Would you work at your restaurant?

Restaurant Culture

Are your employees happy? A great restaurant doesn’t just serve great food, it has great service, employees, and work culture. Customer experience is heavily influenced by employee happiness. Every day, team members who are happy and enjoy their work regularly create more engaging conversations with customers than team members who are unhappy.

Employee turnover and most significantly, the bottom line, are both affected by restaurant work culture. Let’s face it, your competitors may replicate your menus, recipes, ingredients, and vendors, but they cannot copy your culture.

Company culture is such an important part of your restaurant’s strategy, so let’s focus on creating an environment that encourages, appreciates, and acknowledges your employees and customers. The first step in defining your culture is understanding your core values. What is it that drives you? Is it the taste of your creations, service you provide, or pushing to be the gathering ground for your community? Ideally, it is all three. Next, I want you to think about your favorite restaurant or bar and why  you choose to take your service there. It is most likely because you enjoy the experience, whether that’s from the welcoming staff or the music they play that fits perfectly with the ambiance of the space. What ever it is, you need to image your operation, and think about the experiences you want to give to your guests. It is just a matter of incorporating these values into your day-to-day operations. Finding ways to show your employees how important their work, opinions, and ideas are is a fantastic way to learn who your employees are.

Now that we’ve touched on the importance of the space, lets talk about the things that fill the space, your employees. Your kitchen staff, servers, bartenders, and hosts all are what enables your operation to run. What are your employees’ interests? Do you set a standard for lateness or preach when sales goals are met? Every single employee that you have is there for one major reason, to pay their bills. It is important that your employees understand their value in your operation, otherwise it will lead to unhappy employees and burnout. Giving them a place that they feel valued and appreciated will assist in the success of your operation. Having a strong structural organization will help mold your employees into the companies’ values and culture. When you have unhappy employees, you are bound to have unhappy guests.

How do you standardize these values and practices? Employee handbook, practice makes perfect. It's time to put your words into action. Follow your company's culture and encourage your workers to do so as well. Invite your customers to share your vision and demonstrate how they may become a part of the culture you've established by visiting your business.

We know employee happiness influences customer experience, start with the ones closest to your operation and your core values and company culture will spread like wildfire. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers.