A few years ago, we introduced our Goldilocks programme, “writing the perfect rota, that’s not too hot and not too cold”. This always gets a giggle (or a little groan), but in essence, it’s a name that sticks, and our customers love it.
The theory goes that systems can change some habits, but by no means all of them. The rest of the change needs to be done by people, to people. For some systems, such as a property management system, the implementation will automatically change more of the business behaviours (but it still won’t stop you rejecting the booking if you don’t want to take it). But with people management, old fashioned persuasion is the key.
If your kitchen team like doing prep in the morning, or if your front of house team always do admin on a Monday, then the chances are that putting in a system won’t change these habits. The real change comes around when experts persuade other people to think differently and convince them that there is a better way. Not easy, but doable.
Since our first project, we have completed hundreds of Goldilocks visits and have been constantly learning how to refine the art of getting people to better themselves. Too often, the solution is easy but the wrong habit is embedded, and persuading people to change what they have always done is hard. It takes 66 days to change a habit, so maintaining the new behaviour needs constant reinforcement too if it is not going to wither on the vine.
So, what are the main elements of a Goldilocks visit? Of course, it all starts with shift management, challenging and adjusting how a shift is run to optimise the team’s efficiency. We all know too many staff leads to worse service, as I witnessed recently – I walked into a major casual dining group, was confronted with the “please wait to be seated” sign and waited five minutes (probably three in reality) while two staff members finished their conversation before attending to us.
What we define as slack tasks and when we do them is another vital element of the process. Moving rostered fixed tasks to slack tasks to be done in down time is, of course, a massive cost saving, but you won’t achieve any of it if you don’t have the mindset. This is a really hard change programme.
Considering a site’s nuances and giving the managers the opportunity to really get their point across always gets their buy in. They can talk about their challenges, but with a bit of guidance and a fresh set of operator’s eyes, they always start to think about the way they do things and whether there’s a better behaviour that will drive sales, save them some cash and ultimately improve the guest experience.
The changes we have seen are better than even the optimist Alastair might have wished for. In bigger sites, savings of £40,000 a year are the norm. But the real surprise to me is in smaller sites. The old saying with labour management is that you can’t save much in smaller operations. Our Goldilocks programme begs to differ, with savings of circa £20,000 at the “lower turnover” end of the scale. This strangely means that the proportion of labour saved goes up as the size of the site goes down. This is not what most people, me included, expected – so why is that?
The chances are the organisation managing these smaller sites maybe doesn’t have the internal skill set to optimise or hasn’t given it the focus because it doesn’t believe it can get any better – but it can. I always love the counter-intuitive solution where you must re-think your starting position, and this is certainly one of them.
The interesting bit for me is why people employ us versus doing it themselves – I am always one for doing things myself and tend to be a bit reluctant to enlist outside help. I blame cost, but in reality, it is because I hate admitting I am not good enough at everything and I simply do not have the time!
The reality is spending a day just “doing rotas” is hard to schedule and hard to stick to when you have all your other business pressures, despite the fact this could (or should) sit at the top of the priority pile. The real differentiator is the stories that people can tell to convince people they aren’t alone; there are many who have been through the same journey, and they are still great operators who can be even better. I think the psychology of the programme is the most important element.
Helping our large customers make far more money is satisfying, but one of the most gratifying elements of our programme has been, quite literally, saving single site operators. When someone is going to go bust if they don’t do anything about labour cost, they certainly have the motivation to succeed. It is such a great feeling when we can finally help them make their business work. These are pubs, and communities often rescued. And that’s it – creating a rota that is not too hot, and not too cold, does make a difference.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
