Striking the right balance between maximum and minimum hours for your part-time or casual staff can often be a difficult process. But getting the balance wrong can have serious and long-lasting ramifications for your business. Overworked staff When you’re running a business, key staff members are often relied upon to keep things running smoothly, so it can be easy to ‘reward’ them with a more hours. Staff members may also request more time at work due to financial or personal

The Christmas period is always a busy one for those in the retail and hospitality industries. Staff are working longer hours, later nights and dealing with throngs of people every day. If not managed correctly, this can lead to unhappy and burnt-out staff, which will be a lag on your business and can result in huge costs. Here are three tips to stop staff burnout: Talk to them You and your staff may have different definitions of being ‘overworked’, so it needs to be clearly d

The Christmas period is always a hectic time for anyone working in hospitality. With Christmas celebrations and client functions galore, it should be the busiest time of the year for you and your staff. So how do you stay on top of things through the mad rush? Don’t get stressed – get systematic. When things are busy, you need to have tight processes in place to stay in control. Make sure your systems for rostering, ordering stock, customer bookings and payroll are all as str

HURDLE SIX:  COMMUNICATION Technological developments are occurring so often now, that it’s hard to put a plan in place that’s likely to be around for very long. With the development of websites such as Trip Advisor, Dine Out and Facebook, reviews and comments are put out into a world-wide forum every day. As a result, a lot of power has been placed in the hands of the customer, leaving an almost non-existent gap for error within the hospitality industry. Your customers are b

HURDLE NUMBER FIVE:  PRIORITISING I think it’s fair to say we’ve all been in that situation where we’re required to be in several places at once, complete a daunting amount of tasks all by the end of the day, and somehow perform a number of different roles at once; the mentor, the teacher, that parent, the friend, the colleague, the boss. What dictates one’s ability to fulfil all of these disconcerting tasks is the ability to prioritise. Prioritising is paramount if you are s

HURDLE NUMBER FOUR:  RESPONDING TO A CRISIS Another ability that falls under the hospitality manager’s umbrella of many talents is their ‘quick-to-think’ attitude. Let’s take a moment, and imagine you are sitting at a leaner in a busy bar, the line to get a drink is about four people deep, and the queue to pay at the Maitre’ D station is growing. Suddenly, the Eftpos terminals crash. You can see everyone starting to get annoyed, patience is faltering and frustrated customers

HURDLE NUMBER THREE:  THE ROLE OF TEAM MOTIVATOR In Part Two we discussed customer loyalty and how it can enable you to gain a competitive advantage in your industry if you are executing the right activities. A lot of the initiative required to build customer loyalty comes from the managers themselves. They undertake a number of various tasks, from meeting with suppliers, putting together new menus, ordering stock, monitoring wage costs, and the list goes on! More importantly