By Sue de Bievre
CEO, Beany
It’s no secret that every tourism, hospitality and accommodation business could benefit from increased productivity. In fact, lack of productivity is a major obstacle in the world of hospitality which can hugely impact long-term profits and overall business success.
The question is, what does increased efficiency look like and how can it be implemented without posing as a daunting task? By understanding and applying a few general principles, you can stop worrying about the impact productivity has on your business and start focusing on developing your business.
- Know your numbers
Inventory management is crucial in any business, but hospitality takes the cake. When ingredients are your livelihood, keeping track of them is imperative. Products have a way of disappearing unless you have strict controls over them – especially when it comes to food.
To ensure you are taking care of inventory it is important to keep up with stock takes, portion control, staff product policies, cameras and good accounting. Knowing what you have and where you have it will ensure you don’t over or understock product and help you know where your money is.
Another thing to be aware of is monitoring your numbers and keeping an eye on your profits. Implementing a schedule to check your margins every week or two will help you know precisely what they should be and if the results are positive or negative. By measuring the numbers, you help maintain control over them.
Additionally, the pricing of a product or service should be done very carefully in order to get the most profit. Each service should be costed out in detail and a margin should be applied to get an accurate sale price. Put in a simple formula, your process should be calculated by following this equation:
Opening stock + purchases – closing stock = cost of sales
- Do right by your customers
Customers are everything in the world of hospitality and it’s important to treat them in a way that acknowledges this.
Creating a great customer experience right away is key to building customer loyalty to your business, so here are a few things to consider when curating a great, memorable experience:
- Good ambience – ask yourself what the atmosphere is like and pay attention to things like temperature, light and music.
- Great customer service – this all starts with employing a great team that strives for great results for the business.
- Correct target audience – it is important to make sure that food, beverage and service offerings are suited to the market your aiming to reach.
It’s vital you identify what customers are looking for in a dining experience to create a lasting impression and help you your product or offering to keep them coming back time and time again.
- Engage your team
Teamwork makes the dream work every time. There’s no golden ticket to hospitality success, but strong communication is the closest thing we have. Empowered and engaged teams will work together to solve problems while disengaged or disorganised teams will create them – so keeping a great team will ultimately do wonders for your business.
Investing in the proper training for your team will make a dramatic change and create positive results in the kitchen and workplace. Building up and supporting your team has a number of potential benefits:
- Your team will be engaged – your team will have a complete understanding of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it which will ultimately help them perform better.
- The customer will get a better experience – as mentioned above, creating a positive customer experience is vital to the success of a business and when your team simply makes eye contact and smiles at customers, it makes a world of difference that doesn’t cost you a cent extra.
- Reduced wage bill – investing in great training for your team means you can do more with less. You know what they say, quality over quantity? Investing properly in staff development will build your best assets – your employees.
This is by far the most important way to increase productivity and make your business processes more efficient. Talking to your team will help you discover what their needs are and what they require to feel valued and encouraged in the workplace. There are many ways you can go about doing this. You can hire a professional, research best practices, or even look to your competitors to see what is working and what’s not.
Implementing and developing strong systems and best practices lifts the weight off owners and distributes it evenly throughout the business. Owners are then able to have days off without the business falling over when they encourage growth and leadership. By following these few simple steps, you can up your business confidence and ultimately increase the overall productivity of any business in the industry.
If you want to discuss any specifics, you can reach us at Beany on 0800 755 333 to chat with an expert.
