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How to Execute an Effective Employee Motivation Program

Old school says, "My employees get a paycheck. That's enough. This is work; it's not supposed to be fun, and I'm not playing games. This is a business." New school says, "I want to create a motivating work environment to attract and retain the best staff. Employees who have fun are more productive. We can make our business more profitable by playing games and rewarding employees."

Gone are the days when the gruff boss barked orders and the employees may have muttered but they complied. Gone are the days when "Because I'm the boss, that's why" was all the explanation necessary. Gone are the days when workers did what they were told, when they were told, no questions asked. You may not like it; in fact, it could annoy the heck out of you, but this is the reality of today's work environment.

Of course, there will always be those few shining-star employees who you wish you could clone. They are the ones who are always going the extra step or two, who don't break or even bend the rules, and who are a pleasure to employ and reward. But for the most part, restaurant owners deal with workers at every point in the motivational and job-quality spectrum. Today savvy restaurant owners know that managing people is a lot like being a coach; sometimes a Little League coach.

. .So what's a spiff anyway? It typically means 'a premium paid for the sale of a particular product,' and the history of the word goes back to at least 1859 when it appeared in a dictionary of slang. At the time, the definition was 'the percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they affect a sale of old-fashioned or undesirable stock.' ..

Before you start devising all sorts of games to increase sales, though, consider some of the techniques that are yours for free. Sure, team-building events and giving increased responsibility are common ways to motivate staff, but a survey by Accountemps shows a simple thank-you will also win over employees. You'd be wise to always thank your employees for their contribution and efforts when they're leaving for the day.

In fact, more than one-third of workers cited "frequent recognition of accomplishments" as the most effective non-monetary reward. "Regular communication" was the second-most common response, given by 20 percent of employees. The next highest was "increased responsibility," cited by 17 percent.

If you have never run a contest or given out prizes, you might want to start off slow by thanking employees for a job well done. This only works well when your words are sincere and you thank employees for a specific event -- even if it's as vague as "another good shift." Any one shift presents dozens of opportunities for tasks worthy of recognition -- from quick busing of a table to a tidy workstation.

"No amount of team-building events or other perks can compensate for a manager personally thanking employees for a job well done," says Max Messmer, author of "Motivating Employees For Dummies." "Individuals want to know their work is appreciated and makes a difference." Look at the No. 2 motivational factor: Your staff wants "regular communication" with you. How do you do that? You might take one of your employees aside for a cup of coffee and spend some quality one-on-one time. Be sure to ask what you can do to improve the restaurant and make it a more enjoyable place to work. Also ask what you can do to help them develop in their jobs.

You can also communicate with your employees through appropriate feedback. Watch and listen to your staff interact with customers, and then give them feedback. First tell them something they did well. Then tell them something they could have done better. Always end a feedback session expressing your confidence in them and your appreciation for their efforts.

Another gift you can give your employees, which costs you nothing, is the gift of your own expertise. Don't neglect how you model appropriate behavior with your staff. Be the first one to clean this morning or at closing. It's amazing how much your staff respects you when you join in and clean. It's true you have a lot of other things to do, but working side by side with your staff is invaluable.

One of the biggest mistakes restaurant managers and owners can make is to spend hours working in the office and then come out on to the floor and try to take charge. The best thing you can do when you come onto the floor is to ask the staff how you can help. So often a manager emerges from the back office, sees a customer in the restaurant and asks an employee if they've been helped. You know the employee is dying to tell the manager, "If you'd been on the floor, you'd know that he doesn't want to be seated until his wife arrives." So come out to help, not to take charge.

It's the Little Things...

Once you have established the habit of thanking your employees and giving positive and useful feedback, there are other ways to show your appreciation and boost morale before you run a formal contest. One owner has come up with a very inexpensive way to show his appreciation. On busy nights, he'll routinely make up a tray full of glasses of ice water and distribute the water among his kitchen staff. It's such a small gesture, but it's one in which everyone wins. He gives tired and overheated workers a small break while showing them how important they are and treats them with care.

. .In terms of frequency, consider having a program running most all of the time. Incentives and bonus programs should be regular long-term events. The very best organized managers will plan out their spiffs, bonuses and rewards a year ahead of time to take into account seasonal offerings, holidays, slump periods and community events .. -- Kevin Moll president of National Food Service Advisors, Inc.

Another operator keeps a supply of scratch-off lottery tickets that sell for $1 each. He keeps them in his pocket to hand out to someone he sees doing a good job or just as a small reward for performing well whether by thinking ahead or helping another staff member. Of course what you're giving to the employee in this case is not a $1 gift, but the possibility that the employee is holding $500 or $1,000 or $25,000 in their hand. It's a fun and cheap way to make your staff smile, and you could make $20 worth of tickets last a long time.

Chris Tripoli of A'La Carte Foodservice Consulting Group summarizes these concepts. "Efforts like this keep your staff energized, focused and doing as well as they can and enjoying it -- you're creating a fun environment," Tripoli says. "Spiffs aren't just to reward high sales anymore, but for creating a good energy and improve staff retention."

So what's a spiff anyway? It typically means "a premium paid for the sale of a particular product," and the history of the word goes back to at least 1859 when it appeared in a dictionary of slang. At the time, the definition was "the percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they affect a sale of old-fashioned or undesirable stock."

Other word historians trace its roots to an acronym for either Sales Performance Incentive Funding Formula, Sales Performance Incentive Fund or Special Performance Incentive Fund. Still others argue that acronyms -- abbreviations for words pronounced as a word -- didn't really come into popular usage until after World War II. Whatever the origin, spiffs have long been used to motivate salespeople and increase sales.

Put Yourself First

Don't get caught up in the excitement of holding a contest or other reward program and forget the foundation of your efforts. No matter what the prize, what the incentive and whether the program involves the front of the house or the back of the house or both, Kevin Moll, president of National Food Service Advisors Inc., says the No. 1 no-exceptions rule to any spiff or incentive program is this: If the program does not reward the house first, the program isn't designed correctly. That doesn't mean that the house -- or you -- collects the prizes; it means that a program is only successful if it makes your restaurant more profitable, increases sales, raises morale or performs some action that improves your restaurant as the business it is.

For example, you might devise a simple contest of "Whichever server sells the most bottles of wine wins a bottle of wine." What happens if one server sells two bottles and the other servers sell none? It's not profitable to give one bottle away for every two sold. It's not cynical to examine the downside of any plan you have. Consider the worst-case scenario; consider the consequences of your biggest pain-in-the-neck employee trying to find a loophole. Build in safeguards so that any program you institute will benefit your restaurant first.

"Bonus programs or incentives can backfire if the rewards are out of sight or beyond reason or you're paying out more than you're bringing in," Moll says.

That's why, just like any marketing program, integrated menu promotion or participation in a charity event, you must have a plan. An ill-conceived program won't just be a failure; it could backfire and cause resentment, anger and hard feelings among your staff -- toward each other and aimed at you. Plus it will cost you money.

So what works? Think outside the box of the traditional sales contest and consider situations in your restaurant that could use improvement. Here's a successful incentive program that Moll ran one New Year's Eve when he was a manager of a large hotel dining room. Moll says the kitchen was always loud because of its size and design and had tended to get louder the busier they were, and, in Moll's words, "the louder it got, the more whacked-out the staff got." New Year's Eve was one of their busiest days of the year so he devised a menu and systems for it that required no talking among the staff.

"I told the staff that if they can remain silent between 7:30 p.m. and 11:55 p.m. everyone will get a prize, but if I hear one word, no one gets a prize. Everyone loved it, including the front of house. I wish I could remember the prize, but it was a very powerful program that worked," Moll says.

Tripoli knows of a restaurant owner with a very simple, yet very effective system of rewards. He buys a supply of two brands of candy bar. One is called PayDay; the other is called Zero. He keeps the candy in his office and periodically after a rush or particularly challenging shift, he'll bring them out and distribute a few.

. . A byproduct of a well-executed contest is that it will increase knowledge and develops skills. A good contest will tap into the motivational element of a contest to transfer new skills and knowledge or to reinforce existing proficiences among your staff..

It's no surprise that the PayDay candy bars go to the employees who went beyond the call of duty -- by helping someone else out, hearing a compliment from a customer, or just by maintaining a well-run section. And the Zero candy bars? They go to the person who dropped a tray, irritated a customer or generally had a bad day. What makes this program work for this operator is that it's a lighthearted way to point out behavior that you don't want without the heaviness of a formal reprimand. Of course, this works for day-to-day situations and is not appropriate, of course, for more serious infractions.

It's All in the Presentation

There's a reason millions of dollars are spent each year on gift wrap and ribbon. There's a reason chefs worldwide add often uneaten garnishes to their plates. The same holds true when you present a prize or bonus to your staff. In this case, the gift wrapping can be real or literal. Moll says, "Don't just hand them the prize. Tell them they're an important contributor to your restaurant."

If you are giving a formal gift, take the time to wrap it up so it looks attractive. Pulling something out of your desk drawer and tossing it to a top employee is not motivating. Presenting the bonus check, the cash, the gift, or the prize is an opportunity for you to look your employee in the eyes and say a few kind words to him or her. Shake their hand. Tell them you are proud of them. Pick out something positive to say -- even if it's small.

For operators on a tight budget, Tripoli offers a system to collect prizes to award to your staff. He suggests you go around your neighborhood to other community businesses and offer to barter gift cards from your restaurant for gift cards or merchandise from their businesses. These could be items like a carwash, movie tickets and gift cards or coupons for other restaurants. You can gather an assortment of gifts and prizes at a fraction of what they would cost you retail. Tripoli calls these, "on-the-spot spontaneous spiffs."

Who Plays?

There's no rule that says everyone on staff has to be part of every game or spiff program. Of course, it's easier to come up with reward programs for servers. Often, operators will match a server with a back-of-the-house person to work as teams. The problem with that is if sales are being monitored and rewarded (how many desserts, signature cocktails, special of the day, etc., are sold), the dishwasher or line cook is just along for the ride and has no effect on whether his or her pairing wins.

Moll has another guideline for incentive programs. "When your guests know about a program, your program has failed," he says. We've all been subjected to the "The boss makes us say this" or "They want us to talk about desserts" or even the more blatant, "If you buy a whole bottle, I could win a prize." Think about it. Why should your guest know about an incentive program you're running? Guests don't want to feel manipulated or used or pressured to order something they don't want to order. In a well-run program, the house wins, the staff wins and the guests win.

In terms of frequency, consider having a program running most all of the time. "Incentives and bonus programs should be regular, long-term events," Moll says. In fact, Moll says the very best organized managers will plan out their spiffs, bonuses and rewards a year ahead of time to take into account seasonal offerings, holidays, slump periods and community events. By planning a schedule a year out, you can make sure nothing is attempted without goals, plans and a well-thought-out approach.

Planning staff incentives a year in advance gives you the opportunity to marry these programs to your marketing efforts. For example, if gift cards are a profitable part of your November-December sales, you can make them even more profitable by having a fully engaged staff who know they will be rewarded by selling more cards. Having a newsletter or e-mail program for your customers is the marketing effort. Getting the names and e-mail addresses for your customers is an ideal use of a reward program. When you integrate all your programs into one united effort, you save time and maximize your marketing time and dollars.

Try then to rotate your programs -- sometimes for the front of the house, sometimes for the back and sometimes for both. Moll tells of a successful back-of-the-house program that involved food costs. The restaurant owner would monitor food costs and give a bonus when it came in at a certain level. If food cost was 32 percent or higher, no one got anything. If food cost was 29 percent to 31 percent, a bonus was given. If food cost came in at the ideal 27 percent to 29 percent, the back of the house got a better bonus. And if food costs came in under 26 percent, no bonus was given. As Moll says, "You'd have a great food cost, but no customers! Talk about tiny portions!"

The Larger Event

When you have multiple objectives and plan a more elaborate contest, you need to start with goals. As you decide what you want your contest to accomplish, a good format for your goals is one that uses the SMART system. SMART stands for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Considering the elements of SMART goals will prevent you from having a vague goal such as "to increase sales" or "to make the servers more cheerful."

Likewise, two first-class airplane tickets to Paris may be motivating, but when the goal is unreachable (increase revenue by 50 percent over the next 14 days), the contest will not be a boost in morale, but rather the contest will diminish it.

An example of a SMART goal for an employee incentive contest is to increase sales (measurable) of signature cocktails (specific) by 20 percent (attainable and realistic) over the next 45 days (time-bound). Another example is to reduce waste by 10 percent (measurable) of fresh produce (specific) through more effective purchasing, planning and prep work (attainable and realistic) over the next 90 days (time-bound). Once your objectives and desired results are in place, you can start working on the structure of the contest. Some of the items that are part of the structure include:

Identify participants. At first glance, that sounds easy. Sales contests are for sales associates, right? Engaging contests, when executed well, can include not only doers but also support staff and management teams. Engaging contests are terrific opportunities to build synergies and strengthen relationships between departments, sites and internal organizations. They are great for improving service levels to field organizations as well as connecting support groups to the end user.

You must also decide whether your contest is designed for team implementation, individual participation or a combination of the two. Team-based competitions substantially increase the peer pressure to participate and make it possible to reward both the overall restaurant execution as well as individual results.

Time frame. How long or when the contest runs is typically driven by the nature of the contest and your objectives. For example, a contest to sell restaurant gift cards might start in November and run through the end of the year. On the other hand, a contest to increase dessert sales or to encourage safe food practices in the kitchen could run any time of the year. Although a contest has to be long enough to be effective and to gain momentum, Moll says, "An incentive program is more effective when it is short and powerful."

Budget. Often overlooked in planning a contest is the creation of a budget or failing to budget appropriately for support mechanisms. For example, the budget covers much more than your rewards or prizes. Make sure you have budgeted for collateral materials and communications during the contest as well as for an awards ceremony, if one is planned. Failure to budget for all items can result in the contest falling short.

For a large contest, make sure the prize is worth the effort. For example, one restaurant called its Christmas holiday contest, "Naughty or Nice," for which the prize was two airplane tickets to either Las Vegas (naughty) or Orlando/Disney (nice). Obviously it is important to offer the participants large enough prizes to motivate them to achieve the objectives.

A byproduct of a well-executed contest is that it will increase knowledge and develops skills. A good contest will tap into the motivational element of a contest to transfer new skills and knowledge or to reinforce existing proficiencies among your staff. For an operator, a contest is a good way to make learning more fun and rewarding. Training may be part of the early stages of a contest.

Few employees actually enjoy training sessions, practicing skills or role-playing. It's easy, too, for managers to let ongoing training slip in the whirl of day-to-day activities. Even many managers just pay lip service to role-playing, without ever making time to do it. Much like sports, we're better when we practice but we'd much rather be playing the game than practicing it. Engaging contests build upon new and/or reinforced knowledge.

It's entirely possible to have a well-run restaurant with happy, effective employees with no incentive program. Spiffs, gifts and contests are not a requirement for success. If you're considering trying a program, move slowly and deliberately. Consider what you want to accomplish, make sure the program makes sense financially and make a timetable and plan. Then, do the most important thing; that is, have fun with your staff.