The Callout Problem Framed

If you are hearing from your managers or your servers or your kitchen staff that they are overworked and they're on the verge of burnout and they're having a hard time keeping up with the demands of the business, this episode is for you. This could potentially be the solution to the problem today. I'm gonna talk about call outs in today's episode. This is something that I have been hearing is a huge pain point for restaurant owners and operators over the last three years. I've been having incredible conversations recently with um with a couple clients who are really, really struggling with this. And today I'm gonna talk through both of those examples.

Two Cases And Promised Solutions

One was the fear of callouts and how that led to overstaffing the business. Um, so much so that it was holding the restaurant back from being profitable. The restaurant was not turning a profit because of this. And so I'm gonna talk about the simple solution that we put into place to fix that and um how that resulted in immediate profitability for the restaurant for the first time since it's been open, which is huge. Um the other example is a restaurant experiencing two to five callouts a week. A week. Let that sink in. And the system that we, the easy system that we put in, so that the managers could have comfortable conversations with the team and start holding them accountable and so that they could start holding themselves accountable and the rest of the team. If you are struggling with callouts and this is a conversation that you want to have with me, I'm happy to strategize with you. I'm gonna put my calendar link in the show notes so you can book time with me. Let's spend 30 minutes together understanding exactly what's going on, and let's start putting together some very simple, actionable items that will help move your business forward and free your team up to actually be in the roles that they want to be in, including yourself. Because call outs don't just impact your managers and your servers and your busers and your and your kitchen staff and your bartenders and your hosts, they impact you. Every time you have a call out and you're near the restaurant, you're automatically being pulled into service when you may have had other plans to have meetings or look at your books or spend some time strategizing and working on the business instead of in the business. So let's start having that conversation to start freeing everybody up, to spend time and energy where they want to, not where they have to. Welcome

Show Intro And Coaching Focus

to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, where we coach independent multi-unit restaurant operators to build systems that drive profitability and reclaim time so they can scale with confidence and spend their time and energy where they want to, not where they have to. I'm your host, Kristen Marvin, restaurant coach and author of Multi-unit Mastery. If you are an independent restaurant owner managing multiple locations, you know the chaos that comes with growth. Inconsistent execution across your restaurants, managers who won't take ownership, constantly answering questions your team should already know the answers to. You're stuck in your current role when you want to be playing a bigger strategic role as you scale. You don't have the right leaders in place or you keep losing them. And you're not sure how to find great people and actually keep them around. We work with passionate independent restaurant owners who found success with their first few locations and are ready to scale strategically. Our clients aren't looking to just survive expansion. They want to thrive through it. They're committed to developing strong leaders and creating exceptional guest experiences. Through the independent restaurant framework that we teach in multi-unit mastery, we coach independent restaurant groups to move from chaos to confidence by focusing on three pillars: people, process, and profit. You can grab a gifted copy of the book at irfbook.com. On this show, we bring you real coaching conversations, leadership strategies, and the frameworks that you need to lead like a CEO instead of operating like a worn-out manager. And here's the thing: coaching has changed our clients' businesses and can change yours too. If you've never experienced what it's like to have someone in your corner who actually gets the restaurant world, we'd love to connect. We offer one-on-one and group coaching. Head to kristenmarvin.com slash contact for a complimentary coaching session and let's talk about what's possible for your restaurant group. I

Case One: Fear-Driven Overstaffing

want to talk about call-outs. This is a topic that I'm hearing about a lot from operators. And I want to give a couple examples of how this is potentially impacting restaurants based on two recent conversations that I've had with clients. The first conversation that I had was with an owner who had a lot of panic and fear and anxiety around people calling out. And the impact of this to the business was so great that it was stopping him from making a profit in his business. Okay, this restaurant's been open less than a year. He was so worried that people were going to call out for their shift that he was overstaffing every single shift, two to three people. Now we unpacked a lot of this, we talked through where that fear was coming from. This was a chef owner who was not confident bartending or serving or working the door or busing. And so he was so fearful that if anybody called out in any of those positions, he could not jump in and help out with that shift. Now, here's the problem, right? There's a lot of problems to this. The first was, you know, I want to just say how incredible it was to actually have this conversation and be open it be open and honest about the struggles because then we could really get to the root of the cause and figure out what was going on. This owner was putting so much pressure on himself to be able to know all the positions in the restaurant and to jump in. Now, the real here's the shocking component to this. You would think call-outs were happening a lot in the restaurant. They were happening maybe once every 90 days. So what that, you know, what when that came to light, that was so incredible because to me that means that there's so much going right in that restaurant in terms of culture, in terms of people understanding their impact of their roles and the impact of what it means to show up at their restaurant. And they like working with their team, they like working with the owners, and they love engaging with their guests, right? So this call-out crisis that this this restaurant thought that they were having was really kind of made up in their head. But unfortunately, it was costing them a shit ton of money, right?

Cross-Training To Reduce Risk

The restaurant was not turning a profit just because of this thing. So what we did was we looked at the schedule and we started brainstorming and strategizing who was cross-trained on the staff to be able to serve and bartend. Yes, the restaurant was running with one bartender a day. So we looked at what servers were also cross-trained to bartend and made sure that those servers were also on the schedule when possible when that bartender, when a bartender was scheduled too. So in case of emergency, boom, they've got somebody to move over. We also then looked at who wasn't cross-trained and who needed to be cross-trained. So we took that pressure off him needing to be the one that needed to fill these bottlenecks and fill all these holes when things came up and shifted that focus over to his team. He's got all these amazing people that work for him that are hungry, that want to grow, that are excited to learn more things. And we know that cross-training enhances engagement, which increases retention, right? Labor is more challenging than it's ever been in the restaurant industry. And so managing turnover is one of the most important aspects of business. Cost of goods we've seen have pretty much stayed relatively high. Not that those prices are dropping, but people are getting a handle on managing those. And now it's time to shift that focus to labor. So that was a great example, a lot of eye-opening moments, um, and some simple changes there that make um that have made a really, really great impact on the business. I recently spoke to that owner. It's been 30 or 45

Profit Returns After Simple Changes

days now, um, and the restaurant's turning a profit. Absolutely incredible.

Ratings And Reviews Request

Hey there, podcast friends. I hope you're enjoying these impactful conversations and leadership insights I'm bringing you each week. Before we dive back into today's episode, I want to take a moment and reach out and ask a small favor that would go a long way in supporting the show. If you've been loving the content I'm providing, please take a moment to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Not only does it make my day, but it also plays a pivotal role in helping the show grow. Your reviews boost my visibility, attract new listeners, and encourage exciting guests to join me on the mic. So if you want to be part of my show's growth journey, hit that review button and let me know what you think. Thanks a million for being awesome listeners.

Case Two: Chronic Callouts Weekly

So that's the first example. The second example with callouts is a restaurant group that I've been talking to for a while. Um and the the managers were saying the same thing. We're we're being stretched too thin, we're being stretched too thin, we're being stretched too thin. Like, okay, what does that mean? Does that mean that the workload is just too much? Does that mean that we need to look at some tech solutions? Does that mean that we need to look at delegating some things? I mean, that you know, there's all kinds of places that your mind can go, right? And stories you can tell yourself. But when we really got down to the nitty-gritty of exploring what was happening on every single shift, the managers told me that they were working in shifts in in specific um stations, serving and bartending more than they were managing. So much so that it was two to five days a week. So they were experiencing two to five callouts a week in one restaurant. It still blow absolutely blows my mind. And when I expressed that when I when I when they said that out loud and they looked at me, and I've tried not to show emotion on my face, but you for those of you that know me know I can't help it sometimes. I was completely shocked and they looked at me and they said, Is that bad? Is two to five call-outs a week bad? Now again, we can go down the rabbit hole of like what's happening with the culture, what's broken. This is a very successful restaurant. Um, the food's incredible, the the the service is awesome, the you know, um the decor is amazing. It they have a really great brand and really great reputation. So we had to figure out what was going wrong. The restaurant's also really, really busy. So they're not having an issue with turnover, which is surprising, but the call-outs are out of control, right? So I spent a lot of time with the management team, kind of talking about first and foremost

Protecting Intentional Scheduling

what the impact, not even the impact, but like let's let's back up for a second. So we talked about the attention that goes into building a schedule, right? You've got your ACEs and places. Hopefully, you're looking at your sales for the week, what you did last week, what your projections are, what you did last year for the upcoming week, how the business is trending overall. And looking at where you need your key people. Hopefully, you're managing requests off in a manner where you can ensure that you either have enough staff on so that you can accommodate all those requests off, or you're working your schedule ahead far enough in advance so that you're not having to scramble and fill holes. So, anyway, we looked at and talked a lot about the intentionality behind the schedule. Are you putting your aces in places? Do people truly understand why they're scheduled for the shifts that they are? Do your rock stars know that you want them on the Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights? Or Friday and Saturday nights or Saturday, Sunday nights? Sometimes it's hard to work your rock stars all three busy nights in a row. Um, so do they understand the impact of those shifts and the impact that they bring to the team? And do they understand the impact of when they call out how that impacts the guest experience and the team experience, right? The ripple effect of one person calling out. So we talked a lot about that. And you know, the hard thing about a call out is when managers spend so much time intentionally building schedule and creating this amazing plan to make sure that the guests and the team have a great experience. As soon as somebody calls out, that plan gets fucked, right? Because you're having to scramble and then just plug somebody in. That's not ideal. So your service suffers, your average check suffers, the team experience suffers, the guest experience suffers, right? Your turn times suffer, your greed time suffer, the whole thing, right? You're you're stretching everybody too thin. It's not sustainable and it's how we burn people out. So we talked a lot about protecting that intentionality around the scheduling. We also talked about communicating to the staff members that are calling out consistently the importance of why they why the manager schedule the way that they schedule and the importance of their role into the team. Let them know, let the team know how important

Accountability And Callout Protocol

they are and why they're really needed. Maybe they just need to hear that and understand that they're not just another cog in the wheel. The other question that I pose, because I've I've had this conversation a lot over the last three years, is are you making it too easy for your staff to call out? And what I mean by that is like what's the process? So one thing that um I noticed when I was working in the ice cream business during the pandemic, it was the first time I had managed high schoolers and college kids, and 90% of our staff were all part-time. And they were great, but they didn't understand, again, the seriousness of running a business and showing up for your shifts. So we had when I started with the company, we had in some of the locations, we had a massive call-out problem. And so we implemented a system that I've used prior that worked really, really well. And that simply was communicating to your staff, hey, we're gonna start writing the schedule and post it two weeks in advance for you so you can plan your lives and you know, go to those concerts and book those vacations, whatever. So we need your requests, your requests off three weeks in advance. Now, here's the thing once the schedule is posted, that shift is that person's responsibility. So here's where the the communication really needed to kind of change and and cult and this accountability um needed to really show up strong in the culture. When that shift, when that schedule is posted, those shifts are your responsibility. If for some reason you can't show up for your shift, you are not allowed to just text the management team, hey, I'm not coming in. Good luck, go fucking figure it out. This is the this is the part that I see that's really broken in the industry right now. It is so fucking easy, and obviously I get upset about this. It is so fucking easy for people to just fire off text messages that they're not coming into work. We need to slow down and think about the way that we are communicating back and forth with our teams. People should not be allowed to fire off a text message that they're not coming in. That means that we're not teaching people how to be dependable, we're not teaching them how to communicate well, we're not holding them accountable, we're not teaching them how to be great employees, which are all responsibilities that we have as business owners, right? So, what we talked about is a protocol. If you can't show up for your shift for some for an emergency reason, first and foremost, it's your responsibility to contact every single person that's on the schedule or that's not on your team that's not scheduled that day and see who can

Coaching Repeat Offenders

pick up. And we we talked about encouraging them to not throw out a group text and see who can who can um cover first, pick up the phone and call people one by one, right? The more friction you put into this process for your employees, the less they're gonna just fire off the text message and not come in. Again, you're teaching them how to be responsible here and show up to a commitment that they've made, which is working with you three to four days a week. So we talked about the communication process of when the schedule gets posted, whose responsibility the shifts are, and then exactly how to have people call out. Now, if the employee says, Hey, I have texted or I've called, you know, five people on the schedule and no one can cover, then reach out to the manager, right? Call the manager, have a conversation. Um, I know there's a lot of rules and regulations these days around like I can't ask for doctor's notes, da-da-da-da. But you can hold employees accountable to being consistent and showing up for their shifts and being a reliable employee. That you can hold them responsible for and

Burnout, Standards, Next Steps

consistent or accountable to, excuse me. And if those call out, you set that expectation first, those call-outs continue to persist, then it's time to move into coaching with those employees specifically that are calling out and sit down and have a conversation and figure out what is going on, get to the root cause of what is going on. But if you don't have a system in place for call outs, then it's really just a free-for-all, right? And your team gets used to that, which is just awful. They think, oh, well, Susie called out last night, so I'm tired. I'm gonna call out this Friday night. And then, oh shoot, well, now I'm back to work. Bobby called out, right? So again, it just it it I think I called it a um like a cut artery for the business. It's it was the one thing that we had to fix immediately so that we could free the managers up to actually spend time managing the restaurant, connecting with guests, looking at turn times, looking at food consistency, um, managing the steps of service, um, taking care of the staff, managing those bottlenecks, being in the role that the managers are truly supposed to be in, and that and doing the job that they were hired for. We wonder why there is a burnout epidemic happening in the restaurant business. And this is a huge part of it. When your team, when your restaurant is not properly staffed two to five days a week, and people are having to scramble, and the workload increases, the productivity Decreases and your team experience and your guest experience goes through the floor. It's not sustainable. So I hope this is helpful for you. That's a couple examples. If you need any support around this, I'm going to put my calendar link in the show notes. Feel free to jump on and book a call with me. Let's start strategizing exactly what's happening with your business. And if you need some help around how to have what conversations to have with the team, how to have those conversations. I'm more than happy to help you with that. Thank you so much for listening to this shorty little solo episode this week. And I will talk to you next week.