Coaching Easily During Shift Change

Your reinforcements are starting to come in, bringing relief to your morning crew. Or maybe you know the lunch rush is coming? You probably do what a lot of restaurant managers or owners do: huddle up the team for a pep talk or info sharing. And as you may or may not know, restaurant mystery shopping can provide excellent coaching tips for those quick mid-shift and pre-rush staff huddles.

The Value of the Huddle

First, if you are not having at least one daily huddle, it is time to consider starting. The huddle does not have to take a lot of time. You can touch on important points without having to call a more formal, after-hours staff meeting. And it can be an important tool for building trust, improving communication, empowering your employees, and increasing your business’s success.

Proactive vs. Reactive

Of course, your restaurant and clientele will always keep you on your toes with day-to-day challenges that you will have to address during your huddles. But mystery shopping helps give you more control over the direction and success of your business. So instead of reacting to issues and addressing them with trial and error, you can know specifically what are the root causes of the issues.

With those insights gleaned from secret shoppers, you can develop clear, concrete objectives or benchmarks to aim for. So every time you gather the team before a shift starts, you will have specific talking points.

Consistency

Again, each day and shift will present new challenges for you and your staff to meet—the problems the morning shift faced will not always be the same as the challenges facing the incoming afternoon shift. So you will have to address specific issues. But mystery shopping can help you create a culture and language that you and your staff all know, whether clocking in at sunrise, closing up shop, or covering that swing shift. It creates a standard.

So from last week’s quick morning staff meeting to the between-shift team chat the following week to the pre-dinner-rush huddle-up the week after, you can stay on point. You will be able to better coach your employees, giving consistent reminders. And that can help them remain focused on meeting your business’s unique benchmarks for success.

Let us show you how, with restaurant mystery shopping, you can find unique an unique and powerful ways to lead your staff in making your business more successful.