Creating a good manager is all in the training

Nation's Restaurant News, April 22, 1996 by Jay Cone

Ralph Brennan, president of the National Restaurant Association, has made the enhancement of the image of our industry the hallmark of his presidency. During a recent speech to the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, CHART, Brennan raised the question, "How many of you would recommend a career in restaurant management to your son or daughter?" Fortunately, he didn't ask for a show of hands.

Transforming the way we train managers will go a long way toward improving the image of our industry. Unfortunately, our deeply ingrained ideas about how to train restaurant managers reinforce many of the stereotypes Brennan and the NRA seek to dispel. I'm referring to the "bottom-up" approach, which asserts that to run a restaurant, first you need to learn how to wash dishes.

That approach made sense when managers were plentiful, we promoted from within and we didn't accelerate our training programs in an effort to reduce labor costs.

Today, while the job of managing a foodservice establishment grows in complexity, the pool of qualified candidates steadily shrinks. In case you haven't noticed, you and your competitors have begun a bidding war for management talent. And, to add insult to injury, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 44-percent increase in the number of foodservice and lodging management positions by 2005.

Preparing your managers to succeed in an environment characterized by fierce competition for both employees and customers means giving them training appropriate to the goals of your organization. If you want to overhaul your management training, you need to fix three things:

* What you train

* When you train

* How you train

Consider the gap between what we want and what we train. We want managers who can build sales, manage margins, hire, train and supervise employees. We want managers who can develop other managers, who can interact with guests, handle their complaints and ensure their loyalty. We want mature professionals who study their competition, pay attention to trends and develop business plans consistent with the goals of the organization. As for what we train? Put it this way: If you have a manager in your training program right now, odds are that he or she spent the day learning how to cook, wait on tables, mix drinks or process paperwork.

It makes perfect sense for managers in training to spend time working alongside hourly employees. However, for the training to serve its purpose, it must force the manager to pay attention to the right things. I'm not suggesting that you eliminate job function training; I'm suggesting that you shift the focus from learning how to work the job to learning how the job works.

Job function training should teach the manager what it takes to make the station perform and produce. If you're putting your managers through the same training as your hourly new hires, you're not only wasting time and money but also focusing your managers' attention on the wrong things. Instead, focus their attention on meeting three objectives for each module of their job function training:

* During the hiring process screen for the attributes and background that an employee ideally now now now suited to the function would possess.

* Recognize nonstandard performance of the job function and take corrective action.

* Recognize nonstandard products of the job function, determine their root cause and take corrective action.

In the education system one day you're a student, and the next day you're not. Trainers, using the education system as a model, think about their jobs as designing curriculum for students who graduate and then leave the school. In reality one day you're a manager in training; the next day you're a manager who needs slightly less training. In the development of managerial skills there is no finish line.

By thinking about training and working as distinct activities, we invariably create an artificial demarcation between the two. First you train. When you've completed training, then you can be productive. If you want to train better and faster, eliminate the transition from trainee to manager. Make training a part of the job; make growth an ongoing expectation.

In most management training programs, trainees progress through phases: the job function phase, the kitchen management phase, the shift management phase, etc. We insulate subsequent phases from former phases as if some were a prerequisite for others. Consider mixing things up a bit. As an example, schedule the trainee for one swing shift and one kitchen management shift each week. Let him or her experience the context in which the training will be applied. Down times in the afternoon can be used to work through the job function training objectives.

Good managers have a set of skills and applied knowledge. Applying knowledge and performing skills require practice. The closer you can simulate management reality during management training, the more practice your managers will get.

Unfortunately, for the trainee, nothing about a traditional management training program feels like being a manager. Training takes place in organized modules of instruction that come in a well-defined sequence, one at a time. Nothing and nobody comes to you one at a time when you manage a restaurant.