Reducing Labor Costs &  Improving Customer Service

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The Hospitality Executive's Guide to Reducing Labor Costs & To Improving Customer Service

1.  Forecast major volume indicators seven days out by day and by shift to anticipate employee workloads for the next weekly work schedule.  Establish a weekly "Forecast" meeting with department heads that lasts a maximum of 20 minutes, to specifically discuss upcoming business.

2.  Identify and analyze hourly customer traffic patterns by day on an annual basis.

3.  Develop employee-staffing guidelines that identify "fixed" (non-volume related) and "variable" (volume related) labor requirements by job.

4.  Make sure that all employee staffing guidelines/labor standards are related to a realistic frame of time for completion.  Quantify the work.

5.  Report and analyze actual daily employee hours worked, versus scheduled daily employee labor hours, versus target daily employee labor hours (what labor hours should have been used based upon the actual volume that occurred).

6.  Measure current employee productivity levels weekly versus historical productivity levels to see if improvement occurs or gets worse.

7.  Observe and rate customer service and quality levels for all departments.

8.  Experience what your customer goes through in all aspects of your operation on all shifts.

9.  Get to know all of your employees on all shifts.  Let them see you.

10. Stay out of your office and be "on the floor" as much as possible.  See and know first hand what goes on in your operation.

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