My employer had an employee meeting the other night. Having sat through many of these, both as an employee and as a manager, I was not looking forward to it. They all kind of go the same way, accomplish what is necessary (for a while anyway) and need to be done every 4-6 months. Unfortunately, what was well intentioned turned into a blame game, did not accomplish much and failed to get everyone on the same page.
One of the inevitable downfalls of an employee meeting is that it has to be done before or after business hours. That means a bunch of servers and cooks either have to get up early and come to the restaurant or they have to come late. This is detrimental because very few servers are morning people. Thus, morning meetings means grumpy and less attentive employees. Late meetings means servers are missing out on family, sleep or drinking time. Many have already worked at least one shift and are tired. This also means grumpy and less attentive employees.
During the meeting, the managers, inevitably, have a list of things that need to be covered. Things like running food, pre-busing, helping each other out and overall teamwork are covered. If luck happens, new food/menu items get introduced. What inevitable happens during these meetings (and what happened in my meeting the other night) is that people pick out a couple very specific issues to focus on rather than look at the issues as a whole. For example, in my meeting, one server, when discussing running food, spoke about "This one time I had eight tables going, was totally in the weeds and no one would help me run food. There were people chatting in the back, people smoking and the manager was playing on the internet. Why should I run others' food when no one will run mine?" Well, this might have been true for that one situation, but it certainly is not the case in general and the anecdote did nothing to help the overall message of the meeting. The overall message- run more food- gets lost because one sever is complaining about one very specific situation. The meeting dissolved from here as other servers spoke of their own similar stories. Eventually, what was meant as a 45 minute meeting had turned into a 2 hour "bitch/moan/blame fest."
Many of us, especially those who have worked in the restaurant industry for a long time, have certainly been in these meetings before. They are frustrating because we all don't want to be there, they take too much time, and don't accomplish much. However, there is a right way to do these meetings. My first advice is to not have them to begin with. General housekeeping items, like running food, pre-busing, helping each other out and overall teamwork should be covered in a pre-shift meeting (you are doing pre-shift meetings, right?). This is the time where a manager can say "okay, for this shift let's focus on making sure all the food gets run to the tables within 30 seconds of it being put in the window." That way, everyone is on the same page. The next shift, cover something else in the meeting, something like pre-busing. Then, during the shift, give consistent reminders to staff about what they should be working on that day. Eventually, the things you are covering during pre-shift will be commonplace.
The second piece of advice is to only have a meeting when you absolutely need to. Are you rolling out a new menu? Is there new software being installed that will drastically change the way work is done? Are there new owners or partners that will do things differently? Is there something drastic happening? If there is nothing major being changed in the way the restaurant is done, don't have the meeting. Cover it during the pre-shift. Finally, if you must have an employee meeting, make it fun. You don't want to be there and the staff does not want to be there, so do something fun. For example, the staff eats your food all the time, do an industry trade and get something else to eat. Have a contest on menu/drink knowledge. Let those of age have a (meaning 1) beer while you meet and give smoothies to those who cannot. If you have to give out bad news, sandwich it between two pieces of good news. Don't let the meeting end on a bad note and make sure the meeting ends on time. Stay in control and encourage people who have very specific gripes about what you are talking about to speak to you after the meeting, so as not to bog down the meeting.
Employee meetings can be very beneficial if done correctly. They can lead to better service, better attitudes and can get you back to where you want to be. Look at how you do employee meetings and see how you might improve them in the future.
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