One of the biggest deciding factors of employee satisfaction, not to mention a business’ success, is quality management. Unfortunately, that means very different things to different people. While many managers focus on the key performance indicators (KPIs) they’re held to as a measurement of success, employees can get overlooked as vital to an organization’s success.
To most employees, good communication and the ability to motivate are imperative skills for managers to have, but they’re not always the easiest skills to develop. Even the most experienced managers—sometimes especially the most experienced managers—need to step back to assess how well they’re meeting the expectations of their team in this regard.
At Revel, there are a surprising number of former managers and supervisors from a variety of retail and food service establishments. While it definitely gives our team an advantage in understanding the pain points that exist around legacy point of sale systems, Revel employees also have vast experience in people management. We know that managing teams is no easy task, so we put together a few management tips our team has leveraged in their past lives that turn out impressive results.
| See Also: 4 Ways to Make Your Employees Happy and Boost Productivity |
To “Clopen” Or Not To “Clopen”? - Be Flexible When Scheduling
You may have never heard of the term “clopen,” but if you've ever worked in the service industry, you’ve probably done it. Clopening is when you close and then open the following morning. Some people absolutely hate opening on the heels of a closing shift because there isn’t much downtime between shifts. Others love it because it can create longer gaps between shifts on the other side, giving them more flexibility with their personal time.
Andrew White, a Revel Systems Tier 3 Support Specialist, worked as an Operations Manager at a restaurant in Chicago before joining Revel. Andrew’s familiarity with the term “clopening” was established when he was primarily responsible for scheduling employees.
My approach to scheduling was to make it as harmonious with my staff’s lives as possible. So many people on my team had other hobbies outside of work that required a particular schedule and allowing employees to ‘clopen’ was often a solution to help them get to those activities. It can be a balancing act, and you can ask everyone about their preferences, but of course, there always has to be give and take.
His goal was always to keep his employees happy, which required respecting the lives of his employees even if it meant frequent conversations around scheduling. If you have employees with rigid schedules, you’ll have to be sure to have a few employees on staff who have more flexibility to average things out.
The Oft’ Dreaded Employee Meeting - Creating Engaging Team Meetings
In order to keep your troops motivated and on the same page, checking in with your employees routinely will ensure the health of your business. Despite the need for regular all-staff meetings, it’s not uncommon to be filled with dread at the mention of a staff meeting. If that’s the case for your team, it could be that your meetings could use a makeover.
Britt Johnsen, who runs Revel’s Voice of the Customer team, used to be a cafe supervisor. One of the challenges she often encountered was the cost of incentivizing employees with a snack during the team meeting and any prizes to recognize the MVPs. For a small business, meeting costs can add up quickly, especially while you’re paying for a lot of labor that isn’t directly tied to revenue generation. Luckily, her team was able to come up with a really creative solution.
We would have barista contests at our team meetings, where we’d take a list of each staff member’s favorite drink and divide it into three. Then we would give a gift card to the barista who made their list of drinks fastest. It helped us get all of the drinks made and still reward people on the team.
Knowing what motivates your employees to come to the meetings is a big help, so if you’re not entirely sure, ask them! A quick survey that you can pass out with everyone’s pay stubs or verbal check in should get you on the right track.
| See Also: 5 Tips for Franchise Success |
Slaying Performance Reviews - Structuring Reviews
Fear of employee meetings may be a big one, but managers and supervisors probably fear giving performance reviews even more. That’s likely because many managers fail to have an established process for reviews—without one, it’s tough to know where to begin.
Shad Stalians, Revel’s Social Media Manager, formerly worked as a team leader in a grocery store. Running a large team required giving plenty of performance reviews. As a result of their consistent process, reviews proved to be the best opportunity to develop trust with the team—something that is invaluable.
Much like having a standardized interview process, all employees should given a review based on a consistent criteria. Employees should also have the opportunity to rate themselves beforehand on that criteria and be encouraged to come with examples to support their rating. If both parties have taken the time to assess how things are going and have something to bring to the meeting, then you’ve set the tone for an open dialogue.
Consistent reviews help ensure that all employees are held to the same standard and reduce the opportunity for surprises. By creating an open dialogue, managers have the opportunity to talk about the employee’s perception of their own performance first, highlight what they’re doing well, give them specific goals for improvement, and talk about long term goals. Managers also learn how to better support their team both individually and as a whole during this process.
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