The hospitality industry chases training trends the same way it chases menu trends — with enthusiasm, without evidence, and usually at the operator's expense. Here are the four worst offenders I see operators wasting money on right now. Gamification. Relationships and engagement are not games. When you gamify learning, your employees aren't getting excited about […]
There's a difference between training and coaching that most operators never name — — and the gap between them is where most of your development problems live. Training: Teaching someone something they have never done before. Standard-Setting: Defining how something already known gets done in your operation, for your Guests, at your standard. Coaching is […]
There are two ways to deliver knowledge to the people who work for you — — and the difference between them starts with knowing which kind of knowledge you're delivering. Push is appropriate — — and necessary — — for technical proficiency. POS systems. Recipes. Role-specific processes. Safety protocols. The knowledge a cast member needs […]
There's a fundamental difference between a training culture and a learning culture, and most operators have no idea the distinction even exists. They use the words interchangeably. They don't mean the same thing. The gap between them is where most of your problems live. A training culture is instructor-focused. Event-based — — something that happens […]
Most training programs in this industry are designed to produce compliance. Follow these steps. Say these words. Don't deviate. The goal is consistency — — and consistency isn't a bad goal. But compliance-based training has a ceiling, and that ceiling is mediocrity. Mastery-based development has no ceiling. When you develop cast members toward mastery, you're […]
Operator's Playbook | Casting arc | Insert candidate Status: DRAFT Never lower your standard so a mediocre applicant can raise theirs. That trade feels practical in the moment — the shift needs covering, the calendar is full, the alternative is going short. It is not practical. It is expensive. The cast member hired below standard […]
Operator's Playbook | Casting arc | Insert candidate Status: DRAFT Run the math. One cast member. A standard four-top section — 16 seats. Two turns a shift. Thirty-two Guests. Multiply that by the number of shifts they work in a week and you have the weekly reach of one hiring decision. Now multiply by your […]
There is a category of cast member that changes the operation simply by being in it. Not because of their title. Not because of their tenure. Because of their standard — the way they show up, the way they execute, the way they make everyone around them better without being asked to. The Guest experience […]
Before we talk about what to ask, let's talk about what to stop asking. Behavioral interviewing — the "Tell me about a time when…" format — is one of the most widely used and least effective hiring practices in this industry. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult person. […]
The way you hire tells a candidate everything about how you value people — before they've worked a single shift. A hiring process that takes a week sends a message. The candidate who walks in motivated, ready to talk, and interested in what you're building is a different person after they've filled out a three-page […]
I've hired mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, cousins, brothers and sisters. Some of the best hires I've ever seen came as a pair. Some of the worst did too. The relationship is irrelevant. That's the point. Most operators walk into a family hire already decided. Either they're excited — it's someone they trust, someone […]
It's one of the most common things an operator says about their people. "We're like a family here." It's said with genuine warmth. It comes from a real place — the operator who stayed late with their people, who celebrated their milestones, who showed up when things got hard. The relationship is real. The care […]
The restaurant industry has a talent competition happening at every level, every day, in every market. Most operators aren't aware they're in it until they lose someone to it. Poaching is the word the industry uses when a competitor recruits one of your people. It carries a connotation of aggression, of theft, of disloyalty. Strip […]
You hire people to achieve outcomes — namely growth. You don't just hire them to create and manage inputs: take orders, push buttons, run food. If that's all you expect from the people on your cast, that's exactly what you'll get. And it will cost you everything. There are three levels of staff. The engaged […]
The candidate who made you comfortable in the interview is not necessarily the right hire. Culture fit has become the restaurant industry's most expensive hiring shortcut. Not because it started wrong — it began as a values proxy, a way to protect what the building stood for against people who would corrode it. That instinct […]
Let me ask you the simplest question in this entire book. Who creates and delivers every single Guest experience in your restaurant? The answer is not your brand. It's not your menu. It's not your concept, your décor, your Instagram page, or your mission statement hanging in the break room. The answer is your cast. […]
Before we talk about specific hiring situations, you need to understand what you’re hiring against. For the first time in the history of this industry, you are not just competing with the restaurant down the street for hourly labor. You are competing with Amazon. With DoorDash. With Uber. With every remote-friendly employer who will let […]
The operator who cannot keep good cast has a story about it. The labor market is tight. The generation doesn't want to work. Nobody wants to be held accountable anymore. The story is wrong — not about the conditions, but about the cause. The cause is the environment. The labor market is the same for […]
The room sets conditions. The cast member is the test. Every [Point Of Experience] where a Guest interacts with a person is a moment where the extended trust is either reinforced or eroded — and the cast member doing the reinforcing or the eroding has no idea the Guest arrived with trust already on the […]
The cast member who builds [Earned Trust] does one thing differently from the cast member who delivers a competent experience: they make the Guest feel known. Not known by name — known in the sense of read correctly. The server who adjusts pace without being asked. The bartender who starts the regular's drink when they […]