Everyone is sick of winter and ready to spring forward into warmer weather on March 11th. But this spring, you should do more than just change your clocks. Spring is all about cleaning out the old and starting fresh, so why not take this opportunity to start improving your management as well? Here are some tips to spring clean your management style.
Let’s face it - we all get into ruts with the way we do things. Your communication with your employees may be less than stellar coming out of the holiday rush. Re-evaluate how you have been handling communication in your restaurant and think of how it could be improved. From scheduling to training, make it easy for your employees to communicate with you and to stay up-to-date on changes in the restaurant to make their workday easier.
Times are busy and it can be easy to brush off large projects, especially when it comes to planning and strategizing for the upcoming year. But it is very important that you spring forward with your planning. This can include everything from your monthly sales projections from last year to planning hiring strategies based on gaps and busy time periods. Make a to-do list of everything that you know needs to be done throughout the year at this time and keep updating it as you go. Then come up with a planning strategy to accomplish each task in a timely manner.
The most important step of your management spring cleaning is to get organized. Not only should you organize the restaurant itself and clean out storage, but take a hard look at how you keep your information organized during your management tasks. Do you have papers littered across your desk with notes and reminders about your employees’ availability and training opportunities? Are your Excel sheets out of control with sales data and schedules? Do you feel like you are frequently having to go back and make corrections on communications, schedules, training, menu planning, and more?
These are signs your organization as a manager is a little chaotic. Start investigating ways to declutter your desk and get your management organized, like these 101 ways to log notes for a more productive organization. Technology presents so many opportunities to consolidate tasks that take hours into simple, streamlined processes.
Software is available to make all those hairy management tasks easy to control in one simple interface, like our ShiftNote software! Start your research on how technology can help your management by exploring our Online Manager’s Logbook and Employee Scheduling Software.
Tell us in the comments below: What are your leadership tips for 2018?
(and you could win a 2018 special edition ShiftNote T-Shift)