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.

Everyone wants to be the candidate that stands out.  Many of the rumored tricks are mostly hot air. Others, like attending an elite university, may make you an attractive candidate, but knowledge without experience can be an obstacle.

Here are some common missteps candidates make when applying to larger corporations in the hospitality industry.

Post High School Job Experience

Were you a waitress instead of an intern when you were 19? the path to landing your dream job shows your intent. Did you lifted boxes to pay debts, and another candidate interned within the hospitality industry for an assistant manger. These not only reveal your interest, but it also makes you more interesting and ‘stand out’ from the other candidates.

Your Major

Did you major in liberal arts?  You don’t pick a major like that if you want to work for one of the big hospitality corporations.  Your guidance counselor might have said that it doesn’t matter what you major in as long as  you are passionate.  This may sound great in secondary education, but it doesn’t look good on a resume. A psych, business, or leadership major will stand out. Also, why just one major?  The best advice is to pick majors that are directly relevant to the hospitality industry, and working with people

Community Service

Everyone volunteers today to improve their resume, but what you do says a lot about you. Did you serve soup in a soup kitchen? This may be great if you want to focus on the customer service, entry level of the hospitality industry.  No HR manger will look at a resume and say ‘how sweet, you fed Christmas dinner to homeless children.’

From a success or career coaching standpoint, start standing out when you start your career. Try hunting for sales or marketing positions with a charity.  Look for team management positions.

Communication

The higher you aim, the better your communication skills. This is important in any career, in any industry. If you cannot ‘say what you mean and mean what you say,’ and if you cannot get your point across succinctly then there is no way you’ll sell ideas to a board, or talk your team into working overtime, taking a benefit cut, or network in the business community.

Network

Did you get to know your professors? Did you go the extra mile to network in the business community, or when volunteering a charity?  Everyone has heard a story where a professor, manager, colleague went to bat for someone when writing a letter of recommendation for a job application. Sometimes the name at the bottom of the resume is more powerful than the recommendation itself.

Specialize

The ‘Jack of all trades’ has never been in high demand. If you want to work with one of the top hospitality industries then you must be able to handle one aspect of the corporation. The best restaurant mangers have specific things in common. The best general managers share traits that are different than those shared by the best kitchen managers.

Associating with professionals, interning, and volunteering in the hospitality industry can help you find the niche where you belong, the career where you will excel.

Your GPA Doesn’t Matter

There is little truth to the rumor that a low GPA can limit your future. In fact, companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft place GPA low on the list of prerequisites for their candidates.  Top companies look for the top candidates, people with a track record of success, not successful students.

Don’t Limit Yourself

Even if you have none of the aspects listed in this article, you may still be the restaurant manager some corporation is looking for. You really don’t know what you have to offer a company until you start. You never know what skills you’ve acquired and how those skills can be used to excel in the hospitality industry.

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

Any job in the hospitality industry can lead to a better career. There are very few ‘dead end’ jobs. Everyone is a job seeker at any given time, at any stage of the learning curve. We all have the opportunity to develop leadership skills. Each problem is an opportunity to learn our problem solving and opportunity development skills.

Leadership development is vital, but many people who are just starting fail in their first attempts because they lack the skills and knowledge needed to succeed. Both success, and failure are behavior habits. When a leader fails, they learn, study more, seek help, and try again. Often, people who are just learning to become managers become discouraged. The myth that some people are born leaders, or have a knack for leadership has kept many talented leaders from developing careers as restaurant mangers.

Controlling the elements of failure + Cause and Effect = Success

Many leaders fail because their plan is not congruent, realistic, and effective. The effective leader is willing to watch the day to day aspects of a business and measure their effectiveness based on results. The distant leader makes assumptions and tracks their success and failures – after it is too late.

Successful leaders share some common behaviors.

1. Listening

They have developed the art of listening. You can learn more about a person, problem, or situation by listening to people. Understanding what a person wants, or needs, can often reveal the solution to a seemingly unrelated problem.

2. Identifying Need

One of the easiest ways to gain control of a situation is by learning to identify what someone needs, then creating a solution that meets the needs. There are always multiple solutions to a problem. Finding the solution that meets your boss’ needs is a vital aspect of career development.

3. Finding Opportunities

The opportunities a successful person looks for are those that will meet the needs of their managers. Selling your ideas doesn’t depend on identifying an opportunity. It is more important to ‘sell the idea’ by identifying how it will solve your boss’ needs. For example, more training is necessary to reducing the time between ordering a meal and placing it on a table. This causes a problem for most restaurant mangers because it effects the bottom line, reducing revenue, and making it look like they are a failure.

However, your general manager is only focused on the bottom line and only sees career development as another expense. Selling the idea of training requires outlining the long term cost savings, return on investment (ROI), and how the general manger will be able to present this ROI as his/her personal success.

The first step to building a high profile career, and fast tracking your restaurant manager career then you need to understand what a goal is. This doesn’t mean a personal goal, a short term goal, or a career goal. You need to understand what a corporate goal is. You need to understand how to identify a goal, outline obstacles, and explain the goal in a way that the board members and decision members will be able to understand what is needed.

The most important aspect of a corporate goal is the ability to explain the benefits and how the goal will positively effect the bottom line. If the decision makers cannot present your ideas to investors, the bank, or board member in a way that quiets any objections then the odds are good that the plan will never get off the ground.

What is a Corporate  Goal?

A goal can be anything you want to achieve. It is very rare that any plan will have a singular goal.  It is also important to prioritize and ‘problem solve’ in the early stages of the planning process. Not all goals are all worth chasing. Studying the ‘Art of Execution’ will help you understand what is necessary to planning and executing a plan.

There are some very defined elements to the art of execution that need to be adhered to if you want to change behavior patterns and learn how to turn your dreams into a tangible reality.

•           Avoid emotional based goals. The goal must be tangible when you finish or else you won’t be able to measure success. If the goal is not ‘real’ then the tasks needed to create a strategy will also be insubstantial. They will be swallowed up in the day to day ‘real’ jobs.

•           Eliminate goals that you cannot describe verbally and communicate effectively.

•           Eliminate goals that do not have benchmarks and milestones. Can you accomplish X by a certain date? If not, strike that goal from the list.

•           Scratch off solo goals. No one is an island. No one can build an empire single handed, or it isn’t an empire. You need to have input from others. You cannot do all the work alone. Once you have help you need to learn how to identify achievers and understand how to reward them so they will perform better.

Once you understand how to make plans it is important to practice execution. Once you can identify the different elements of a well designed plan it is necessary to study the Law of Execution. Many people are excellent planners. Sometimes they take months, even years, creating we well developed plan. Unfortunately, their plans never come to fruition because they lack the skills needed to turn their ideas on paper into tangible applications in the real world.

Report: Restaurant job growth outpaces economy

New analysis by the National Restaurant Association shows that the restaurant industry continues to serve as a leading creator of jobs, outpacing overall U.S. employment growth. In the 12 months ending June 2012, eating and drinking place employment jumped 2.7 percent, more than double the 1.3 percent increase in total U.S. employment during the same period. Restaurants added a net 116,000 positions in the first half of 2012.

Overall, restaurants have added more than 575,000 jobs since the employment recovery began in March 2010, with current industry staffing levels standing 193,000 jobs above the pre-recession peak. Restaurant industry job growth slowed along with the rest of the economy during the second quarter of 2012, but remains a net contributor to the economic recovery. The restaurant industry is the nation’s second-largest private sector employer with a workforce of nearly 13 million – almost 10 percent of the U.S. workforce.

“While restaurant industry job growth is not immune to the ups and downs of the overall economy, our industry has continually been at the forefront of job creation for the last two years,” said Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. “Restaurant industry sales are gaining for the third consecutive year, spurring the nation’s nearly one million restaurants to staff up to meet the increasing demand for away-from-home meals. This illustrates the strength and resilience of our industry, as well as the wealth of opportunity it offers.”

The NRA projects that restaurant industry sales will exceed $632 billion this year, a 3.5 percent increase over 2011 sales. This is the third consecutive year that industry sales will post real gains, driven by moderate improvements in consumer’s disposable income and gradual release of pent-up demand for restaurant visits. One out of three (33 percent) Americans say they are not dining out as often as they would like, down from two out of five (40 percent) just one year ago.

According to the NRA’s latest monthly Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey (June 2012), restaurant operators continue to plan for staffing increases in the second half of 2012. Twenty percent of restaurant operators plan to increase staffing levels in six months (compared to the same period in the previous year), while only 8 percent said they expect to reduce staffing levels in six months. Seventy-two percent of operators said they expect their staffing levels to remain unchanged through the end of the year.

Eating and drinking places (restaurants and bars) are the primary component of the restaurant and foodservice industry, which the NRA defines as that which encompasses all meals and snacks prepared away from home.

July 6th, 2012 via www.fastcasual.com

Looking back at 2011, and looking forward into 2012, there exists improving signs of economic activity both coming from the consumer, as well as in the boiler rooms of several restaurant companies. Many of these restaurant companies have experienced a surge of sales picking up in the beginning of January, and anticipate that carrying through Q1 into Q2. There seems to be some marked improvement at the executive level which has resulted in additional levels of opportunities opening up, and should result in additional movement throughout the industry. Having recently attended a national restaurant recruiting conference, the buzz was both hopeful and encouraging, as many presentations demonstrated a mood of optimism and growth.

The mood of 2011 started out in similar fashion only to have several unprecedented events take place throughout the entire year that sent things into a challenging pattern for employment and search activity. We had the Japanese earthquake in March together with the run up of oil topping $115 a barrel. Then there was the Arab democratic uprising in the Middle East that put a damper on things, followed during the summer by our Government’s debt ceiling issue. The headlines continued throughout fall of 2011, which were all about the EU debt problems and held the bulls captive much into the holiday season.

Statistically speaking, the probability for such events recurring are remote, and there should be the groundwork for things to continue improving throughout the first half of 2012. On the M&A front, there has also been several notable acquisitions created in 2011 within the restaurant industry which should create new opportunities in 2012. These changes have led to a fair amount of leadership turnover and should result in growth opportunities throughout the rest of this year.

In a nationwide survey of hiring managers across all industries conducted by Harris Interactive, 23 percent planned to hire full-time, permanent employees in 2012. These survey results are supported by a recent Businessweek article, in which economists predict that 2012 will bring the creation of the most new jobs since 2006, shortly before the economy began to decline. The outlook for the hospitality industry is particularly favorable.

It’s difficult to be optimistic about the bleak job market when , unemployment is stuck at around 9.1 percent but a survey just released by employment services firm ManpowerGroup offers hope for job seekers in many places around the country.

The survey reveals that the metropolitan area with the most optimistic forecast of all for hiring this fall is San Antonio, Texas, and there’s also the good news that employers in 45 states expect the bleak employment picture to perk up. In fact, hiring managers in dozens of metropolitan areas anticipate considerable increases in hiring, while others present a darker forecast.

ManpowerGroup surveyed more than 18,000 employers in 100 metropolitan areas to find out who’s hiring, who’s firing and who plans to maintain their current staff levels in the fourth quarter of 2011, October through December. Of the surveyed employers, 16 percent anticipate an increase in staffing levels in their hiring plans, while 11 percent expect a decrease in payrolls. The difference between those numbers provides what ManpowerGroup calls a net employment outlook of 5 percent–or 7 percent when seasonally adjusted, which is still up from 6 percent for the same period last year, but down slightly from last quarter. Seventy percent of employers expect no change in their staffing, and the final 3 percent of employers are uncertain.

Forbes.com slideshow: The best and worst cities for jobs right now While the outlook is positive overall, the one-point drop from the third quarter is the first decrease in nine quarters. “The numbers are not going in the right direction this quarter, and they are not as robust as we would have liked them to be,” says Melanie Holmes, a vice president at ManpowerGroup. “Employers are hesitant about hiring in this economic climate. They are remaining guarded, and that is reflected in these results.”

Still, “We do see some bright spots in hiring, especially in San Antonio, which has the most promising hiring outlook for the fourth quarter,” says Jonas Prising, president of the Americas at ManpowerGroup. “Employers in other markets in Texas, including El Paso and Austin, are also anticipating strong hiring increases.”

The San Antonio metro area enjoys a 17 percent net employment outlook, the percentage of employers that expect to add employees (25 percent) minus the percentage that expect to reduce their workforce (8 percent). Another 64 percent said they anticipate no change, and 3 percent didn’t know.
Forbes.com: 20 businesses you can start now “San Antonio has continued to see new jobs created, and new jobs brought to the region,” says Richard Perez, president and chief executive of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “I would say that San Antonio is well positioned to come out ahead in the future as well because our cost of living remains low, making it a good environment for companies to increase their investment in jobs here, plus we have a very talented labor pool because we graduate more than 30,000 from our colleges and universities each year.”
The industry with the largest economic impact and largest number of employees in San Antonio is health care and biosciences, with more than 142,000 employees, Perez says. “This surprises a lot of people who think we are only a tourism town. One of every five workers is in the health care sector, and it has an estimated $24 billion economic impact here. We also have large manufacturing and financial services sectors. And yes, we have a significant tourism industry in San Antonio, with approximately 106,000 employees.”

The largest employers in the San Antonio area include the Department of Defense, whose workplaces include Fort Sam Houston, Lackland Air Force Base and Randolph Air Force Base. Combined they employ over 70,000 individuals. The largest corporate employer is San Antonio-based financial services firm United Services Automobile Association, with 14,800 employees. H-E-B Grocery Company follows close behind with 14,600 workers. AT&T, Toyota, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Valero Energy, Harland Clarke and Citibank are some of the area’s other major corporate employers.
Forbes.com: Best business quotes from the silver screen“San Antonio’s list of large employers is long and diverse,” Perez says. “We do not rely heavily on one area and that is by design. San Antonio has many industries that together keep us a resilient economy. We are fortunate to have many strong industries, and many strong companies with large employee bases.”

Employers in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Baltimore-Towson metro areas also anticipate a significant upswing in hiring for the next quarter.
Nearly a quarter of Cape Coral-Fort Myers employers reported positive forecasts, while 6 percent drew a bleaker picture. Sixty-nine percent said they won’t be changing their employment levels, and the remaining 3 percent are unsure of their hiring plans. With a net employment outlook of 16 percent, the southwest Florida metro area is the second best place for finding a job this fall.
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Baltimore-Towson employers are expressing similar sentiments. Twenty percent of that metro area’s hiring managers anticipate a bright fourth quarter. Meanwhile, 7 percent expect to decrease their payrolls, 71 percent anticipate no change and 2 percent are uncertain. This yields a net employment outlook of 13 percent and positions the Maryland metropolis as the third best place for finding a job this fall. Greensboro-High Point, N.C., St. Louis and Tulsa enjoy the same rank.

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Unfortunately not all cities are as confident about hiring. The net employment outlook in Spokane and Las Vegas is a far weaker -4 percent–and those metropolitan areas aren’t even the worst. The Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla., metro area yields a net employment outlook of -5 percent for the quarter.

The worst area of all for finding a job this fall is Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn.
Only 12 percent of surveyed Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk metro area employers plan to hire between October and December, while 19 percent expect to reduce their staff levels. Sixty-nine percent expect to maintain their current workforce. This yields a net employment outlook of -7 percent for the Connecticut metropolis.

“Although this quarter we are seeing relatively stable hiring compared with last quarter and even the year before, we are way below the double-digit employment outlook numbers we saw prior to the end of 2008,” Prising says. “With daily fluctuations in the market and mixed news reports about housing and consumer sentiment, employers are just plain uncertain about the future. Until they see a sustainable demand for their products and services, employers will not commit to hiring in big numbers.”