PLANNING, the cliche or not, prevents poor performance

• Check your staff leave accrual.
• While you have to be out of operation, manage your leave due to staff down. 
• This gesture will also keep your staff going financially with some money for their households.
• Once you are back in action you can hit the road running and your staff is present where you need them.
• Negotiate a partial payment plan with your staff.
• Set up a Facebook campaign for support of your staff, advance gift voucher sales, donations for the employees and their families. 
• Dineplan Voucher Plan. https://www.voucherplan.co.za/?fbclid=IwAR1Omudhv0mnF1jDWpOpWjwGRVR0EKKq9aJso4EI_9EQHKdbcG3yObCKOdk
• Set up signages at your business entrances and redirect traffic from your website and social media pages to the Support Facebook campaign.

I have always found it stimulating and exciting to plan for the new year coming. During November and December of the current year, coming to an end, I would buy a new, year planner, and begin to pencil in important dates and events for the year coming. 

• CONSIDER TIME OF DAY / WEEK / MONTH DURING SHIFT PLANNING
• WHEN PLANNING SHIFTS, KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING DURING THE PERIOD YOU ARE PLANNING FOR
• BIRTHDAYS
• SCHOOL HOLIDAYS
• SPORTING EVENTS
• RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS
• BIG BOOKINGS
• CERTAIN STAFF MIGHT BE ON LEAVE
• HAVE A LOOK AT THE WEATHER
• ARE YOU IN A SHOPPING MALL OR ARE YOU STAND ALONE IS RAIN OR SUNSHINE PREDICTED
• TOO BUSY CAN THROW YOU OFF AND YOU CANNOT SERVE YOUR GUESTS
• TOO QUIET WILL COST YOU MONEY IF YOU HAVE TOO MANY STAFF ON SHIFT
• IF YOU HAVE TOO MANY STAFF AFTER 4 HOURS YOU CAN SEND SOME PEOPLE HOME UNLESS SOME OF THEM VOLUNTEER TO GO HOME EARLY
• IF YOU HAVE TOO MANY STAFF ON HAND GET SOME OF THE MUCH NEEDED MAINTENANCE DONE, CLEANING OR TRAINING
• THINK ON YOUR FEET AND ADAPT QUICKLY TO THE EVER MORPHING WORK ENVIRONMENT IN A RESTAURANT
• IF ALL MAINTENANCE IS DONE, DO MORE TRAINING WITH YOUR STAFF
• CROSS TRAIN ALL STAFF AND TEACH THEM HOW TO WORK EFFICIENTLY IN EACH SECTION
• BETTER TRAINING=LESS STAFF ON SHIFT

School holidays, public holidays, religious holidays. I would color-in these with a green hi-liter. This would show me when not to send staff on leave, during these times we will be busy. I would include the day before the commencement of these holidays as people like to start their long weekend or holiday with a relaxing evening out on the last day of work.

Secondly, I would color-in yearly events that have an impact on our trade. There are sporting events. Local church events. Festivals that happen in our area during the year. In some cases, it brings many people to town, and in other cases it causes people to visit the event and our businesses become quiet. 

Now I have a year planner that I can use to plan my year in advance. If an event presents itself during the year it is easy to pencil it into my year planner to ensure that I am not caught out with an inappropriate workforce or too little stock. 

To avoid attempting to write too much information in on one year planner I take my prepped year planner and then I make five copies. 

• One copy for my diary for general planning.
• One copy for management leave planning.
• One copy for production staff leave planning.
• One copy for waitron leave planning.
• One copy for the yearly training plan and workshop schedule.

Once I have planned all the leave and the three leave planners are up on the wall it is easy to complete my training plan for the year. I can see which employees are away from work and schedule the employees according to their availability and the course schedules.

The workshop schedule is short little daily workshops of between 5 and 10 minutes long. The aim of these is to remind and refresh the working habits of the staff consistently without interrupting their schedules or work for inconvenient periods. I find that their concentration is much better during these short workshops and that because of regular repetition I get improved results.

Now that the yearly training plan is scheduled it is easy to revue the past year’s training plan and to catch up with incompleted training before the Training year-end, at the end of February of the following year. In effect, you have a three-month period to complete your scheduled training plan before you have to finalize your Workplace Skills Plan Report. 

In summation by completing one year planner you complete 6 tasks:

• Management leave.
• Production staff leave.
• Waitron staff leave.
• Yearly training plan.
• Workplace skills plan.
• Workplace skills plan report.

Once I have completed all the above I make A5 copies of each and keep these copies in my diary for reference during the year. Even when I am not in the office I can plan accordingly.

If you struggle for time, like most of us, Optiman, Optimal Management Sytems is available to complete the audits on your behalf at a nominal rate.

Please contact Marius Joubert on 0605254998 or marius@restauranthub.co

Support for small businesses:

• Support to business
• Restaurant Relief – The Sukuma Fund: Crisis relief for South Africa’s small businesses
• Rental Relief for FEDHASA-registered Independent Restaurants
• Guidelines And Relief – SA Corona Virus Online Portal
• SMME Debt Relief Scheme
• Business Partners: SME Financial Aid Application Centre
• Department of Tourism
• Absa covid 19 relief programme
• Debt relief for businesses
• FNB Media release – covid 19
• Nedbank is committed to small business during the covid 19 pandemic

Small business Survival Guide.

• Untitled – Small business survival guide

Labour Guide.

• The Department of Employment and Labour Workplace Preparedness: COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-19 virus)

Author: Editor