Restaurant Staff Management: How to Properly Select Team and Control Work

Restaurant staff determines service quality and business financial result. Product theft, unjustified write-offs, inflated purchases eat up to 15-20% of margin without control. Owners hire employees but don’t see real picture of their actions without accounting system.

Staff management built on objective data, not subjective assessments. Technologies record every waiter, chef, manager action — from shift opening to closing. Coffee shop automation system shows who punched how much, which dishes were prepared, whether orders were cancelled, whether revenue matches warehouse inventory.

Key Restaurant Management Tasks in Team Selection

Staff selection must consider restaurant business specifics. Stress resistance critical — busiest shifts require maintaining work speed and accuracy. Sociability affects hall atmosphere, waiter friendliness forms guest impression of establishment.

During hiring, internship shows candidate’s real skills. Two-three days working in hall or kitchen give understanding how person handles workload. Personal qualities manifest in stressful situations — when 10 orders arrive simultaneously.

Hall employee must remember dish compositions, correctly accept orders, work with cash register, resolve guest conflicts. Chef controls ingredient quality, follows recipe cards, maintains cooking pace during peak hours.

Properly selecting team means finding balance between experienced specialists and newcomers. Experienced head chef builds kitchen work process, young waiters learn faster and more willingly accept establishment corporate culture.

Staff Work Control Automation in Establishment

Automation removes unnoticed theft possibility through all operations transparency. Waiter punches receipt — products automatically written off from warehouse. Discrepancy between sold and written off revealed immediately when closing shift.

Each employee’s actions accounting kept in real time. Who opened shift, how many tables served, which dishes sold, whether there were cancellations or returns. Data accumulates for work effectiveness analysis without manager’s subjective assessments.

Cafe management accounting shows money and product movement with linkage to specific people. Revenue by waiters, ingredient consumption by chefs, shift closings with deviation recording — all information available to owner.

Shift closes with automatic cash register calculation. Waiter received cash for certain amount, punched receipts for another — system shows difference. Regular discrepancies for one employee signal problem.

Effective Schedule and Employee Workload Management

Work schedule built on workload analysis by days and hours. Friday evening requires maximum staff, Monday morning — minimum. Employee quantity planned based on actual guest flow data.

Waiter work effectiveness measured by average check, service speed, tables served per shift quantity. One hall worker processes 35 orders, another 20 — numbers objective and don’t depend on manager opinion.

Optimal staff quantity calculation based on food service standards. For 50 seats in restaurant requires 3-4 waiters during peak hours. Kitchen for 100 dishes per day needs 2-3 chefs for maintaining cooking pace.

Staff work planning includes reserves for illness or resignation case. New employee attraction takes 2-3 weeks considering search, internship, training. Staff turnover over 30% per year signals working conditions problems.

Quality Control and Loss Prevention

Dish cooking quality control helped by dish recipe cards. Each dish has precise recipe with ingredient weights. 20-30% deviation from norm affects cost and taste.

Service standards recorded in job descriptions. Waiter meets guest within minute, accepts order in 3-5 minutes, serves dishes according to sequence. Work process deviations reduce service quality.

Each item sale controlled through cash register and warehouse connection. Punched receipt for steak — meat, side dish, sauce written off. If write-off didn’t happen, dish prepared from products outside accounting.

Syrve for waiters doesn’t allow deleting receipt after processing without manager confirmation. Each order cancellation recorded with reason indication. Frequent cancellations for one waiter require situation analysis.

Theft loss reduced by 8-12% after management systems with automatic accounting implementation. Employees understand that every action recorded and analyzed.

Team Development Strategic Planning

Strategic approach to restaurant work includes staff development. Training on new menu dishes, service trainings, chef qualification improvement — team investments pay back through average check growth and guest loyalty.

Establishment success depends on team stability. Regular waiters know regular guests’ preferences, chefs have worked out cooking processes to automatism. Turnover destroys established connections.

Effectively managing restaurant means delegating tasks correctly. Manager concentrates on strategy and marketing, shift manager controls operational processes, head chef responsible for kitchen. Clear responsibility zone distribution excludes function duplication.

Accounting program used for objective assessment of each worker’s contribution. Revenue by waiters, kitchen work speed, order acceptance accuracy — metrics for calculating salary bonus part.

Restaurant work process requires current information about all operations. Restasystem provides data in real time — owner sees what happens in establishment without being on site.

Analyze staff work indicators regularly. Weekly meetings with numbers analysis, problem discussion, next period goal setting. Metrics transparency motivates employees to work better.

Effective team work possible only with proper combination of people selection, training, control through technologies. Restaurant business requires balance between staff trust and checking their actions through accounting system objective data.