Hospitality Management Essay

Reflecting from my management shift, restaurant manager has many different kinds of important tasks and responsibilities in the restaurant. Restaurant manager plays an important role in the hospitality and food and beverage department as they can motivate the staff and maintain the high quality service which will help the business run successfully. Manager can provide appropriate ambiance in the restaurant which will provide warm and comfortable environment for the customer. Waiter station and dividing sections of tables should be fully allocated before the start of service shift which starts 10:00AM. After that, checking staff’s five equipment (waiters friend, lighter, handkerchief, pen and note pad), and their grooming (hair, ironing uniform, socks, belt and name badge). In the first briefing time, restaurant manager has to explain required table-set up and finding any problem such as students who are absent. When I was restaurant manager, one waiter called in sick so I had to rearrange the table booking slots to make it fit 12 waiters instead of 13. This can make the service flow more efficiently. If I left the booking slots thee way they were, waiters would have needed to pick up tables in 10 minute gap. A manager should manage and check every time whether staff are doing the right thing. After food briefing, manager should check that all staff are familiar with the menu and kitchen abbreviations as well as the price for each dish. Thus, restaurant manager should lead their team smoothly and know all situation and happening in restaurant including kitchen as well. (Food & Beverage Work Book, Feb 2013) Before doing the restaurant manager shift, I had confidence in myself because I prepared the table time slot sheet, linen order and table and station allocation the night before my shift. But once the service started, unexpected accidents happened such as waiter calling in sick. Also, because it was Thursday and nearly towards assessment night for many people, most of the staff was very tense and unmotivated. Trying to motivate the staff to work faster and efficiently was uneasy at first but I still liked having the responsibility and doing important roles that are unlike to the normal waiting staff, I believed I learned a lot of new knowledge and management skills. I also can confidently say if I become restaurant manager again I would be better than before. Effective duty allocation Restaurant manager: Joanne Suh Host: Pearl Douglas Role: Prepare butter, Prepare silver service cutlery and waiter clothes, Make sure the menu is correct and printed, Welcome the guests arrival, Book reservation for lunch and dinner service for guests. Cashier: Lucy Payne Role: Allocate waiter dockets, record the food and beverage orders on computer for each table and prepare the bill for each table, total and fill up the cash-up sheet and record any alcohol docket received each night. When it is signed by the lecturer, put the money envelop to front office. Room service: Jay Lee Role: Collect the sick list from front office, Prepare tray for room service, take room service order, deliver the food to the rooms, collect the tray back once the food is finished (Usually after 1 hour) which will be placed on the corridor. Bar team leader: Olivia Ann Role: Prepare the mocktail and cocktail of the day, make sure bar, coffee station, water jug, wine service and waiting area and linens are set up and ready for service. Provide drink to order during service including hot beverage. Come early in the morning 6:30am to order butter and milk and other needed items and order linens and others that need time to recover the night before the shift. Bar assistant: Dana Button Role: Help the Bar Team Leader set up the bar, coffee station, waiting area, water jug, and wine service. Provide the drink to order during service. Listen and follow the bar team leader’s instructions. Barista : Make hot beverages when you receive the order from the guest. Prepare the coffee work station neatly and correctly before service shift starts. Help and follow the bar team leader’s instructions when there are no orders. (Usually start of the shift. ) Staff meal: Guy Sinclair, Lit Wang Role: Prepare Breakfast, Take staff meal orders for service and management team, Set up staff meal, Clean up Taranaki Restaurant after shift. Help in the La Vista Restaurant when the jobs are finished. Waiter: Chloe Wang, Abbey Bowater, Noriko Fuji, Shannon Rochford, Marlee Mclaughlan, Nhung Tran, Ginger(Shanshan) Yong, Cindy (Xinshi) Yang, Chris (Trung Toan) Le, James Pitisopa, Hayden Woodbury, Krill This is the list for all staffs that had been worked in my team. Absent : Savneet Singh 2. 2Explain whether you think the allocation of the duties and tasks were helpful or destructive for the team and give your reasons why. I prepared most of the jobs that I should do on my management shift but what I had missed out on was plan what the â€Å"staff† should be doing on their service shift. I had to plan out which person will be doing which task on the spot. This has resulted me giving people jobs that they are not the best at. For example giving the vacuum job to a weak female staff. Also as the staff were allocated jobs that they do not like, they refused to do the jobs I ordered them to do or made excuses to do them later. This has slowed down the cleaning time of service. But because we were already in our 8th week of operation, most of the staff were already capable of doing jobs themselves without being told to do them. We finished a little later than my expected time at lunch shift which was 2:30pm. We finished at 2:40pm. This was due to customers dining in for a long time. We had three tables of industry placement interviewers. Delegation 3. 1 Making decision For the making decision, when I organised table planning I gave three tables for most people and four tables for a couple of people due to absent waiter on the floor. There were some tables already set up from the last dinner shift so I tried to allocate one set up table for each waiter to make them prepare and set up tables quicker and fair. Also I allocated the staff meal waiters to help the floor waiters when they finished preparing for staff meal to speed up the process and we can open the restaurant on time. Explain whether you think this was effective. Think about the theory. What could be done differently? When I allocated the jobs I asked people in a polite way with a soft tone of voice so the staff do not get to tense about the jobs that they have to do. I tried to be fair for example if someone did a hard job such as vacuuming La vista, I made them do an easy job afterwards like taking menu papers out from the menu. I also thanked the staff and especially the staff members who worked harder than others to acknowledge them their work. Overall I think my theory has worked out better than ordering them harshly what to do as it was my first time being the restaurant manager and staff are not used to it they might think it too personal if I order them to do jobs in a harsh way. But I think giving more volume to my voice and seriousness at time to time would have made the staff actually listen and do the jobs I allocated them efficiently. 3. 3 Identify shift outcomes and tasks. Describe how you achieved the outcomes required in this role. It very nice outcome after shift because I went to talk around with all customers. They told me that service was very good there were only few complaints about the food taste which the service team cannot control. Overall cleaning up was a little slow for lunch but everyone picked themselves up and dinner shift flowed through a lot faster than lunch. The staff members worked hard for both service and cleaning even though many staff members were stressed about the assessment week coming up and tired. I thank all the staff members and I think my first time being the restaurant manager, I did exceptionally well. Managing conflict 4. 1 Was there any conflict or disagreement in your team? Yes, between me and my bar team leader. Because bar team leader is also a type of manager as well as they manage the bar, I should have treated the bar team leader more like a manager and different from the floor staff but instead I ordered the bar team leader to do some jobs in the bar and that had made the bar team leader unpleased as the bar team leader obviously knew what sort of jobs needed to be done. But because I am still the restaurant manager for that day, I believe I had my part and reason to say the things I have said to the bar team leader. I didn’t want to make too much of a big fuss about this matter as whether or not there are customers in the restaurant it is still a working environment and restaurant manager should behave and look professional at all times or else staff and customers will look down on both me and the bar team leader. If yes, what was done to resolve this conflict? If not, why not? I resolved this problem by pretending to not hear anything that the bar team leader said behind my back. Because I thought if the bar team leader realise that I heard our relationship will become awkward. There was also dinner shift left and I really didn’t want to make any big deal out of this matter so I just pretended I heard nothing. This was a good resolution because afterwards she worked really hard and was a great bar team leader which made the service run more smoothly which was good for everyone and the restaurant possible. But later I talked in the briefing that if the restaurant manager tell you to do something do not ignore them or refuse and treat the managers like a real manager in a work place. 4. 2 What are some other options for dealing with the same situation? I believe motivating the staff and complimenting when the staffs finish their jobs can make the staff more willing to work and follow my orders. More motivated staff can give happy energy vibe to the workplace which will be transferred to the customer which will give warmer ambiance in the restaurant. 4. 3 Would you do thing differently next time you need to work with a team? For the next time that I have to work in a team, I would try to improve myself on delegating staff. I will make sure that everything in the restaurant such as preparations and second plans for times when something goes wrong again so I have a backup plan which will make me panic less. Also next time I will plan the job allocations for cleaning and preparations before service to be more efficient with time management as a manager. 5. 1 Identify a challenge or problem that occurred during your management shift. The biggest challenge I had faced was I had one waiter absent and I had 13 slots on my booking sheet that was made and finished last dinner shift. Waiters are supposed to serve each table with 20 minute gap. This made me very busy until the last minute of service and waiters were confused as their time for booking was all changed. It also confused both the waiters on floor and the management team. 5. 2 What was your response to this challenge? After ii had found out that one waiter on floor will not show up for service, I fixed the booking sheet and made the time slot 12 instead of 13. I put tables of two people together and called rooms to move the tables to a later time to make sure each waiter received 20 minute gap between each table so they had enough time to manage their tables on time efficiently. I had to reallocate some tables and stations to distribute the absent waiter’s tables and informed the staff. 5. 3 Analyse whether your reaction/response was effective and identify what you would do differently (if anything). I think in terms with the time I had, my decision was the most effective decision that was possible and best for my staff as well. If I gave tables in 10 minute break the staff will be more stressed about their time management and make mistakes on their sequence of service and have delays which will also be unpleasing to the customers as well. If I could change one thing I would make extra booking sheets for 11 waiters and 12 waiters even though I have 13 just to make sure and be safe. 5. 4 Have you identified any skills where you need to improve? What skill do you need to improve? I think I need to improve on leadership skills as I am not good at giving people commands and orders. Asking nicely could result staff refusing to follow my request. Also leading the team well so the staff are not lost and can reply on the manger is the kind of skill I need to improve on as well. Learning about yourself 6. 2What were your strengths leading the team? Figuring out solutions and making the service run fast and efficient as well as making the staff feel comfortable is my strengths in terms of leading the team. Because I found my way through problems fast and prepared for the service well, the staff trusted me and had felt comfortable. Even with extra barriers I still managed to make service flow fast. 6. 3Have you identified any areas where you need to improve? What areas do you need to improve? I think I need to improve how to be a good leader because I don’t think I have that quality just yet when I was a restaurant manager, Also I want to improve my eight management skill such as leadership, flexibility, adaptability, inventory management, conflict resolution, ability to work under to pressure, ability to multi-task, and organization skill. To be a successful manager, I need to improve all of this skill and learn from the mistake that I had got to achieve in the future. 6. 4Identify what remedial strategies you will put in place to develop the areas that are identified above. The eight management skill: leadership, flexibility, adaptability, inventory management, conflict resolution, ability to work under pressure, ability to multi-task, and organization skill and comunication. Statistic data At lunch shift, we had 126 customers coming to dine and our total food revenue was $1,962 and total beverage revenue was $2194 Hence, our average food check is $15.6 per person. It means that we sold entree and main food more than one person, which is good but it is not so good. Our team needed upselling skills at this moment. Thus, Total revenue should be $ but we received money only $ which means we lost $. The reason why this happen was that students did not pay properly and just left without paying, but it is very serious problem in real world and somebody should be to blame. That would be restaurant manager. Hence, I think that the statistic data show us how much money we make and can find the problems such as money stolen or not.