How to train your management team

Do you struggle with your team’s productivity?

One of the most common complaints I get from my clients is “My team just does not do what it is supposed to do!”

I used to own a hospitality/retail business, a franchise actually, and I never had a moment to myself. I was always at the store making sure everyone did what they were supposed to do.

Is this something you have said? It certainly is frustrating when things go wrong constantly and chaos reigns in your store.

I was tired, worn out and at rock bottom. Something had to change. Even though I had hired a team, with team leaders, I was in the store all the time leading.

Why were my leaders not leading? Simple! I hadn’t trained them to lead.

You have to train your leaders to manage your store and match it to systems to keep them accountable.

So how did I do this?

I created an in-store booklet that incorporated all the management tasks, checklists and targets for the management team to use. It became their “run sheet” for the day’s trade. It was the answer to all the problems I was experiencing, and in the end it was so easy to implement.

Below are the four sections in my in-store book.

1. Daily run sheet

The daily run sheet held everything that a manager on duty needed to complete throughout the day.

As I was in the food industry, this page had a temperature log for each piece of equipment, an incoming goods log to track invoices and stock, an equipment check to make sure each piece of equipment was clean and operational, and was combined with the daily timed task schedule.

At the bottom of the page was a communication section so that notes could be passed from one manager to the next to aid communication.

Want to track invoices to stay on top of your cash flow?

2. Checklists

The basis of all food businesses is checklists:

• the opening checklist
• the closing checklist
• the cleaning checklist and
• the ordering checklist.

These checklists go hand in hand with training and are the secret to getting you out of your store. They bring accountability to the team plus aid communication on what needs to be done.

By simply ticking off the list, all the required tasks for the day are done. No more popping into the store to be sure that it is running smoothly.

These checklists were also helpful in setting the training agenda. If you notice a task that is not being completed properly, that is your cue to put this task on the training schedule.

3. KPI dashboard

I placed a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboard in the book for the managers to complete at the close of trade each day.

They had to enter the actual trading figures for the day against the targets for the day.

It kept them accountable and set the tone for our weekly meetings.

4. Rosters

The rosters were also placed in this booklet so the managers knew what the targets I had set for the day, as well as who was working and when.

I also marked one-off activities or peak times on these rosters to improve communication amongst the management team.

This booklet was so liberating. It cleared my mind of all the little things I had to check on.

It was important though to make sure that this booklet was used correctly and remained relevant. This is why I also used this booklet as the basis for my weekly meeting with my management team.

Weekly Management Meeting

I scheduled this meeting the same day each week.

It was a review of the week past and an opportunity to plan for the week to come.

During the meeting we discussed the weekly KPI monitoring sheet, which included the roster and staff productivity. We evaluated the team and identified training needs. We also assessed the cleanliness of the store and the operational status of the equipment. We looked at stock management and ordering requirements, which led to a discussion on wastage and COGS (Cost of goods sold) management.

Finally we finished the meeting by rating the overall feel of store, store performance, owner performance and management team performance.

This in-store booklet changed the way I ran my business. It gave me control of the business and freed up my time.

But most importantly it enabled my management team to manage the store — to do what they had been employed to do. It helped me to work on my business and not so much in my business.

My team now knew exactly what they had to do and when.