Counter-Offers Are a Sucker’s Play

By Kris Dunn · 03.15.2013

Retention is important for organizations.

Paying substantially more for the talent that’s currently sitting in your office is a total sucker’s play. Don’t confuse the two.

Let’s break this down a little bit. You found that diamond in the rough. You hired them, nurtured them and grew them to the point where they’re relevant in your industry, their profession, etc. Or maybe you just bought them from someone else at a price you considered at the time to be fair, right?

Either way, after a couple of years with you, they have more value on the open market. That means people are going to ping them and see if they can strip them away to another company. At which point many managers and companies start freaking out, even in reaction to the potential of a slightly above-average talent leaving the company to go to work for a competitor.

It all comes down to replacement cost. Can you find another cog to fill the gap with? If you can, you don’t freak out and you don’t counter with a raise that gets into the 20% range to save the referenced employee with another offer in hand.

In the Talent game, there are really two types of employees that warrant a counter-offer when they’ve told you they’re getting ready to accept an offer from another company:

Great Creators = the people who create what you sell, and I mean truly create. In a lot of companies, those are software developers. Good creators in any type of company that produces products and services are worth ten of their peers.

True Rainmakers = not salespeople in general, but people who have the ability to bring in business in a way that an average salesperson can’t. Generally, these people have networks that have been formulated in a way that’s different from the average sales pro. Normal sales pros bitch about the quality of the leads. True Rainmakers never seem to give a flip about the leads marketing is producing. Hmm.

Not everyone who creates or sells for a living is special. In fact, most are average. BUT – when you find a top tier creator or rainmaker, they are different. They can drive results for your company in ways that others can’t.

That’s why they’re the only people you should counter when they appear to be seriously considering another job. Everyone else’s replacement cost is too low to freak out about.  Accounting, Marketing, HR, Operations, Customer Service – you only save people in these areas if they qualify somehow as a creator or a rainmaker. Few will qualify.

Four final thoughts about retention and counter-offers:

1. You should pay people aggressively/fairly and provide career paths so talent can grow and get theirs at your company in at time frame that’s fair. I’m not talking about playing hardball when you pay people at the 17th percentile.

2.  You create a culture over time related to how you handle resignations and counters. If you always go into save mode, there are a lot of people who play games. If it’s crickets when even a solid player brings their notice, you’re going to stop “I’m taking another offer” games.

3.  Your tendency to freak out over average people resigning means you haven’t institutionalized knowledge transfer and operational soundness. The knowledge is in the average person’s head and nowhere else, thus your freakoutedness (that’ a word, I just made it up).

4.  For a great primer on who Creators and Rainmakers are and who is replaceable, look to the New England Patriots. Their creators are Tom Brady and Bill Belichcik, and everyone else (and they mean everyone) is replaceable. The goal should be to have our stuff together as organizations to the point where we can replicate great results with different talent – while protecting the creators/rainmakers.

Retention and counter-offers.  Don’t confuse the two.  Counters are a sucker’s play in most cases. If they’re not, we’ve got to look at our organization to find the answers why.

http://fistfuloftalent.com/2013/03/counter-offers-are-a-suckers-play.html

Applying the core principles of project management to your hiring and training practices is one of the best ways to both attract and retain qualified hospitality staff with a positive attitude. “Plan and execute,” the mantra of accomplished project managers, refers to the second and third phases of traditional, or phase-based project management, which are all about strategy.

Here are some tips to help you create an effective strategy for hiring the best professionals for your establishment.

1. Set clear and precise hiring and retention goals. How many people do you need to build your dream team, and how are their duties divided? Will your team members acquire new skills and responsibilities throughout their tenure at your establishment, or are their roles fixed from the start? Remember, while setting goals, that the hospitality maxim of “hire the smile and train the skills” is only as useful as you make it; and that means defining in words, what a positive employee attitude looks like in practice.

   Bear in mind that it probably won’t look the same for every employee, especially those with very different skills and responsibilities. So don’t just list general personal attributes; place your ideal hires in challenging, position-specific situations and describe their speech and actions.

2. Get organized. Take inventory of the resources at your disposal, including available project-management tools, hiring budget, and time-frame. Schedule plenty of wiggle room for unexpected obstacles: a surplus of qualified applicants, budgetary changes, employee illness, hard-to-reach applicant references, etc. Then, start planning your interview process.

   Be sure to include at least three or four behavior-based questions, such as “Tell me about a time when a stressful situation got the best of you at work,” or “What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made as a server/front-desk manager/chef/concierge/etc.? How did you remedy the situation?”

3. Use role play. Any major change to your interview process merits a practice session with a team member or fellow hospitality manager, particularly when first adding tough questions, such as those above, to the roster. As your establishment’s representative and manager, you are firmly in charge of the interview dynamic, and deploying forced questions will get you forced answers.

   You may also want to role-play with applicants when posing your challenge questions. Pay attention to the entire person as he or she responds; body language, tone of voice and facial expression are all powerful indicators of attitude.

4. Keep the lines of communication open. Your supervisor, current team members, and even professional competitors can help you refine and revise your hiring process if you keep an open mind and seek out their expertise, experiences and feedback. Meet regularly with front- and back-of-house staff and establish interdepartmental communications protocol, whether via email, project-management tools, or shift-change documentation. Recognize strong employee performances in front of other staff members, and thank employees frequently for their service and loyalty.
5. Initiate new and existing employee training. In any high turnover industry, consistency in quality and kind of services rendered, particularly when integrating new hires, is best established by ongoing employee training sessions and performance incentives. When crafting training sessions, seek your team members’ input. Ask them what “soft skills” comprise a positive attitude and how they recognize those skills in practice. Solicit feedback on the most challenging aspects of customer service in your establishment and consider formalizing, with recognition or award systems, employee best practices.
6. Stay flexible. Seasoned project managers know better than to expect perfection of any person or process. Instead, they find humor and opportunities for personal growth in every possible outcome. If your first round of interviews or new hires is a flop, step back from the experience, make note of where things went wrong (mistakes are usually attributable to inadequate planning or preparation), and revise your strategy accordingly.

Finally, never forget that attitude flows downhill from the top. Staying open to acknowledging and learning from your mistakes will insure that your attitude remains positive and your employees will follow your lead.

This guest post is provided by Ren Lacerda who works with University Alliance on behalf of Michigan State University and University of Florida covering topics on Hospitality Management and Human Resource Management. You can follow Ren on Twitter @RenMarketing.

Once you’ve developed the skills needed to manage a restaurant, successfully, and develop a strong team who are motivated and goal oriented, it is time to sell your skills.  The restaurant manager’s job requires good communication skills, and the ability to present projects and reports in a way that will sell ideas to the team, management, investors, and to the customers who walk through the doors each day.

The resume is the first place you have to highlight your skills.

Identify Yourself as a Serious Candidate

HR managers are less interested in what you have done for others, or what you have learned. They are interested in seeing what you can do for them. If you’ve followed this blog then you’ve seen multiple places that discuss your personal development. Invest some time in personal development. Listing coaching, courses, and career development steps you’ve successfully completed is a great way to alert HR managers to the fact that you are aggressively and seriously focused on becoming the solution to the restaurant’s problems, not another problem.

Identify Yourself as a Team Leader

The days when managers barked orders and punish poor performance are over. Today’s manager needs to develop their communication skills. They need to be able to motivate and encourage, not push. The stakes are high. The cost of replacing disgruntled employees is staggering. The cost of investing in training, and then having an employee leave because they do not feel empowered, fulfilled, or challenged is immeasurable.

A manager needs to be able to develop their team, encourage and motivate them, and create an environment that encourages longevity.  Even when this is done, the good manager understands that the team’s personalities, boundaries, and personal habits can undermine the team. They learn to identify problems and create solutions that will empower the team, and encourage them.

They understand that the reason to build a strong team is to reduce the loss caused by employee overturn, days off, conflict in the workplace, and resentment directed toward management.

Understanding these is only half the battle. It is important to learn how to condense that information into your resume. It is necessary to understand which skills will make your resume stand out above the crowd.

Give em’ the Pickle …

My very first restaurant job was washing dishes at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor in Portland, Oregon. At that time Marriott owned the brand, and I was a Marriott employee, but we all “worked for Farrell’s”. Being in Portland we had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Farrell and his wife Mona in for a quick bite. He was, and is an incredible man.

After that I had the pleasure of working for Mr. Farrell at Pacific Coast Restaurants in Portland. He was the CEO and the face of PCR. At every new unit opening [and we had many as the company was growing like gang busters], and two times a year, Mr. Farrell gave his “Pickle Speech”. I saw it countless times, and never grew tired of hearing it.

The basis for the “Pickle Speech” was a guest that was in a Farrell’s and was being charged for a side of pickles by the server. The guest told the server that they always get the pickles, but the server insisted on charging for the side. Well, the guest left, and wrote Mr. Farrell a letter to tell their story. Bottom line … Give em’ the Pickle!

Every business in the world has pickles to give away. Something little to make your customers know you care, and make them customers for life.

As I look back, his wisdom and teachings were so vital to not only me, but thousands of employees that heard the speech, and lived it out in his stores.

At a time when great service is often set aside for profits and cost controls, I reflect on these principles and realize they really cost very little to do. On the flip side, they are very expensive with lost business if you don’t.

What are these four simple principles for giving away Pickles?

1.       Connect with customers and guests. Ask yourself, how I would want to be treated, and then do it!

2.       Anticipate your customer’s needs. Stay one step ahead of them. What are they needing, and put it into place.

3.       Look for ways to delight your customers. Surprise them, and ask how we can exceed their expectations.

4.       Inspire yourself and others. Seeing with your heart. Ask yourself, am I willing to do whatever it takes to make a difference?

So what do giving away pickles have to do with Gecko Hospitality? Plenty! We strive day in and day out to give pickles away. Not only to our clients, but to our candidates as well. A thank you note, a small trinket of thanks, a text or e-mail of encouragement. We want to make a difference in all the folks we come in contact with. You [clients and candidates] are our lifeblood and we value and need you.

Thank you for choosing Gecko Hospitality! Ready for some pickles? 

Kevin Kalstad – Gecko Hospitality

Leadership is a learned skill. The myth of the natural leader halts too many restaurant manager careers and discourages many restaurant professionals from aggressively seeking better jobs in the hospitality industry. In reality, the only true obstacle to becoming a restaurant manger is knowledge. Everyone may be at different stages of the leadership learning curve.

The plugged in leader understands the ‘life force’ behind a strategy and can anticipate what may go wrong, problems they may face, and create exit strategies, or a ‘plan B’. They divert problems before they evolve, and have prepared their team to execute a plan of action at a moment’s notice.

Here are 10 questions that will help you determine whether you are a critical leader and place you on the learning curve.

•           I am/not interested about execution within the group of people I am currently in.

Take the time to answer this honestly. Do you have influence and can guide people to perform better? If you are interested then you make things happen. If you are not interested then things happen around you and you ignore them, or gossip.

•           The organization is efficient.

If everything is good enough then you have no execution plan.  Can you see places where things can be improved. Can you envision and can imagine improvements. Do you have suggestions for improvements in every aspect of your life? Do you walk into a job and achieve more results than your predecessor

•           I enforce consequences of ineffective execution consistently

The problem with enforcement is that it imposes your level of integrity, belief system, and perceptions on another person. It is a self centered form of leadership management which disrespects those who are not fitting into your plan. Once this happens those around you stop believing in your dream. They lose their motivation. The strategy looses synergy and any serendipitous opportunities are lost as the team either abandons their leader, or withdraws inside themselves and stops contributing.

The Critical Leader learns how to motivate and reward good behavior, motivating their actions based on results. This forward moving form of leadership produces results. When a leader focuses on correcting inappropriate behavior they are in fact doing nothing more than trying to solve problems by force.

•           I break projects down into measurable, result focused goals

The final result may be the culmination of several goals. Leaders who fail often try to execute too many goals at one time. Leaders who succeed put all their efforts into achieving results. The successful completion of a goal is merely the symptom of an effective leadership strategy.

The hospitality industry is a highly competitive one. Whether you are looking for a job as a Chef, restaurant or general manger, or are carving a niche for yourself in another area of the restaurant industry, job seekers need to learn how to sell their skills to the HR manager.

There are many execution strategies. Most are good but fall short of producing results. This is because they tell people what needs to be done. They don’t tell people how to do it.  The ability to understand and execute a plan is important to selling your skills. The HR manager will not assume that all restaurant managers are able to redesign a restaurant, solve problems within a team, or pull a restaurant out of the red. Candidates need to be able to identify their strengths in their current job, and sell their solutions to current management. Then they need to document their ideas, measure their success, and record the results. These case studies will become a sales tool they can use for landing their next job.

Here are some basic fundamentals necessary in any career development strategy, and plan of execution:

•           Know your resources.

This is an excellent idea. Once a manager can identify their resources they are able to manage them effectively. This is still a backward thinking management strategy. It is designed to identify the results of what has been done in the past, not what can be accomplished in the future.

•           Find how to use resources in ways that open new opportunities.

The hospitality industry is always looking for new opportunities. People who learn how to solve problems, and find opportunities are valuable resources in today’s job market.

•           Look for resources that have been missed by others

•           Do not look for obstacles, problems, and assets but look for opportunities.

•           Include People in your strategy

The narrower your network the easier it is to topple the mountain. Everyone has something to contribute. Some of the greatest breakthroughs have been found when management stops to ask the people on the front lines what they need to do a better job, what complaints do they hear, or what would make the customer happy.

Part of making sure the right people is in the right place hinges on a leader’s ability to listen. People let us know what is important to them, what they need and want, and how to become a better manager in the things they don’t say as much as what they do say.  Learn to listen and to delegate. This training can start long before you ever sit behind a manger’s desk.

•           Effectively expect.

Establish a way to measure the results of execution. Do  not focus entirely on what has happened but learn to measure what is happening. Do not focus on whether a task is being completed, and by whom. Instead, focus on if the task is being done right. What is right? How is that measured?

This involves Strategic Evaluation. This cannot be done without first doing your homework. Again, knowledge is power. Even ‘gut instinct’ and intuition can be a primal part of an execution strategy.

•           Stay in the Real World.

The problem with dreams, goals and expectations is that they are self evident reflections of who we are at the time they are created and executed. They are often based on our personal wants, needs, and perceptions of reality

There are two main obstacles to career development. The main one is the ability to make plans. The second one is the ability to execute plans.  Before understand how to create an execution plan you need to be able to identify a clear goal. This is important because the ability to put your plans on paper in an articulate, clearly understood outline is the first step every restaurant manager needs to get any plan ‘off the ground.’

You have goals and dreams. The creative strategy that you’ve built success on has taken years to develop. You have a strong focus on your short term and long term goals, but nothing happens.  Your career as a restaurant manager has not followed the path to your dream job. You continue to be a job seeker instead of a restaurant manager whom the headhunters are courting. Dreams crash, not in a quick dive, but slowly they are eroded by the day to day tasks that eat the time needed to execute your goals.

The problem is what we term as the ‘whirlwind’ or tornado. This is a continual, ravenous, insatiable vortex that draws everything inside but produces nothing. It involves all those daily tasks which drain our energy.

This is one of the most devastating obstacles to the ambitious performance minded professional. They watch other people succeed while their goals quietly fade from their bucket list. Not because they are lazy, not because they hire the wrong people.

The problem lies in the fact that the goals are forward looking and all the data, numbers, plans are backward focused. They report what has been done and accomplished. The numbers, strategies, and perspectives never deal with the day to day activities which destroy our goals.

The art of execution is one aspect of success that must be conquered if you want to reach your goals.

Career coaching with a mentor in the industry you want to excel can shorten the learning curve. It can also help identify the skills needed to change from a Job Seeker to a Restaurant Manager. There are many tips and hints in these blogs to help you make the leap to your dream career, no matter how high you want to go.

Many job seekers already have a good job in a small establishment. Their goal is to break through the glass ceiling and make their move to the next level, whether it be with a larger restaurant or maybe as the general manager.

Knowledge is power, but only when a manager knows how to make the move. As a performance coach I often hear people complain that they know ‘what’ to do, but they have no idea how to do it. In this blog gecko hospitality offers bite size tutorials to help you understand how to apply techniques that have been taught in college, or on the work floor.

Enjoy and we encourage you to log in and talk to one of our hospitality industry recruitment experts.

By: Marty Tarabar, CPC

I attended a conference recently, and had the opportunity to listen to the keynote speaker. He spoke about how his family, a well to do family in Memphis, adopted a homeless boy.  The boy came from a broken family, his mother, a crack cocaine addict, had given up taken care of him.

The family helped with his schooling, hired a private tutor and encouraged him in his efforts to try out for sports.  He studied hard, practiced at sports and was accepted in to college where he became a first team, freshman all American. He finished his college career and was picked in the first round of the NFL draft. In his first year, he came in second in the voting for the Associated Press  NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award.

Sounds like a Hollywood movie, right?  Well the speaker was Sean Tuohy. He and his wife Leigh Anne adopted Michael Oher in 2004 and he was drafted in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. The movie:  The Blind Side which starred Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw.

Sean talked a little bit about how his family was able to change Michael’s life, his successes on the football field and a little about the movie. But Sean talked mostly about how this all came about. It all started with just two words. TURN AROUND!

The family was driving home on a dark, cold and rainy night. Sean and Leigh Anne saw someone walking alongside the road, without a jacket, soaking wet. The children told Leigh Anne and Sean they knew the boy’s name was Michael and he went to their school.

Many cars passed Michael along the road that night, Sean passed him as well, but when Leigh Anne heard the boy went to the same school as her children, she said “TURN AROUND”.  Those two words changed the Tuohy’s and Michael Oher’s life forever.

So how does this relate to your employees, or your managers?

Without the Tuohy’s intervention, Michael would have ended up on the streets, in a gang, and involved in drugs or worse.  Leigh Anne and Sean made a difference.

Who works at your restaurant?  What are their stories and what help can you give them?  Do they need that little extra attention to make them a stand out employee? Can they be your next assistant manager or help open your next new restaurant?

TURN AROUND, talk to your staff, the time commitment you make to them now will pay back tremendous dividends.  There is an A-list of former McDonald’s employees: Romney VP running mate Paul Ryan singers; Pink, Seal, Macy Gray, Olympic athlete; Carl Lewis, actors; James Franco, Sharon Stone and Jay Leno and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

TURN AROUND pay attention to your staff now, or someone else will. One of the main reasons employees leave a position has very little to do with the work, it’s usually about how they are treated or respected as people.

TURN AROUND make a difference in your employees and managers today.  If not, they will be calling a recruiter like me, tomorrow, to find them a new restaurant management position.

by: Marty Tarabar, CPC
marty@geckohospitality.com

How often do you hear these words?

As a management recruiter, we usually hear the opposite. Restaurant managers send us their resumes, looking for a new position.  When we call to do the initial interview, we always hear what ‘s wrong with their job.

• They are not appreciated
• Bonuses and raises were promised and not delivered
• They are stagnant in their current position with no room for growth

What’s great about recruiting for Gecko Hospitality is being able to place candidates in positions they love, where they get the opportunities they are looking for and the quality of life they are looking for.

Three recent placements come to mind.

Tony – After 8 years working in the contract services side of the hospitality industry, Tony decided to try his hand at managing a full service restaurant. He was very successful.  He was quickly able to build sales, increase profits and put together a good team of employees.  But, he was the only salaried manager at this privately owned restaurant. He had two shift managers who he could depend on, but the success of the restaurant was squarely on Tony’s shoulders.

He worked mostly closing shifts, leaving the restaurant after 2am.  I was able to place Tony with a local company, working 5 days a week, usually done by 5pm.  When I visited him just last week he was gushing with how wonderful his new position is and how much he enjoys working for his new company.

“I can’t thank you enough, I love this job”  he said.

Ralph – Opening up new hotels is a challenge and Ralph enjoyed it. He had opened new locations for a few different Hotel Management companies, but was longing for a place to call his own.  I’ve talked to Ralph a few times since we placed him at an established property. He had moved to take the position, but is ecstatic about his hotel, the management group he works for and the hotel ownership.

I e-mailed the owner after a recent stay at his hotel and he said “Ralph is doing a fantastic job with the hotel and how he has proven to be such a positive leader for the staff. Ralph has truly been a wonderful fit for us…”  Ralph absolutely loves his job.

Jeff -  I’ve known Jeff for over 6 years. We’ve spoken often, whenever I had a position I thought he might be interested in , I would reach out to him.  Every time we talked he would tell me about the goings on with his company. They changed the bonus structure, they reduced the number of managers, and  payroll was  getting tighter. After almost 8 years, he was no longer enjoying the company he had worked for.

We contacted Jeff about a new opportunity, in fact, he was the first person I thought of when the job order came in to our office. His skills were a match, the lifestyle was what he was looking for, and the owners of the restaurant shared the same beliefs .  His interviews with the new company were great and the owners were excited about bringing Jeff in to the fold.

Jeff loves his new job.

The right job is out there!  Sometimes you fall into it by accident and sometimes the job finds you.

I love my job!

by: Marty Tarabar CPC
marty@Geckohospitality.com

Don’t let your resume stop you from getting the interview.

Yes, it is illegal to discriminate because of age, but, corporate recruiters can decide whether or not to interview based solely on what they see on your resume.

“Over 30 years of management experience” says you are close or over 50 years old. Does the target company, you are sending your resume to, have 50 year old managers running their operations?  Let’s face it, you don’t see many 50 year old managers at your local Applebee’s or Chili’s.

How to avoid this type of discrimination.

FIRST  -  Always be honest!  Any falsehood on a resume or an application can be a justification for dismissal once hired by a company

SECOND  -  Don’t offer too much information!  Employment history older than 15 years is unnecessary. Employers want to know about your recent employment and successes. Listing earlier positions will only “age” you in the eyes of the person reading the resume

THIRD  -  Eliminate graduation dates!  When listing education, list degrees obtained, but not dates received. After you have an initial interview, when filling out an application, you will be asked for dates of schooling.  Listing your high school graduation year gives the recruiter your age.

Your resume should be designed for the sole purpose of getting your foot in the door, by presenting your career and accomplishments.  Corporate recruiters spend only seconds, yes, just seconds scouring your resume.  After all, your resume came in with hundreds of others in response to a job ad for a hotel or restaurant manager.

The “over 30 years of experience” headline might work for someone looking to fill a corporate level position. But, the recruiter wants to be able to see where you’ve worked recently, and what your accomplishments were.

Limit your list of experience to your last three management positions .  Using bullet points, list 3 or 4 major accomplishments for each position showing your leadership, sales building and cost control successes.

Your educational background is very important. Most posted restaurant and hotel management  positions require a college degree.  List the college(s) you attended and the degree(s) received.  Again, be honest. Employers will check with colleges to see if you indeed graduated.