Why Habits and Behaviours Matter More Than Ever
When January Runs Dry: Why Habits and Behaviours Matter More Than Ever
The festive season was always my favourite time of year to be front-facing in hospitality. Joyful guests, hardworking teams and tills ringing. Unfortunately, what often followed was quite the opposite. January is, without doubt, the time of year that can easily undo all of that good work if it’s not treated as an opportunity for scrutiny, planning and reflection. It’s far too often we see businesses drop the ball in the downtime, often caused by the optimism of a strong Christmas period and that age old “it can’t possibly get as quiet as last year” mentality.
I’d like to think that, in my 13 back-to-back festive periods, I learnt a thing or two about how to combat these challenges – and even more so in the past five years, working alongside operations teams to really get into the detail of why managing quiet periods is just as important as taking the money when it’s there to be had.
We all know that our industry is no doubt facing the toughest challenges we ever have. Without mentioning the dreaded “B” word, we were already in a situation where staffing shortages, high turnover and yearly wage bill rises have put pay to several businesses that would otherwise have survived.
The good news is, we have seen multiple operators not only ride this wave but thrive off the back of implementing great practices and focusing on efficiency and productivity. I run the Operational Excellence team at S4labour, we’re all ex-operators that spend our time training, coaching and developing managers to put habits and behaviours at the core of everything they do.
What Does Operational Excellence Mean to Us?
Habits & Behaviours Are at the Key: It’s not just about systems; it’s about embedding the right behaviours into daily routines.
Embed a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Teams that consistently apply best practices deliver better service and reduce waste.
Empowerment Through Clarity: Staff should understand what “great” looks like and how their actions impact the business.
Anybody can implement a system, but without these behavioural focuses, nothing will change. We always focus on delivering three key measures:
Consistency
For anybody who has listened to GT (Gareth, a fellow S4labour and ex pub guy) and I chat in our webinars and podcasts, you’ll know I’m a huge believer that you cannot paint every business within your estate with the same brush. Every single site will have its nuances and as such, the time should be taken to understand why and how the GMs operate them the way they do.
This does not, however, mean that standardised practices and ways of working should not be set in terms of service, product or compliance. We always implement best practice, making operators lives as simple as possible whilst maintaining brand promises.
Engagement
Habits‑based training, delivered by people who have been there and done it, gives managers the confidence that it’s all for their benefit… We implement tools from an operator and team perspective, giving managers the motivation to use everything at their disposal to succeed. We used to say it costs on average £1000 to recruit and train a new team member. Given this was back in my Ops days, I’d go as far as to say this is probably more like £1500 today. Adapting our training processes and working to our teams’ generational wants and needs in terms of learning principles and engagement, is key to retaining them.
Our partners at Purple Story know a thing or two about this, having been through the day myself, I’d say the ‘generations’ workshop is a must for any GM – it’s certainly given us a few more strings to our training bow.
Profitability
Ultimately, this is the output of everything we do. Delivering margins under pressure is becoming increasingly difficult, (yes, I know I said I wouldn’t mention the budget), but getting hold of controllables is essential. We have delivered over 300 Goldilocks visits now, working alongside GMs, Head Chefs and management teams to ensure labour efficiencies are maximised without sacrificing guest service or team turnover.
On average, we’ve seen a 4%-point reduction in labour margins across our visits, driven by slack reduction and cost saving in some instances, but investment in stress periods to drive sales growth in others. Hence my anti-one-size-fits all mentality.
So, what should we all be doing in the next 6 weeks before Valentine’s Day hopefully kick-starts the year?
Audit Your Current Practices – Take the time to review everything labour. Attention to detail is key, so invest that time in really understanding your opportunities and use data to make the key decisions. Everything from briefing tactics to communication loops should be scrutinised whilst you have the time.
Invest in Behavioural Training – Don’t just dictate how things should be done – work alongside your teams so that they understand why the way they work is key to success. They may need to accept that doing things differently is not a bad thing, but you need to take them on the journey.
Leverage Your Tech Stack – I’ll say it again – data-led decisions leave no room for excuses. Use your sales patterns, understand your admin and prep expectations and ACTUAL labour requirements to encourage proper planning and delivery. Prevent last minute decisions around rotas, ordering and stocks by using the tools at your disposal.
Programmes like ours will help embed excellence into your everyday operations, but it’s a journey, not a quick fix. I would implore everyone out there to take a step back and plan, don’t just react to the downturn with immediate, rash decisions.
Start measuring your behaviours and KPI delivery will follow… don’t expect to measure KPIs to change behaviours.