I was recently speaking to a fellow hospitality manager about difficulties she was having with some of her staff. Her complaint was that the food runners "only run food." and that her hostesses refuse to do anything but seat guests at a table. I asked her if she ever considered changing their titles.
Restaurants seem to have very cut and dry positions: hostesses greet guests, servers serve guests, bussers clean tables, food runners run food, line cooks cook food, bartenders make drinks. Everyone's title gives them the outline of what their job requires of them based upon years and years of restaurant tradition. When we look deeper, at what our job actually entails, every position boils down to the same responsibility: to make guests happy. The time has come, restaurants and food service have evolved to the point where the titles of employees working in this industry need to change to reflect what they are really responsible for : ensuring guests leave with a smile on their face, with a belly full of food and nothing but nice things to say about the restaurant they just left.
If we take a look at the role of a "food runner" for instance, we expect that they yes, run food to tables, but we also require them to announce the dish and place it in front of the guest with a certain amount of poise and attention to detail. In most restaurants the food runner is also responsible for bussing tables, assisting the servers, heavy lifting, and odd jobs that no one else will sign up for. They are not just food runners, they are guest service assistants, and they are just as responsible for your guest's satisfaction as any server, host or manager.
If you want to get more out of your staff give them titles that warrant the hard work they do day in and day out. If you hire someone as a "food runner", that is exactly what you're going to get. If you hire someone as a guest service assistant their whole scope of responsibility changes even if the job description stays the same. As managers in the hospitality industry we are responsible for inspiring our staff to excel in customer service aptitudes every day and one of the difficulties we face is the insistent "that's not my job" attitude because someone was hired as a server, or a bartender, or a busser.
Do you find that your restaurant has reached a plateau when it comes to customer service? Do you find it hard to motivate your staff to do better, to care more, and to work harder? Maybe it's time to shake things up a bit. Change their titles.
At one of Minusha's training locations we conducted a little social experiment. We posted an internal job opening for a food runner position. We used the exact job description the restaurant generally uses for the food runner position except we changed the title to: Assistant Guest Services Manager. The pay was a mere $0.50 more an hour than the food runners generally make. After the posting deadline had passed we had received 5 internal applications for the position of Assistant Guest Services Manager. 3 of those applications came from servers, 1 came from a bartender, and 1 came from a hostess who had previously managed restaurants. It was surprising to me that none of the current food runners applied for the job. When I sat each of them down and asked why they didn't apply their answers shocked me. "I didn't think I was qualified." "I'm not management material." "I didn't think I had any chance of getting the job because I'm just a food runner." You should have seen their faces when I brought up their job description that they signed at the start of their employment and compared it to the posting. Unanimously their response was "I didn't think I was responsible for so much." They were already doing the job but didn't realize the extent of their responsibility because their title was "just a food runner".
The other members of staff who applied for the position had an equally perplexed reaction when we showed them the job descriptions side by side. They applied for an entry level position, one they never would have considered otherwise because it had the word manager in it. It seems that staff members were completely missing the scope of their responsibility in the restaurant.
Servers don't just serve food, they are Guest Service Managers. They are responsible for the general well being and satisfaction of your guests. When they come into contact with one of your guests, they are the most important person in the restaurant in that moment because your business hinges on the happiness and satisfaction of that guest. If you hire a Guest Service Manager instead of a server you get someone who is happy to relay specials and features to your guest, you get someone who is adamant about making a birthday celebration special for a first time diner, and most of all, you get someone who cares about what they do and who they do it for on a daily basis.
Hostesses don't just greet people at the door. They are Guest Relation Managers. They are the first point of contact for your guests. They answer the phones, they set up parties, they welcome people to your restaurant with a warm smile and are responsible for the guest from the moment they walk into the restaurant until the moment they leave. They are responsible for ensuring that your seats have bodies in them and that your restaurant is able to serve the maximum amount of people. If you hire a Guest Relation Manager instead of a hostess you get someone who will create meaningful connections with guests when they call to make reservations, you get someone who will go above and beyond to ensure that guests are happy from start to finish. They will do table checks, and log information about guest likes and dislikes, allergies, and special occasions, so that when the guests return you can serve them even better.
When you look at titles in larger, non-hospitality corporations, even entry level positions have titles that reflect the grand scope of what the position entails, not just their primary function. The person answering phones dealing with guest complaints isn't called a "Complaint Taker" they are called a "Client Relations Manager" or a "Client Services Associate", perhaps even a "Client Liaison". Why should the hospitality industry be any different? The answer is: it shouldn't.
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