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The Qualities of a Magnetic Restaurant Manager

What makes an employee leave a job? For over two-thirds of workers, it isn't more money or better hours elsewhere. It is more often the way they are treated by their manager. Employees tend to leave whether managers are micromanaging or hands-off; they are more inclined to stay when they believe their manager cares about them.

So says Mel Kleiman, Founder and President of Humetrics Inc. Kleiman unpacked the importance of caring and other qualities that make a manager magnetic in a recent RestaurantOwner.com webinar, which was so well-attended and popular, we circled back to Kleiman to learn more.

Identifying the Magnetic Manager?

What are the characteristics of a manager who creates a culture of excellence and attracts and keeps top employees? In this article, we explore how you can cultivate the qualities of a "magnetic manager" in yourself and the people who run your concept.

What are the qualities of a magnetic manager and what makes them effective in retaining staff? Sure, intelligence, charisma, good ideas, and industry experience are all nice to have, says Kleiman; however, he adds, "If your people don't trust you, if they don't really believe that you care, you'll always struggle building a team that's loyal and totally committed to what you want to accomplish."

If you shouldn't hire based only on experience, intelligence, or a winning personality, what characteristic should be at the top of this list? According to Kleinman, it is caring. Employees will stay when they feel like the manager cares about them. Care is demonstrated on a daily basis when managers view their employees as people first and make it a habit to take an interest in them as people, not simply workers.

Kleiman recommends managers use employee data sheets that collect information about their hobbies, interests, or favorite foods during the onboarding phase. Then, managers can use this information to connect with employees. This level of personal attention sets a welcoming tone from day one and makes it easy for managers to demonstrate caring and empathy. You should avoid personal questions that could be misinterpreted as a basis for discrimination, such as their religion or sexual identity. (See RestaurantOwner.com Resources: The Employee Data Sheet below.)

Second to caring is communication skills. Great managers know how and when to listen to people. Perhaps most importantly, says Kleiman, they know when and how to have tough conversations that less effective managers tend to avoid.

As a rule, adds Kleiman, magnetic managers aren't afraid of doing what is hard. They "recognize that work involves doing things they don't like to do," like having a tough conversation, and they do it anyway. In Kleiman's experience, not having difficult conversations in the moment sets an employee up to fail later on, with negative implications for your business. Effective communication requires sensitivity to the person you are communicating with, and effective managers adapt their style to suit each employee's preference.

In the interview and onboarding stages, Kleiman encourages managers to ask new hires how they like to be managed. Specifically, how would that employee like to be told if something they were doing was incorrect? This information helps a manager quickly decode preferred communication styles. If it sounds like coddling, remember your restaurant is not the military. Your employees have plenty of other opportunities on the other side of your walls.

Effective managers manage expectations. The first pay period provides a reality check for the new hire whether they are meeting the expectations of the job; whether they are doing well or need to step up their game. You do not want to leave them wondering.

If the new hire is meeting or exceeding expectations, managers can let them know that they "really earned that paycheck." If the employee isn't performing to the desired level, Kleiman suggests the manager should let them know their effort has only earned, let's say, 80 percent of the paycheck and be clear where the employee needs to improve.

"The less quality of performance you accept from any employee is a signal to every other employee how badly they can perform and still keep their job," says Kleiman. "If the new hire isn't required to follow the closing protocol, then others will get the message that it's optional. And if there are different standards of performance for different staff, it will kill morale." Employees will pick up on the arbitrary and capricious management and lose respect for the operation.

To encourage good performance, you need to be liberal with positive recognition that rewards employees for doing a good job. Too often, managers focus their energy on negative recognition, or dealing with problems. They miss the opportunity to give attention to those employees who go above and beyond. Everyone enjoys an atta-boy and atta-girl.

A magnetic manager is not asleep at the wheel, particularly during the onboarding phase for each employee. "People are going to be at their best in the first two weeks," Kleiman says. If someone is not performing the job adequately during that critical period, they're not going to get any better. The more attention a manager devotes to a problem employee, the less attention they have to recognize a star performer.

Kleiman recommends managers become comfortable parting ways with disinterested underperformers rather than devoting resources to miraculously inspiring a good work ethic. Magnetic managers are empathetic, but they are not social workers. When you terminate a lackluster employee, "your good people will wonder what took you so long," Kleiman says. "A-players do not want to play on B-teams, and they don't have to," he cautions. "If you don't have a culture of accountability, you're letting yourself go out of business. That's your decision."

Quid Pro Quo

Magnetic managers focus on win-win. Employees are motivated to do their job when they get something in return. The fancier term is reciprocity.

Sure, employees want money, but they also want interesting work, growth, opportunity, and recognition. When managers take the time to positively recognize an employee's achievement, they make that person feel valued. This cultivates loyalty.

It's human nature that people are self-motivated. Strong managers help their employees get what they want because they know they'll reap rewards. "If I help you grow, you're going to be part of this organization," he explains.

Kleiman believes effective managers don't shy away from unpleasant and unvarnished critique of staff. Employees need to know how they are doing. That said, in the same breath he emphasizes that magnetic managers know how to keep things fun. A manager can demand quality without being a tyrant. The best managers balance unpleasant tasks with levity. A restaurant should be a pleasant place to work. There are plenty of miserable jobs available that pay just as well or better.

Among the most challenging conversations is employee compensation. Staff want to know what they can do to increase their pay, particularly in an inflationary economy. Effective managers know they can't dodge the questions. Magnetic managers make it a positive conversation.

Employees understand they have options when it comes to earning more money. When asked for a raise, effective managers won't just summarily bump up pay or outright reject a request for a raise. They will look for - again – win-win opportunities.

EFFECTIVE MANAGERS MANAGE EXPECTATIONS.
The first pay period provides a reality check for the new hire whether they are meeting the expectations of the job; whether they are doing well or need to step up their game. You do not want to leave them wondering.

Find out what the employee can do to work more efficiently. The restaurant saves on labor and the raise pays for itself. Find out what a server can do to upsell or command higher tips. Let your staff provide ideas what they can do to earn and deserve more money. They know the job better than anyone, and this conversation invites collaboration between management and staff.

Trust, accountability, and respect are other characteristics of a good working relationship between managers and employees. These characteristics should be nurtured on a daily basis to create a healthy working environment, and they can be broken in an instant of carelessness.

"We create accountability the day we hire somebody," Kleiman says. He shares a story about using an accountability card that spells out the commitment restaurants are making to their employees: integrity, a workplace that is safe for all, fair compensation, opportunities for growth and learning, and open communication are some of the promises made on the card.

Your concept's accountability card should reflect your needs; these aren't intended as one-size-fits-all contracts. Kleiman gives examples of commitments to require new employees to adhere to:

• Treat every customer and coworker as they wish to be treated, with the utmost respect and courtesy
• Handle customer concerns personally with the attitude "the customer is always right," even when they're not
• Demonstrate productive job behavior, including on-time arrival and work on time
• Do what needs to be done, at the best of your ability, at all times
• Follow all rules and regulation

Ultimately, accountability is reinforced through recognition, such as when a manager tells an employee, "I really appreciate the way you lived up to our values."

Kleiman believes that managers deserve the people they hired, because they made the decision to hire them. "Do you trust them to take care of the customer?" he asks. "If you don't trust them, why do you have them on the payroll?" Strong managers recognize that employees often have to make decisions on the fly in the dynamic restaurant setting. They empower the employee to do so. Otherwise, they can get swept up in situations with no recourse to address or resolve them.

This requires trust. Kleiman gives an example of a time when his server asked to buy him dessert because he so enjoyed having Kleiman as a guest. After enjoying his complimentary dessert, Kleiman stopped the manager to ask if the employee was authorized to give him the free dessert. The manager confirmed their servers were allowed to give away dessert to exceptional guests provided it was rung up. Allowing servers to exercise this perk with discretion is an example of trust.

A Jigsaw Puzzle

Kleiman compares hiring a manager to tackling a jigsaw puzzle. You can't put the puzzle together without the picture on the box that shows the finished puzzle. And you can't hire a great manager unless you know what "great" means to you, and what qualities go along with your definition. He suggests owners imagine what their restaurant might look like six months into the future after hiring a great manager. Are food costs down? Has employee morale, performance and retention improved? Consider your outcomes with specificity.

Now work backwards to come up with the manager characteristics you believe would achieve this outcome. From there, build the hiring process around looking for the person who displays these traits. Bear in mind, he adds, 90 percent of the way operators describe top performers aren't skill-related, but refer to attitude and commitment.

Kleiman notes that people are often promoted to management because they're good at their nonmanagerial job. And then they are thrown into a management position with no training and experience, where they may flounder and become frustrated. Moreover, as "the boss" they lose the support of the social network they enjoyed as a team member.

If you have a top performer whom you see as having potential as a manager, you owe them development, training and patience. Managing resources – including people – is a difficult job.

Your star potential manager might find out that management is not their dream job, says Kleiman. That's ok, he adds. In the meantime, help them develop the skills they need to be successful and learn the job. He quotes Richard Branson, billionaire founder of Virgin Group: "Train your employees well enough so they can leave, but treat them so well they'd rather stay."

WHAT'S SO CRAZY 'BOUT PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING

We're all human beings. We're all trying to get by as best as we can. Magnetic managers are human and sincere in their interactions with staff.

To wit: When a server indicated he was unhappy and talked about leaving, Scott Alters, chef-owner of Rue Saint-Marc in Jacksonville, Florida sat down with him and asked him not to leave. Then he asked what the restaurant could do differently. "I sat there with a piece of paper and wrote down everything he said. Some of it was ranting and some of it was good points I had missed. The next day we [started] tackling everything on that list."

"It made the restaurant better and the employee stayed. Owners or managers are so afraid to talk to someone who looks like they might be unhappy and that's the worst thing they can do," he says. The personal touch of listening and showing an employee their ideas are valuable prevented the server from quitting and ultimately made the restaurant stronger.

Alters doesn't think it is simply luck that he enjoys a fully staffed restaurant when so many operators are struggling to hire. He believes it's the effect of nearly five years' development of a strong workplace culture.

For independent operators who suspect that good employees might be thinking about leaving, Alters offers these words of advice: "Sometimes when you're in a position of authority, it's easy to assume you're not the problem and you may very well be the problem. Evaluate yourself. Write down what it is you would want to see from a great leader, then evaluate yourself against that." If you or your managers fall short, build skills to retain great people and hold onto new talent.

Next, he says, "ask yourself if you are running an environment that a great employee will want to be a part of. If you're not, great staff will leave." When you understand what attracts employees to your work environment, you can strengthen that by making it a priority in the day-to-day, in much the same way that the Alters keep their staff learning and growing.

THE EMPLOYEE DATA SHEET

The Employee Data Sheet includes information to help you and your management team get to know your people to see what motivates and inspires them and what they like to do for fun. While you must keep it professional, it's important to build trust by showing a genuine interest in the people you work with.