Hey, restaurant owners, operators, and managers.
Today, I want to talk about why your staff hates checklist.
Why your staff hates checklist?
It's not for the reasons you think. Coming up right now.
Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here - author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com,
as well as ClickBacon.com and ScaleMyRestaurant.com
Listen, I get it. Your staff hates checklist,
but the question is, do you even like them?
Have you even been sold on them?
Do you love checklist?
See, when I operated restaurants, I loved checklist.
They were the most important management tool I had in my tool belt,
in my arsenal, and the reason I loved them
is because I had the privilege of working at some really amazing restaurants before
I went out to run my own restaurants with my partners because
they taught me how important they were.
When I worked in 5-star hotels, my chefs love checklist.
We use them a lot.
I learned how important they were. They taught me how important they were and I loved them,
so when I went on to operate and manage restaurants,
I couldn't do it without checklist. They were amazing.
I always had a passion for them and I think because of that,
I never had an issue getting my staff to adopt them.
There were some other factors in that.
I took a lot of time to make sure I built them properly,
they look neat. I managed them.
I knew the difference between a checklist and a prep sheet.
And those are all factors that I discussed in the three previous videos to this.
If you've not watched any of those videos and you're a little lost right now,
go back and watch those videos first, then come back here.
So, I can kind of wrap this all up for you and explain to you
why your staff likely hates the checklist,
but if you're back here and you're watching now,
then you've seen those other videos and you have full understanding of what checklists are,
how to build them, etc., etc.
But let me tell you why your staff hates them.
To be totally honest with you, I would probably
hate checklist too if I had to follow the checklist that you're using right now.
They're probably ugly and messy and things like I talked about before.
They're not formatted properly, they're not organized.
They probably haven't been updated in years.
Remember, checklist are living, breathing documents.
They're constantly in flux,
they're constantly changing. This isn't something that you make once,
print it out, laminate it and put a grease pen,
or worse make it once and then do a photocopy of a photocopy
of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
You know what I'm talking about.
By that time, it's faded out and crooked and sideways,
and you know what I mean.
I'll never forget the time I walked into a restaurant chain in Los Angeles.
They have 11 restaurants and I walked in
as an on-site consulting about five years ago
and I went into the restroom.
And as I'm leaving the restroom, there is a sign on the door.
A bathroom cleaning checklist, whatever.
Well, the last time it had been filled out was three weeks
prior to the day that I was there.
So, for the last three weeks, no one's filled it out.
So, I pull it out of the little thing and I take it up to the managers and I say,
show me the rest of your checklist that have been ignored.
And then they open up this booklet and some of the checklists were dated
to the early 90s, the late 90s, the early 2000s.
They were printed out 20 years ago,
they were garbage and that is sending a signal to your
staff that you don't care,
you don't even honor these.
You do not love them, you're just doing them
because you were told that you have to do them.
And if you don't honor them and you don't cherish
them and you don't manage them and you don't build them properly and you don't take care of them;
how can you expect your staff to do it.
So, the first thing that I want to ask is - do you even love them?
Do you even care about them? Are you managing them?
Are they important to you? Are they accurate? Are they up to date?
All of these factors come into play, but at the end of the day,
if you don't believe in checklists and you don't honor them
and create them in a way that your staff wants to,
they just won't follow them.
I need you to think of a checklist as a tool.
Imagine if I asked you to build a house for me right now.
Go build a house. Let's assume you know how to do it and I was paying you a fair rate
and I gave you architectural plans and materials and all that and you
show up to build on the first day and you got your lumber,
your 2x4, and you're setting it up and you're about to
hammer it to another piece of wood.
And then I say, oh no, I'm sorry, you can't use a hammer.
I need you to build this house without a hammer.
Just use the palm of your hand and drive that nail in with the palm of your hand,right?
You're probably going to walk right out of that job and say you're crazy.
There's no amount of money that's worth it and I don't blame you.
I would do the same thing.
See, the problem is, we think checklists are the solution, they're not.
They're not the solution, they're just the tool.
They're like a hammer, they're here to help your team do a better job.
This is Dawn Professional,
and it's the same dish soap brand we use at home.
It's also the number one dish brand in the United States.
This is spic-and-span and it's made by the same people that make
Dawn Professional.
These are brands that you're likely familiar with,
as well as Swiffer, Mr. Clean,
Febreze, and many, many others.
The reason I'm telling you this is, you may not be familiar
with the fact that Procter & Gamble professional
makes versions of these brands and many others
for use in your restaurant.
Now whether you have one restaurant, ten restaurants or a hundred restaurants;
you know the importance of keeping your restaurant
clean and safe for your guests and your employees,
but with everything you have going on,
it's easy to just buy
cleaning products that are either the cheapest
or private-label because your sales rep recommended them.
The challenge is, you don't know if their best interest matches
your best interest.
You don't know if they're recommending and giving you the products that you
actually need,
or if they're giving you the products that help them meet
their profits and their sales quota.
Cleaning and disinfection are more important now
than ever before.
Don't take shortcuts, don't sell yourself short.
I've chosen to partner with P&G Professional
because they provide products for an exceptional clean.
What's easier and more simple
than using products that you already know and trust?
The only thing better than that is products that your employees already know,
use, and trust.
Keeping your guests and employees safe and free
from outbreaks is more important now than ever.
P&G Professional has a line of products that are easy
to use and available to you to help you keep every surface in your
restaurant clean and safe.
I want to encourage you to go ahead and click on the link that we've provided for you,
either in the video, below it to the right or to the left,
and sign up for some exclusive restaurant savings
on products you and your team already know and trust.
We'll keep your restaurant clean and safe.
This is more important now than ever. Plus, if you have any questions,
you could hop on the phone or chat with a professional,
a representative at P&G Professional to make sure that
your needs are currently being met,
and here are some of their recommendations.
So go ahead, click on that, link sign up for those savings.
Get on the phone with someone at P&G Professional and what do you say,
let's get back to the rest of that video.
So, if you can't build a house without a hammer.
how do you expect your staff to do their job
without a properly formatted checklist?
After all, if your staff did everything they were supposed to do
exactly how they were supposed to do and exactly when they were supposed to do it,
you would want to pay them more money, right?
You would want to give them the raise that they want.
You would be happy to pay them nearly whatever.
You would love to have a staff right now that did
everything they were supposed to do
when they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to do it.
You want to know how to get your staff to do all that?
Give them the right checklist. Love them, honor them,
manage the checklist that are built properly, that are given to your staff
properly, and you will have the staff of your dreams.
You will have a staff that does what they're supposed to do
when they're supposed to do it and
how they're supposed to do it. Will it be easy?
No, nothing worth having is easy.
I'm not here selling magic pills and silver bullets.
I'm here telling you the truth and if you don't believe me
or you think I'm wrong, leave a comment below.
I would love to engage in that conversation.
Have an absolutely wonderful day. I hope you've enjoyed this series on checklist
and I look forward to bringing you another great video just like this next week.
I hope you enjoyed this week's training video.
If you haven't subscribed to our channel yet,
would you go ahead and smash the like button right up there,
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I've also gone ahead and put a couple of videos for you
here and here that I think you're going to enjoy.
Remember, systems create freedom,
freedom creates value, and value creates scale.
Manage systems, develop people, and be awesome.