102: Staff Productivity VS Efficiency in Restaurants
Jim Taylor of Benchmark Sixty and Adam Lamb discuss the question of staff productivity or efficiency, what's the difference, and which one serves the restaurant industry best in the long run.
Turning the Table Is the most progressive weekly podcast for today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff-centric operating solutions for restaurants in the #newhospitalityculture.
Join Jim Taylor of Benchmark Sixty and Adam Lamb as they "turn the tables" on the prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges.
Sponsored by Benchmark Sixty Restaurant Services
Check out the videocast on
This show is sponsored by Benchmark Sixty; check out their unique staff retention solution.
In partnership with Realignment Hospitality
Adam Lamb:
Well, good afternoon.
Adam Lamb:
My name is Adam Lamb and we are on another episode of turning the table.
Adam Lamb:
Today's topic is gonna be efficiency versus productivity.
Adam Lamb:
And I'm sorry for that little thing with my cell phone as always, you
Adam Lamb:
know, gotta make sure that it's muted.
Adam Lamb:
I'll do that right now, or I'll just power it off.
Adam Lamb:
Thank you.
Adam Lamb:
Turning the table is sponsored by benchmark 60 a restaurant services
Adam Lamb:
company focused on productivity and CEO, Jim Taylor is unfortunately unable to
Adam Lamb:
be with us today, so I'm gonna wing it.
Adam Lamb:
My name is Adam Lamb.
Adam Lamb:
I am our host for today, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about
Adam Lamb:
efficiency versus productivity.
Adam Lamb:
Before I get further with that, I want to make sure that if you have any comments,
Adam Lamb:
questions, smart ass remarks, you post them in the chat that you like the
Adam Lamb:
episode and know that we do this every.
Adam Lamb:
At noon.
Adam Lamb:
The intent is that we talk about staff centric solutions
Jim Taylor:
for restaurant operations
Adam Lamb:
in support of the hashtag
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new restaurant culture.
Adam Lamb:
And people might get a little nervous when I talk about the new
Adam Lamb:
restaurant culture, as opposed to like, well, what's wrong with the old one?
Adam Lamb:
That's a great place to start.
Adam Lamb:
So the whole idea behind naming the show, turning the table is covers double
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on Tre again, kind of a smart ass way of speaking to not only the way that
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we've done things in the past, but how we intend to do things in the future.
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So.
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As far as we're concerned, one of the biggest telltale signs of a
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restaurant that is either staffed, inefficient or staffed poorly, or that
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doesn't have their productivity figured out is an empty
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table.
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So very often
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sometimes you'll go into a restaurant and that table will be.
Adam Lamb:
Clearly have been sat in there's, you know,
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glasses and empty dishes on the table, but there's not staff
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to go ahead and bust that and to turn the table very often
Adam Lamb:
the solution to a lot of restaurant operations.
Adam Lamb:
Isn't cutting back on staff.
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Isn't raising the prices, but is looking for the missed opportunities
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of revenue that are there present on a table that can't be sat.
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If that makes any sense and turning the table also has a connotation to, we
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want to flip the script about how restaurants operate not
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necessarily speaking about what
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you are doing in your operation, but the way that you look at
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your operations perspective is everything.
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And that's probably why the only reason that you would ever
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hire a coach or a mentor is to.
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Have somebody hold you accountable to what you say you're gonna do,
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and to offer
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a perspective that's different than yours.
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Now, the problem with that is that a lot of times we're absolutely wedded to
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what we believe it's served us so far.
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And it's hard to give that up.
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So how do you go ahead and do that?
Adam Lamb:
Well, first off you have to be willing to be coached or you have to be coachable.
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Speaking for myself only the only time I was ever coachable
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is when I stopped believing my own.
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because I looked at my results and the results were not getting any better.
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As a matter of fact, they were progressively getting worse and
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worse based upon the way that I was viewing, not only my position, but
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the way that I ran my businesses.
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It was only until I was willing to take a look at the results I was getting, that
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I was willing to look at how I was going about getting those results and realizing
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that, Hey, I could really use an outside perspective and I'm not talking about.
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You know, talking to your buddy.
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At the bar, after a shift, having a beer, because very often that that descends
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into a bitch Fest where everybody's kind of commiserating with one another about
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how things suck and how things never
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change.
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And as long as you're
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engaged in that type of behavior you're being a victim to your
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circumstance and nothing ever changes.
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At least it didn't in my life.
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So turning the table has
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a couple different connotations and.
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We were kind of smirking to one another about like,
Adam Lamb:
yeah, that's kind of cool.
Adam Lamb:
Huh.
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Anyway, so our objective is to turn the table on not only the
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industry, but on the way we view
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and interpret the industry.
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And that very often comes from the data.
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Now to most people in the restaurant industry.
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I was just I want to give a big shout out to being Oliver because I was speaking to
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him right before we got on the show who is a coach and mentor to operators who
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want to go beyond, you know, just managing their
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business to actually leading it.
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And again, we were kind of commiserating around some of the same
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stuff and realizing that as long as there's commiseration, there's really no.
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You know, if it's a, if it's a bubble and all of us have the same
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opinion, then there's no growth there.
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And growth very often comes from pain.
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And as much as we, or I moved away from pain and towards
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pleasure,
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I was never gonna get to the crux of my problem.
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So
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the question is how painful do things have to be in your operation
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before you are willing to consider an outside perspective or opinion?
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Now?
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The reason that we benchmark 60 don't deal with opinion is because it's subjective.
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That's why we always rely on the data because the
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data
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tells the story.
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Doesn't tell the complete story.
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It just tells a portion of the story.
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Now, Bing and I were talking about how most of the people in
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the industry are creative.
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I made the point that typically people in the restaurant
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industry are highly sensitive, which is kind of funny because some of the
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hardest people I've ever met are in this industry or like they that's the that's
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the armor that they need to put on in order to get through a specific shift.
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So the fact is is that if you are in the industry in any capacity, just get
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over it, man, you're sensitive, you're sensitive soul, or else you wouldn't be in
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service to other people give a shit like.
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I got other things better to do with my time.
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So what is it about us
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as individuals and
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professionals that we would subjugate
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ourselves to?
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And very often subjugate our desires and things
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that we want for our life.
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Why do we actually put those lower on the totem
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pole and put others higher?
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Well, because we
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like to be in service because there's
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something that we get.
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emotionally from serving others.
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That's not a bad thing.
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It's a good thing.
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It's empathy.
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It's compassion.
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It's
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to put a bluntly love,
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no other reason why we should do it.
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And so after
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a while in the industry and you build up enough thick skin, then
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you realize that you need to put that armor on every day to come into work.
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However, if you start to look around and things haven't changed and they
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look the same as they've always done.
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At what point do you say I'm gonna tap out.
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I need to check out.
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I need to talk to someone else.
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Talk to someone else whom I appreciate who I look up to, who I
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respect just this just yesterday
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afternoon.
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I booked a coaching
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client, somebody who I've known for quite some time and
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have always been willing to talk to listen to them on the phone.
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Not necessarily coach them, but just kind of listen to what they have to say.
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And they got to a point where they said, Hey, I could really use some coaching.
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I was like, great.
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I'm ready to go.
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The difference between
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coaching and empathizing is
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to give you a short description.
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I was consistently trying to coach and tell my kids what to do until I
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realized that very often what I said went against the grain and they did
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the exact opposite because they wanted.
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Learn from their own experiences, which is great.
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I came from a position of wanting to save them from that type of pain that I knew
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might be at the end of that particular choice, because I had made the similar
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choice, but for most children, you know, don't stick your finger in the lights.
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Don't stick don't oh, okay.
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You stuck your finger in the light socket.
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So how did that feel?
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But my relationship was always strained with my kids because I
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was trying to tell them what to do.
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I was trying to, I thought it was coaching or mentoring or whatever
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it was the only time anything changed is when I just loved them.
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When my daughter called me up from Florida and she's basically living out
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outta her car because her boyfriend had, had kicked her out and she was
Jim Taylor:
at the end of her rope and I listened to her cry and cry and cry and cry.
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I wanted to rush down there and save her.
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I wanted to do all these things and lift her up, put her on my shoulders.
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And then I realized if I did that, then I would be.
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Hobbling her for the rest of her life, that at that critical moment
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in her life, that sh what she needed was someone to tell her that
Adam Lamb:
she knew what to do, that she had the resources, the emotional
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intelligence to figure her way
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out.
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And so I just loved her up and within a day or so she figured it
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out and she is now leading a life that I could never imagined for.
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Both of my daughters are doing incredibly well.
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They're making their way in their own life, on their own speed, but it wasn't
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because anything I taught them or told them it was because I was just willing to
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be empathetic, be a ear be a shoulder.
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That's not the same thing as coaching and mentoring.
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And so the first question I always have are, are you coachable?
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Are
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you willing
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to consider another perspective?
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And that's a powerful moment.
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And the second question that I then ask is, do you trust me?
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And I've had to ask that question of many members of my family only to find out that
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some people said, no,
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I don't trust you.
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Based upon the way that you've showed up and whatever story
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that they had in their mind.
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And it was incredibly painful to do that, to ask and then to listen.
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And I just sat in the fire.
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I didn't make them wrong for what they were feeling, cuz
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how could I possibly do that?
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It's the way they feel.
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Can't tell them that they're wrong for that.
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And so I used those
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opportunities to kind of GERD myself for my own
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self growth and do my own work
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first, which is
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why I'm able to be here now, why I'm so.
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Grateful to be part of the benchmark 60 team
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which consists of, I think
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now 10 or 12 different people, all who have
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a primary focus in their businesses that is
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complimentary to benchmark 60.
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So when we bring
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benchmark 60
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to your operation, there is yes, the data based.
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Forecasting and managing of productivity and
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workload for your staff,
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but there's also the opportunity to dive into
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other things, other
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areas of concern how you're doing
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insofar as recruiting.
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Are there people on your staff that would love leadership ex training?
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Is, is there anybody who works in a.
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Retirement community, because we have specialists on board who specifically
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focus on those market shares.
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So within the benchmark 60 family, there is someone who has a
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particular speciality that can serve you.
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If that's what you're looking for.
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But very often
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it starts with an empty table that I can't get bused and
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working really, really hard, and I'm not seeing
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any results and I'm frustrated.
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And I gotta figure out a way out of this.
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And then what we do
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is we come in and we ask for four data points and
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we plug those into a matrix.
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And then we sit down
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and have a conversation.
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And again, this is not opinion.
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This is not about us telling you what to do the fact of the matter.
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you know, your business better than anyone else.
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So it would be imp prudent at the least and insulting at the most for us to
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come in and say, well, we think you need to do this, or we think you need that.
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No, no, no, no, no.
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We respect you as the professional in that particular organization
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who is in the position because of
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their ability, their intelligence and their
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And their ability to manage and motivate their staff.
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But the problems that are exist in the restaurant industry
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are not about motivation.
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They're not about inspiration.
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They're about really concrete issues.
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First off is why can't I retain staff?
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Why are people jump and ship for 25 cents an hour here in Nashville, North
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Carolina, where I live, that's a reality.
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If you go to the MIT living wage calculator you can go by state
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by county and by city to figure out what exactly is a living wage.
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And for Asheville, it's about $37,000.
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If you happen to have one child and a single parent, most
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restaurant jobs don't pay anywhere near that.
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So, which is why most of the people don't live here in Nashville.
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They live outside
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of the community and then they have to add on a
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stressful commute because.
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Of all the bedroom communities they're popping
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up outta Asheville, which is kind of crazy to say,
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but there are bedroom communities popping up all outside of Asheville.
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The roads have become unmanageable.
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So now they're in the middle of this multi-year
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expansion of every road that leads to Asheville.
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And now your commutes are three to four times longer than what they should.
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So your staff is
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stressed by the time they get there.
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And they're stressed when they leave.
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So the question is, is why are my staff leaving
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for 25 cents an hour?
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Is it really about the 25 cents
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an hour?
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I was working with a young lady who came into my office and said,
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listen, I need to get a raise.
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And I said, listen, you are at the top tier.
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Of your job classification.
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You're at the top end of a salary cap at that position.
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And there's nowhere for you to go, unless you want to take on a supervisory
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role and do a lot of hot food.
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And at that point she was the magician in the, in Garma, Jay, she handled
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everything, but she was comfortable there.
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So she's on the verge of tears and
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I.
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Asked a question
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that fortuitously popped in my mind, I is this is this really about need
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to make more money?
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Like what is the issue?
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And then she, all the, you know, everything broke down and it was
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about the fact that she could
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not afford insurance based upon how the company had
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set it up for her children.
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One was in college and one was still young.
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And so I was able to assist her by finding an outside
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insurance company that had.
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Better plans than what
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existed at the facility.
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And within about several weeks you know, I checked back in with her
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and she had made the phone calls and done her due diligence and secured
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insurance for her and her children.
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And all of a sudden that changed everything for her.
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Now, not every situation is gonna be the same way, but very often.
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The answer is not as apparent
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as just throwing more money at it.
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There are many ways in which to
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increase staff retention and to create a point of attraction
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for potential new hires in every single town across this country and
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in the world, there's always one operation in that city or town that
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everybody on the street knows treats their people better than the others.
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I
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often use the Jim noble example from RO around
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Raleigh where noble Jim
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noble has created this little empire of several different restaurants.
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He has he has a food pantry
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for the poor he's very faith driven.
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So a church involved, the point being is that Jim has put out a.
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Statement to all his managers that says, if anybody
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comes in to apply for a position and that position is filled,
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but they have the right attitude.
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Don't let, 'em get out.
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The building.
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We'll find a place for them.
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Now.
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I bet it wasn't too long after he started instituting that,
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that everybody on the street
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figured out that if they really wanted to get taken care
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of or be valued as a team member, then all they had to do was show up
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on the door of noble restaurants.
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Fantastic.
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It doesn't always come down to money.
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There are things that you can do right now to ensure better staff retention
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and become a point of attraction.
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Before I get there, I want to talk about efficiency versus productivity.
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We, as a culture, as a profession, as an industry,
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whatever term you want to use, we have had to become more efficient.
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It's been hammered into us because of a lot of times forces from outside
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our market.
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Right.
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Whether it was
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COVID, whether it's now all of a sudden you know, supply chains
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are broken, all these different things.
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If you're in a market where you can't get your orders more than twice, twice
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a week, and you can't go to down the street to do a pickup, then you have to
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get really efficient at how you order your food and how you manage that.
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If you are low on staffing, then you're gonna get really efficient
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at moving those pieces around.
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And I, I don't wanna refer to people as pieces, but operationally speaking,
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there are positions that need to get moved around in order for you
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to be able to get that day done.
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Totally get that efficiency has been pounded into us, but
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efficiency is not productivity.
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Okay.
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Efficiency is reactive.
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So when you know that there's a problem, then you can react to it.
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Productivity on the other hand is proactive.
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So imagine for a moment that you could find data and interpret it in such a
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way that you knew exactly who was gonna come to you in the next two weeks and
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tell you that they were burned out.
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How powerful would that be?
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If you could.
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Put everything into your matrix.
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And this is the, the beauty about benchmark 60 benchmark.
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60 is not a solution that you keep on forever.
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We teach you how to actually manage this yourself so that you can be your own
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guru so that you can be your own hero so that you can be the one that everybody
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looks to as, wow.
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They really take care
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of us.
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Because they're protecting our workload.
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Two of the biggest reasons why people will leave.
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Number one, lack of communication.
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Number two, that their workloads are too much.
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What if you knew by moving around just a few pieces.
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Hey, Rodney.
Adam Lamb:
What's up brother?
Adam Lamb:
Thanks for joining us.
Adam Lamb:
I didn't know if this could show up.
Adam Lamb:
Yeah.
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So please, by all means post your comment, suggestions,
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smart ass remarks in the chat.
Adam Lamb:
And I'll make sure at the end that we have time to, to
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to address those.
Jim Taylor:
Thanks, Rodney.
Jim Taylor:
Really appreciate you showing up, man.
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So imagine if you could proactively forecast accurately.
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Who you're gonna put where, so that they can be not only as
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effective as they can, but also as productive they can to a degree.
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Like there's a number that you'll come to understand in benchmark 60 that
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you never want to go above because as soon as you see that number, you
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know, that everybody was overworked
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and
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stressed.
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Jim likes to use this example
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of, he was talking to a district manager and a
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general manager, and there was a productivity number that was
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really,
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really high.
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And the district manager said,
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wow, man, that's fantastic.
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We need to have more days like that.
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And the general manager
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was shaking his head and he's like, no, we can't have another day like
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that.
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A district manager said why?
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He said I was three people short.
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I worked the full shift as the general manager, and then had to work
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the entire night as the bartender because the bartender showed up.
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And at the end of the night, we lost two people who, who walked
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out because it was too, too busy.
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They couldn't handle it.
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How many of us have seen as we're sitting in a restaurant, a server crouched, or
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standing in a side station, almost on the verge tears, because it's just too much.
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Benchmark 60 actually teaches you to be able to pinpoint those situations
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ahead of time so that you can proactively manage your staff and what
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they do to the extent that at the end of the shift, everybody's smiling.
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That's pretty groovy.
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I mean, I can't tell you how powerful that is for me as an operator and
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as manager, because I know that there's not a single restaurant owner
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manager, chef GM district manager.
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Who's watching this right now that doesn't want to take care of their people better.
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They know, you know, that it is the number one greatest attribute
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to your success and detriment.
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To your failure.
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It's a significant part of your business.
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What if you knew that you were leaving money on the table because
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you were so, so, so short staffed that you couldn't bus that table.
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What if you knew that all you needed to do was staff appropriately to
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get, I don't know, another dessert.
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Because the service had enough time to actually do the menu tour correctly
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and to guide the guests through that instead of being triple sat and
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just whipping it through it is so powerful folks, I can't even tell you.
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And it is the gateway to understanding that because you have these opportunities,
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these missed opportunities that you can directly reinvest in your staff in such
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a way that maybe you couldn't see how you could provide healthcare before.
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But now you can, maybe you have people on your staff that are making a
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decision, whether to go to the doctor or
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send their dog to the vet.
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And so they send their dog to the vet because
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they love the dog more.
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It happens.
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There are companies out there now who are providing pet insurance.
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Can you believe that pet insurance who would've thought of that?
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the problem is, is that as we rise in the pyramid of supervision, we start
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to disassociate ourselves from what it's actually like to be on that line
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position to actually have to do that commute from Hendersonville all the
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way to Asheville, because it's not in our direct line of sight, so to speak.
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And it's a tragic, it's a tragic thing, but it's also a part of our.
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Self survival modes, right?
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Because again, if we're sensitive people who love what we do and love the people
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that we do it with, how much of your heart can you actually open up to the
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dismay and the despair and the strife that some of your staff are having?
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It can be completely overwhelming.
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It could paralyze you to the point where you just don't know what to.
Adam Lamb:
so you keep your head down and you keep doing them.
Adam Lamb:
It's a tough situation.
Adam Lamb:
You know it, we know it, but you get to know that we at benchmark 60 are here
Jim Taylor:
to provide you with a solution that supports you, not only
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in the short term, but in the long term that you can self-manage and create
Adam Lamb:
the culture and the community, the internal community
Adam Lamb:
within your organization, that will support your growth.
Adam Lamb:
Without necessarily giving away margin or profit or any of that stuff.
Adam Lamb:
What if it was like all those little pennies?
Adam Lamb:
I had a operations manager called Ron ager, who was a maniac because as the
Adam Lamb:
service would come through the kitchen door, the breeze would blow off all
Adam Lamb:
the Bev naps off the tray and he would scramble around picking up those Bev
Adam Lamb:
NATS because he kept saying it's 7 cents.
Adam Lamb:
It's 7 cents.
Adam Lamb:
Yeah.
Adam Lamb:
To a certain extent.
Adam Lamb:
This is exactly what it's about.
Adam Lamb:
It's about the pennies building up to dollars and it's never anything big.
Adam Lamb:
It's all these little attunements that you can make to your operation as the
Adam Lamb:
operator guided by the data that will provide such a different environment for
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your staff.
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They'll never have to wonder about why people are leaving
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because they won't, they won't
Adam Lamb:
leave because they know that you're protecting them.
Adam Lamb:
And in this day and age safety in the workplace, Is something that
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no one really talks about, especially in
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restaurants, OSHA, forget it.
Adam Lamb:
But it's also about emo, you know, the physical safety
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is one thing, but the emotional safety is something also like,
Adam Lamb:
can you imagine what it would feel like to be able to
Adam Lamb:
provide a solution to that, that
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staff member who is struggling to find insurance?
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All
Adam Lamb:
it takes is little time.
Adam Lamb:
So, again, as a cost, it's actually costing you something because there's a
Adam Lamb:
direct value dollar value to your time, but really what's it gonna cost you man,
Adam Lamb:
to go that little bit farther, we want a stronger commitment from our staff
Adam Lamb:
members to be able to grow our business.
Adam Lamb:
What you get to understand is that they require a
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deeper commitment from you.
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Protecting them protecting the workload.
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Protecting the working environment
Adam Lamb:
is job one to produce a internal community and a culture
Adam Lamb:
that anyone would wanna work in.
Adam Lamb:
Pretty cool.
Adam Lamb:
Huh?
Adam Lamb:
All right.
Adam Lamb:
Let's check the chat.
Adam Lamb:
See if there's anything in there.
Adam Lamb:
Love to show my dude more people need, especially in our industry.
Adam Lamb:
Well, that's why we're doing it, brother.
Adam Lamb:
Every Thursday at.
Adam Lamb:
at
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12 noon Eastern time.
Adam Lamb:
The idea is to provide some ideas so that you can walk
Adam Lamb:
right back into your operation.
Adam Lamb:
Check in, talk about it and maybe implement something that
Adam Lamb:
can shift your culture, your workplace culture immediately.
Adam Lamb:
Because if folks, if staff see that you're making an effort.
Adam Lamb:
They might be okay with not
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necessarily seeing the results.
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Not all of us are so wired that we need instant gratification, even though that's
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the industry has trained shamed and conditioned us into, but there's also
Adam Lamb:
a benefit to delaying gratification and being able to
Adam Lamb:
communicate effectively, consistently daily so that people know what
Adam Lamb:
you're doing and why you're doing it.
Adam Lamb:
And to what end you want
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by doing it
Adam Lamb:
again, takes a little bit of your time.
Adam Lamb:
Gonna cause you to be vulnerable and transparent, which some
Adam Lamb:
people are not comfortable with.
Adam Lamb:
And I would say, yeah, I hope you get over it because there
Adam Lamb:
are folks right next to you
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right now
Adam Lamb:
that need you, that need you in your highest and your highest intention
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in order to provide a community in which they
Adam Lamb:
feel valued, respected, cared for heard.
Adam Lamb:
And it's nothing, it's nothing new.
Adam Lamb:
This is all stuff that we all wanted.
Adam Lamb:
Isn't it's what you wanted.
Adam Lamb:
It's what I wanted.
Adam Lamb:
So we get to band together to create a community, a culture, an industry
Adam Lamb:
far better than when we found it.
Adam Lamb:
So that's it for today for turning the table.
Adam Lamb:
My name is Adam Lamb.
Adam Lamb:
I so look forward to seeing you next week, please like share
Adam Lamb:
and comment and we will see you.
Adam Lamb:
Next
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week and here's a little outro.
Jim Taylor:
Okay.