the office, going “Where are the I-9s? The work permits? I know I have seven orientation packets left...where did they all go?”

When you have off-line time, it needs to be maximized. Whether you're stepping into the office for a pen or sitting down to do a food order everything needs to be where it can be found. Nothing will destroy your lunch or dinner rush faster than stepping into the office to grab some sort of training aid...and then not coming back for 15 minutes because you had to dig through four drawers to find it.

Organize the work place, including your office. This is a challenge in part because most companies don't offer guidance. They assume (correctly) that if you're smart enough to run a multi-million dollar operation on a day-to-day basis, you can keep a tiny closet-sized office tidy. The hard part is the restaurant itself...the office is for people like you to worry about.

The other part of the issue is the management team. When you have four or five people using the same space, you'll have problems. Someone doesn't feel the pens should be kept in a holder on the desk—pens should be left in their box in a drawer. Or “I work too hard when I close to put everything back where I got it.”

You're the boss. It's your office. It's gonna be you explaining to your boss why the place is a wreck, or why you haven't filed the XYZ paper (because you have no idea where the blanks are). You're responsible for what goes on the office, and that gives you the authority to say how it goes. That's not the say don't take the management team into account—as with anything, there's no advantage to alienating people. But if you have a part time shift supervisor who refuses to put her nightly paperwork where everyone else does...go ahead and use progressive discipline.

For the love of all things good, lead by example. If you clearly make an organized office a personal priority then it's harder for everyone else to blow it off.

And trust me, you want to make it a personal priority.

Consistency is Key

Consistency is one of the quickest ways to make or break your restaurant. A lack of consistency—whether in policy, direction, or quality—will make your customers not know what to expect, your employees insecure, and your P&L number fly all over the spectrum from week to week. Being consistent, however, is how you generate a loyal following of customers, employees who are confident in their work, and stable financials.

As tempting as it can be to play favorites and make exceptions, it's generally a bad idea. The rules are there for a reason, and breaking them can have unforeseen results. Yeah, you know Janet is under a lot of stress right now, so you wink at her calling off once in a while. But Louis notices Janet not getting in trouble, and now he's starting to call off regularly. When you try and call Louis on the issue, he throws Janet's special treatment in your face.  Now what do you do?

Same thing with work duties. If nightly inventory is an issue only once in a while (instead of nightly, as the name suggests), or if stocking cups before lunch rush happens only if certain people are on duty it creates random fluctuations in service and control. If there's a set of duties that needs to be done regularly, it needs to be done regularly. You can't just let someone off the hook (including yourself) if they aren't in the mood.

Of course, there's a standard disclaimer. You're the officer in charge, the lead on the ground, the person with the answers. You know when to make exceptions, so make them when it's appropriate. It's assinine to fire someone because they've been throwing up for three days but can't afford to go get a doctor's note. It's unreasonable to expect a manager who worked an open-to-close shift to do a detailed inventory count. Just don't make exceptions the rule.

Because the rules, the policies, the procedures are there for a reason...if they aren't serving a useful purpose anymore, they should be changed once and for all instead of leaving people not knowing what to expect.

The Schedule

The schedule is what is going to make or break your experience in the QSR world. That's it. End of story. Period.

If you write a good schedule you'll be happy, productive, and profitable. If you write a bad schedule you'll be pissed off, unable to accomplish anything, and either out of business or changing careers. The weekly schedule is how you manage your primary set of tools—your subordinate team members. (On the flip side, the weekly schedule is THE central issue in their lives...but more on that later).

With enough exceptions to drive you to drink, rush periods can be predicted. Rush periods, by definition, are when large amounts of your business happen. Flipping burgers, this was lunch. Some days up to 75% of our business hit between 11am and 2pm. Slapping pizzas, I saw a lot of weeks when 50-65% of the weekly revenue happened in 5 hours every Friday. When you start talking large percentages of your daily or weekly business, you need to start thinking large percentages of your labor hours. If you short-staff your rush period you'll get nothing but pissed off customers, pissed off crew, and an alcohol problem for yourself.

Since you can't turn a profit if you work everyone all the time, pre and post rush hours need to be carefully considered. This is when the heavy lifting for your store happens. Before the rush, this is when your tomatoes get cut, your condiments get set out, utensils put in place, food stuffs readied for battle. After the rush, someone gets the trash and dishes out of the way, re-preps all the stuff you went thru before, keeps an eye on business to make sure late-lunchers don't go away feeling second rate. These periods will make or break your day, and you shouldn't give just anyone with a pulse these hours.

If you pay attention, you'll get a feel for when exactly your rush starts and stops on any given day. It's not written in stone. There are so many variables to when people eat, and sometimes the only way to win is with literally last-hour phone calls to keep people home or call them in. So while the labor matrix your district manager or operating partner or owner tells you to use is a very powerful tool...it is far from always right. That's why they pay you to write the schedule, and not a machine.

How do you write a solid schedule? Start by having everyone's current availability, in writing. Signed and dated. Nothing will destroy a good mood—or a good schedule—faster than someone coming up to you with a variation on, “But I told you every third Tuesday I have my back waxing appointment!” Be flexible, but when people tell you they can work a particular set of hours hold them to it. Knowing they've made a written commitment to be available for certain hours and days goes a long way towards keep people honest.

Stuff comes up. Doctors appointments, hot dates, family gatherings, once-in-a-lifetime rock concerts. The type of things we should be worried about, instead of work. Have a schedule request system in place for these situations—and use it. Giving someone a day off—especially if they're available five to seven days a week—will not ruin your business. It doesn't matter what the system is, exactly...but make sure it's written (so you and others can verify dates, track how many requests someone makes, etc), easy to get to for the crew, and something you can work into your schedule writing routine easily. I'm a big fan of a three ring binder, one page per schedule week. I worked for a guy who had a manilla envelope stapled to the wall next to the calendar in the office. Whatever works is what works.

Have a solid schedule routine. Start by scheduling to schedule, where you have a couple hours to just sit in the office or the dining room and write the schedule. This lets you focus on the task, do the labor calculations, make adjustments as needed. Resist the urge to “throw” a schedule together on the fly...you're not just putting numbers and names on paper, you're deciding the fate of your restaurant's next week.

Think “schedule” all week long. At least, have it in the back of your mind. If Susan is bucking for hours, coming in to help when there's call offs, make a note to reward that with more hours on the next schedule. If Billy has decided the post-rush trash run is more about his cigarette than the trash, make a note to yank those hours. The schedule is a great tool for motivating people...but only if you use it!

The needs of the business come first. Being flexible is admirable, and very necessary to keeping a happy workplace. At the same time, an employee who expects a full time schedule but can't work rush hours is not doing you any favors. A delivery driver who only wants to work Monday and Tuesday night? That's fine...except that driver had better understand he's only going to work 6 hours a week at most. Someone who wants to flip burgers only between 2 and 6pm? That's just taking post rush hours away from someone willing to come in at 10am and stay all day.

But at the same time, without employees who is going to take care of the customers? Remember everyone on your schedule has bills to pay, some more than others. It's not reasonable to use an adult with children to feed for a handful of hours if you can possibly help it. And while they have bills to pay, they have lives to lead too. You'd be pretty pissed off if you had to close, then come in and open. Or if you had a class to attend and your boss scheduled you to work at the same time. A little empathy, looking hard at finding solutions that meet everyone's needs instead of taking the easy route, will save you a lot of trouble in the long run with turnover.