What’s coming in ’23? Likely, more of the same. No doubt, more AI and robotics, ever tighter client budgets, headaches with hiring and retention, more demand for tech solutions with faster, more consistent production. The list goes on. Chaos or not, this is what we signed up for as professional foodservice consultants. At the same time, with the pandemic, recession, war, supply chain disruption and more, I find myself asking a different question for 2023.  

What can we do to maximize our effectiveness, our work, our growth, and our teams?

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Over the years I see the same four errors being played out repeatedly regardless of industry segment. Here’s how owners, managers and HR departments get in their own way and miss the opportunity to get great staff. Read on to find ways to solve these errors and likely ease some of your headaches on this topic! 

Error 1: Waiting until the last minute to interview. 

Schedule Interviews on a regular basis instead of waiting until a staff member offers notice or just quits. Waiting to interview until someone gives notice sets up what I call, “hiring a pulse.”

Ongoing scheduled interviews accomplishes two goals: 1. Effective interviews build interviewing skills. 2. When an A+ player does show up, hire them and raise the performance bar of your team. There’s a big opportunity here to keep interviewing. 

Remember that Culture = Brand! Do not settle for someone that doesn’t fit your culture. Your brand experience will suffer. Keep interviewing until you find the right person. This is likely to be one (1) person out of twenty (20), not one (1) out of five (5). Regularly scheduled interviews set up success.

Error 2: Signage that just says, “Now hiring” 

Tell a story with your job posting. Lose the “now hiring” signs and post something akin to “We’re always hiring folks that love “food” (e.g., helping people, troubleshooting, being part of a great team, etc.)” With Craig’s list, Indeed, or any other posting platform, tell a story about the way your culture feels and the outcomes the person in this position achieves! Create a story line for each position in your company regardless of department or level of hierarchy!

Error 3: Interviewing from a list of questions

Most interviewers ask questions from a check list. Question answered, move on. Skilled applicants go through this rote with the interviewer as bored as the applicant. Unskilled applicants get off the hook easily. Instead, go deeper. Ask the real question.

A commonly asked question is, “What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?” Applicant responds… an example of the real question is, “Of all the things you could do, why that?”

One of my favorite interview queries is this, “Define Common Sense.” The follow up question is: “On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being “all the time”, based on your definition, how would you rate yourself using/having common sense?”

Another opportunity often lost is this: when someone mentions a school you went to, mentions a place you know well, or shares a passion that you share, typically the interviewer gives away critical information, “oh, I’ve been there”; “I play guitar too”; etc. Instead, hold back your information and go deeper with questions about the applicant’s experience. If the applicant is misleading you here, they’re likely mis-speaking about other parts of their interview. Pay attention. 

Error 4: Keep Talking; Just Talking

Two opportunities here:

1. All too often the candidate is just allowed to ramble on with answers. Once you’ve made a decision (e.g., no; move to a second interview; yes to a hire) stop the interview by thanking the candidate for their time and information shared. Do not feel obligated to keep going just because of some artificial deadline.
2. In addition to dialogue and asking questions, set up work exercises (not roll plays) with as little explanation as possible. Let the exercise show the applicant’s skill set relevant to what they’ve said or not. Whether they do well in the exercises or not, the interviewing team gains immediate information that verifies or negates what’s been heard from the candidate.

Exercises can be as simple as greeting a guest, selling a random item, adding a list of numbers (with a pre-determined total), carrying a tray, etc. Have two or three exercises ready for each position you interview; have props ready in advance of the interview so there is easy flow from a question to an exercise.

Take advantage of these recommendations to make hiring easier and more effective. This is just the tip of the iceberg with hiring. Let me know how it goes!

And, there’s more information coming in Rudy’s new book, soon to be released, From Purpose to Profit! Be in touch with Rudy at: rudy@miick.com

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Even beyond foodservice, we know finding, hiring, and retaining a five-star staff is difficult, but when you look at how labor in the foodservice industry is tied to national debates like immigration and other political forces, it’s easy to see why it’s so important to restaurants and the companies that support them.

According to FE&S’ 2018 Forecast Study, labor costs and wages are the top concern, with 90 percent of operators saying the amount they spend on labor as an overall percentage of budget will either increase or remain the same. This means it’s more important than ever to make sure your team knows the values and purpose of the organization, as well as the skills it takes to implement them.

Reports from both FE&S and the National Restaurant Association show that technology will also have a major role in 2018. Whether it’s customer-facing technology or innovations in foodservice equipment, these changes will require teams to learn new skills and likely undergo additional training.

“Going forward, the ability to use new equipment and new techniques at restaurants is imperative to ensure organizations remain viable,” said B. Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the NRA.

It’s just as important to make sure team members can use and implement new equipment and techniques, and that starts with making sure you have the right members on your team.

How can you locate great people? What steps can you take to bring them into your organization? How can you retain them and make them part of your company culture?

Spend 30 minutes with Miick, and get a free, one-on-one overview of hiring in the foodservice industry.

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As part of a guest blog on the TMC website, we talked about using modern methodologies typically associated with marketing as part of the hiring process. In the post provided below, we analyzed Inbound Recruiting, why your business should consider it, and how to use social media and inbound strategies to find and hire great talent.

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Without much debate, a case can be made that a leader’s number one job is finding and keeping great staff. Without much debate, finding and keeping great staff may be most leaders’ biggest challenge. So, what to do?

In my experience, what we’re learning from Social Media and the concept of Inbound Marketing can really assist in this effort. First, let’s review the basic concept of Inbound Marketing. From Wikipedia:

“Inbound marketing provides information, an improved customer experience and builds trust by offering potential customers information they value via company sponsored newsletters, blogs and entries on media platforms.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott says that inbound marketing allows marketers to “earn their way” into a customer’s awareness rather than invading their awareness through paid advertisements.

The term “inbound marketing” was coined by HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan and is synonymous with the concept of Permission Marketing, a 1999 book by Seth Godin.

Compared with outbound marketing, inbound reverses the relationship between company and customer. In fact, while outbound marketing is going to push the product through various channels, inbound marketing creates awareness, attracts and helps new customers with channels like blogs, social media, direct mail etc.”

With this basic framework of inbound marketing defined, I’m not saying leaders need to spend more time tweeting or posting on Facebook or Linked In. However, we DO need to take two action steps:

Step 1: Share a Compelling Story 

Stop posting job ads in a traditional format (look at your existing job posts please). In this social media age, “now hiring” and sharing a list of tasks and requirements to get the job doesn’t cut it.

Instead, offer a compelling story about your company and the position you’re attempting to fill. In fact, counter intuitively, what we’ve found is that by making our story exciting and challenging, we raise the bar of expectations. We set the tone of an expectation of high performance for any applicant interested. Results? Two outcomes you won’t expect tend to occur (in my experience globally).

1. Like attempting to get in a great school or on a great team, employers end up with a waiting line of applicants regardless of the position we’re attempting to fill.

2. This outcome occurs regardless of the community, state, province or country in which we’re looking.

Make no mistake; the outcome needed is to fill jobs. The difference is this; instead of pushing a boring ad out to people already out of work, we’re inviting people that are already working but not inspired to apply with us. Here’re two examples of what I’m talking about.

Imagine the roll of a receptionist. What would you typically write? Here’s some of what we offer in an inbound marketing “story”:

Example 1, a receptionist:

“Imagine this… you’re in charge! You’re not just a receptionist; you’re our Guest Ambassador! The waiting room you manage isn’t a waiting room; it’s the ESSENCE of a vibrant hotel lobby!

Imagine treating our prospective clients like guests! Welcome to TMC! The McPherson Companies!

If you’re ready to smile more, laugh more and be part of a values driven, actively engaged marketing team, join us! If you’re ready to be treated with dignity and respect, and treat our guests with tenacious care, join us! We’re TMC!

If you’re ready for less drama in your place of work, reach out. We’re TMC!

The McPherson Companies (TMC) is purpose based and values driven. We live and breathe a business model that integrates our great marketing skills with a great guest experience!

Do we have your interest?” … Etc.

Example 2, a manager of people development:

“…Here’s what you’ll get from us:

You’ll find us a vibrant foodservice equipment manufacturing company positioned in the highest regard of our industry! We work “On Purpose” and we’re values driven.

All that said, we’re looking for the right person to serve as manager of team member development. We’re 450 people strong and growing! Team is how we look at our people! Providing them an amazing place to work, supporting them and the company at the same time IS what this position is about!

It’s a given that you understand and function clearly and effectively regarding all compliance issues with “wage and hour” as well as other elements of employment law. This means clean, clear file management at the same time you can hold the big picture regarding the role people play in company growth…. “On Purpose.”

Please apply if:

• Your attitude is more coach than cop; if you can model this coaching in Spanish as well as you do in English all the better! (fluent speaking, reading, writing in both languages is critical for this position for lots of reasons)

• You believe in ongoing learning and application of knowledge

• You model excellence and still see room to grow personally

• You want an active hand in building a dynamic business culture by design.

The right person in this position has the opportunity to evolve from manager to “director of”. Please send your resume along with a brief note sharing why you’re the right person for this position.”

These sorts of stories work in and outside of the normal job posting channels, no matter the venue – Indeed, Monster, Craig’s List, etc. Now that we’ve looked at a couple examples of what a compelling story can look and feel like, let’s take a brief visit to step two.

Step 2: Live the Compelling Story 

Telling a story is far easier than living it. It may be your experience that finding good people isn’t as tough as retaining them, and the reason may be here in step two.

Ponder this for a second: How many times, in my own experience coming through the ranks, did I get a job I thought was going to be great, and within two days, existing staff members shared a different story than I was told in orientation? I end up realizing that what I thought I joined wasn’t the experience I was promised. Ever been there?

We can use inbound marketing all day long to draw great folks in, and believe me, it works. That said, without living what we market, those great folks leave fast. Why’s this the case? Simple really, the strong players on your team know they can get a job anywhere “pretty darn” fast. They don’t have to put up with mis-truths, and frankly, don’t. What are you left with? C players.

So, what needs to be done? For inbound marketing to really work, Step 2 comes before Step 1. The real work is figuring out the internal culture we want, the internal BRAND we really are, we really have, and marketing that. In this case, inbound marketing, or inbound recruiting, really, REALLY works.

If you’d like to learn more about the innovative ways to broadcast your company culture and hire great talent with Inbound Recruiting methods, schedule some time with Rudy today.

The post What Is Inbound Recruiting and Why Your Business Should Consider It appeared first on The Miick Companies.

Labor Day is also an opportunity for business owners to think about their own staff and the people who have contributed to the company’s strength and prosperity. It’s a chance to reevaluate the hiring process to make sure 5-star performers are the norm. It’s a chance to listen to your team members.

What Is Labor Day?

Held on the first Monday in September, Labor Day was created in the late 1800s to honor labor and the contributions it’s had in the construction of our country. The first organized parade celebrating this concept was held in New York City in 1887, but Oregon was the first state to adopt it as a public holiday until it became an official federal holiday in 1894. Today, it represents many things in American culture, while still retaining its original intent.

Why Labor Day Is an Opportunity for Business Owners

When there’s a chance to be aware of our values and purpose, we should take it. That’s what Labor Day offers, a chance to be mindful about who and how we hire.

One of the biggest challenges business owners face is finding, hiring, and retaining great people to contribute to the overall direction of the company. But why? It comes down to company culture.

Hiring great people is directly related to a company’s culture. When the culture is clear to anyone looking to enter it, the culture itself will inevitably attract and even sift through potential candidates. People will know how to contribute even before you interview them (or they should at least have some ideas).

By using a national day dedicated to labor to actually think about ways to make labor better, employers can take steps to maximize the potential of staff, to view them as investments instead of expenses. But this direction must ultimately come from the top.

As demographics shift, how we hire becomes more and more important, and there are resources out there that can help you put the right systems in place.

Start hiring the talent you deserve.

Join me, Rudy Miick, and get the keys to hiring great people in the Miick Minutes: Choose Well.

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In reality, a company should begin the vetting process by announcing its culture to the world, for everyone to see and hear, ESPECIALLY potential employees. Finding talent that believes in your culture begins with what that culture is and how it’s packaged.

Hiring the Right People by Choice Not by Chance

DEFINE EXCELLENCE

The first step is to define culture. Define excellence. There should be no ambiguity as to what success looks like. Team members should begin to learn what success means even before they’re team members.

PUBLICIZE VALUES AND PURPOSE

After defining the important things that will define excellence, broadcast those purposes and values across a whole range of channels. Display cultural drivers on the company website, on marketing materials, on social media, and especially in recruiting related company messaging. In reality, a potential hire should have a good idea of what she’s walking into before that first interview.

INTERVIEW OFTEN

The interviewing process should never stop. Even if there aren’t immediate needs, interview on a regular basis. Know what you’re looking for, and don’t take chances. Hiring the right people to support your purpose and values happens by choice, not by chance. The more opportunities you have to make a choice (interviews), the better your hires will be (5-star performers).

Find, hire, and retain 5-star performers.

Start with the Hiring Tips Sheet from Miick.

The post Why Hiring the Right People Depends on Company Culture appeared first on The Miick Companies.

The Miick Method: Building Brand from the Inside Out

At Miick, we work with you, digging deep to define and refine the purpose and operating values of your company, your brand, culture, and the team members in it. Here’s an overview of how the Miick Method works:

KNOW WHO WE ARE

Our clients achieve a deeper sense of purpose in their work. This is our goal. To arrive here, we want you to be able to answer the question, “Beyond income and profit, what’s the benefit, the experience and outcome our guests, customers and team receive from the products or services we provide?”

Our work with you to investigate, refine and clarify this sense of purpose, and the values that get you there, leads to highly motivated staff members. Each ends up working with a sense of passion in ways you’ve likely not seen before. Team members end up eager to demonstrate the pride in their participation. This understanding of purpose and values is of utmost importance. 

No professional sports team, dance troup, musical event, or military entity would send a team on the field without clarity of how to achieve the objective. Do your best, use your common sense would not be the siren call. 

We also work with you to define excellence. Once defined, instead of relying on common sense, the leaders and team work together with shared definitions of excellence, on purpose, using shared clear values in decision making. If this isn’t happening for you already… it’s time to call us.

COMMUNICATION

Step two of the Miick Method is to create a Safe Space for open communication. Leaders and team end up seeking out the positive, looking for ways to inspire rather than reprimand. Another outcome of Safe Space in your business is that the whole team learns to give and receive feedback, rather than “constructive criticism” in ways that build performance instead of undercutting trust.

Oh, by the way, clear communication that supports knowing who we are as a brand is most everything the millennials on your staff want. 

FISCAL SYSTEMS

Most owners and managers, regardless of industry, shield team members from fiscal information. We coach the opposite. The folks we work with end up better off fiscally by a multiple of three (three times average fiscal performance) when everyone understands the costs and opportunities of doing and building business. More so, we set up anticipatory fiscal systems that have you and your team looking forward instead of backwards at an old financial statement. 

HIRING SYSTEMS

From the clarity of knowing who we are, using effective, Conscious Communication that creates Safe Space, the crucial next step in the Miick Method is hiring. We work with you to define and refine an ongoing hiring system. Instead of hiring being an event happening at the last minute when someone leaves, hiring becomes a practice that builds our brand.

The steps defined so far support the folks we work with to create an opportunity for new team members to join by choice instead of chance. Purposefully instead of depending on luck.

[Here’s more on effective hiring to find a culture fit and high performance] 

TRAINING SYSTEMS

A natural outcome from knowing who we are, having fiscal clarity of top and bottom line performance, supported by safe space to give and receive feedback, supported by a clearly effective experiential hiring system, is training design. No clarity, no training, no execution. Period. We work as facilitator and guide to co-create experiential training that’s fun as well as effective! Outcome: brand execution. Work done on purpose and fiscal results that will take your breath away. Here’s more:

ONGOING LEARNING

Last in our six steps is the awareness that learning is ongoing! Especially in the 21^st century, if we’re not learning and implementing, we’re done. If you’re ready to keep learning and keep exploring opportunities to evolve performance, you’re ready for Miick.

We’re here for you.

This September, we’ll be putting The Miick Method to the test at our annual Leadership In The Fall Line® leadership development ski retreat. This unique opportunity will be held in Portillo, Chile. Learn more.

The post What is the Miick Method? appeared first on The Miick Companies.

Here are five more actions for supporting success in the Millennial workforce:

1) Coach Instead of Cop

The weakest link in performance or change is still the middle manager. We still seem to struggle with the model of being cops instead of inspiring coaches.

There are two action steps here if you really want to change the energy in your company and make strides in work with Millennials. First, take the time to define excellence and work on purpose. Second, teach your managers to look for staff doing the right things right instead of scolding “wrong behaviors” for actions that were poorly defined, or worse, not defined in the first place.

What I call “performance feedback” is this simple, two part exercise: 1) I thought you did ______ really well. 2) To take your performance to the next level, next time do _______.

Even more potent, do a “feedback loop” and ask, “What’s one action you feel you did really well?” (Then listen to the answer.) “To take your performance further, if you did this again, what’s one action you’d do differently?” (Then listen to the answer.)

To complete the feedback loop, simply end with performance feedback, named above. Then watch. Instead of a pout or ducked head, watch your team member start performing more effectively, immediately.

2) Share Fiscal Information

Read “The Great Game of Business” by Bo Burlingham and Jack Stack. If you’re not sharing fiscal information with Millennials, you’re missing a great opportunity.

Knowledge is potent. Sharing fiscal information instead of holding it private is counter-intuitive for many owners and managers. I’ve been talking about this my whole career; please know this is not heresy I’m sharing.

In the 21^st century with margins ever tighter, the more people on your team that understand cost of goods sold and the relationship of top line to bottom line, the better off you’ll be. Don’t believe me? Keep doing what you’re doing; keep getting what you’re getting. Read the book.

3) Share Profit

Worried about minimum wage? Get over it. Millennials want a piece of the pie. Let them earn it! How? With steps from our previous blog and the ones listed above in place, Millennials step up. The whole team steps up, and performance shows in real dollars with both top and bottom line success.

4) Celebrate Success

What works for Millennials? Take the time to celebrate little victories. Celebrating success can show up in small ways throughout shifts when excellence is defined, when managers act as coaches instead of cops.

Catching folks doing stuff right instead of wrong is powerful. When you hit numbers, let folks know! When you’ve not only survived but thrived during the rush, celebrate the team’s performance!

5) Keep Learning and Applying

Last but not least, keep learning new ideas, and keep applying those ideas. Open your door to new possibilities. This open door for ideas doesn’t mean every idea is used, it does mean that open dialogue and ideation is a fun process and is powerful in its own right. You and I are best served to keep learning, to not get stuck thinking we “know.”

What do Millennials want? The data, research and personal experiences are clear – all the more working with hundreds of concepts around the U.S. and globally. This group we’ve named wants all ten actions covered in this post and the last. It’s interesting to me that in many ways, the list for Millennials is actually not so different than what anyone else wants. 

Want to learn more about hiring the right people and helping your entire workforce succeed? Start by reading the 5-Step Hiring Tips from Miick.

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The bottom line is hiring “great fits” is more productive than hiring mis-fits. Great fits create great guest experiences. At the same time, we have to define what a “great fit” actually is. Is it someone who already has experience? Not necessarily. 

If you hire six wait staff with prior experience, for example, each will have a different style of serving. They will still need to be retrained to match the brand and company culture.

So let’s explore some simple truths to hiring, including many pitfalls that companies should try to avoid:

1) Most companies wait to conduct interviews until they NEED SOMEONE, which is already too late. Instead, anticipate growth patterns and staff needs. Be proactive.

2) Most companies give away answers instead of digging deep into an applicant’s passion and personal motivators. Never answer questions until all your questions are answered. Ask real questions.

3) Most companies list a set of questions and will check boxes as questions are asked. Dig deeper than this!

4) Most companies ask close-ended questions instead of open-ended questions. When your applicant mentions a talent or passion that you also share, probe deeper. There’s real opportunity here. If someone mentions a sport, location, company, or musical instrument that you really know about, without tipping your hand, go deeper, whether the applicant is “blowing smoke” or speaking with real knowledge. They’re likely going to do the same about their work.

5) Most companies haven’t defined excellence enough to know what excellence looks like in a candidate. This can change by defining your company culture and values.

Hiring the right people can be as easy as five simple steps. Learn how to hire A+ players by reading the 5-Step Hiring Tips from Miick.

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