Donald Burns tells restaurant leaders to match job duties to what employees want to learn. Let an aspiring photographer shoot the menu, let a business student handle scheduling. Staff with real stakes in their work show up on time and care more than people just waiting tables.
What's one thing you think a restaurant could do to make the rest of this year just a great year? One thing. Probably create a stronger culture in your business. Really dive into that. You know, find a way to build career foundations for your employees. Find a way to give them something to work towards. It's not like I said, and I know I've kind of gotten repetitive on this, but, you know, if your server feels like they're just coming to work every day to wait a table, you know, and that's the only skills you. Somebody's allowing them to do or to hone. I mean, where's. Where's the light at the end of the tunnel for them? You know, if they want to be a photographer, let them get involved in taking pictures for the restaurant. You know, let them use you to build a portfolio, you know, and that goes to everything in life. Like I said, we get a lot of students, so, you know, we're letting everybody use. Do something that's in their major field and give them that part to run in the company. And it's made a big difference for us. You can see it on them. You can see they're excited to be there. They're showing up early to get the work done. And it's before the old team we had. You know, they mosey in whenever they decided to stroll into work and wait tables and get out of there immediately. There you go.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
