It is next to impossible to think of a successful restaurant business without an incredible team. However, the team can only achieve the desired outcome if headed by a potent restaurant manager. Hence, a restaurant manager is an integral part of a restaurant business and plays a crucial role in steering its direction, which is why their job description must be adeptly formulated.
If you wish to expand your restaurant business or improve your existing restaurant’s performance, you should start by hiring a restaurant manager with an impressive track record. So, you have to be selective because this recruitment decision can either make or break your restaurant business – a suitable person can lead to growth, while a wrong person can bring disaster.
Hiring the best talent has been one of the most challenging tasks for restaurateurs in the US during CY21. Fortunately, this article will help you to some extent by discussing the key responsibilities that you should include in the job description of a restaurant manager so that you can find the right person for the role.
Key Responsibilities To Include In Restaurant Manager Job Description
A restaurant manager is like the captain of a ship who is responsible for a restaurant’s overall performance. So, it is time we look at the key responsibilities you should include in the job description of a restaurant manager. Here is the list:
1. Managing Overall Team Performance
It is one of the primary responsibilities of a restaurant manager to lead the staff and ensure that everybody performs their job efficiently. This is what a manager is best known for in any restaurant. A restaurant manager conducts performance reviews wherein they have to evaluate how well the staff members are executing the tasks for which they have been hired. The manager should praise the team members when they perform their job perfectly and help them identify areas for their performance improvement.
2. Managing Conflicts Within Team
A restaurant manager is usually responsible for maintaining a cohesive workplace environment for which they may have to handle conflicts among the team members. As such, the ability to manage conflict is also an essential requirement for a restaurant manager to ensure that staff members cooperate with each other and create the best possible customer experience.
3. Streamlining Restaurant Operations
Typically, a restaurant’s operation can be categorized into two parts – front-of-house (FOH) and back-of-house (BOH). The FOH operations refer to activities that involve interaction with the customer, such as the waiting staff, lobby area, dining arrangement, etc. On the other hand, the BOH operations refer to the activities taking place at the back of the restaurant, such as the kitchen, the office, the employee area, etc.
A restaurant manager is responsible for FOH and BOH operations, ensuring they cooperate without any hiccups. So, a manager must be able to identify tools and processes that can help in streamlining the day-to-day operations. For instance, they can equip the restaurant with technology like contactless dining to help guests place orders and make payments digitally, which forms part of the FOH operations.
4. Recruiting And Onboarding
Another critical responsibility for a restaurant manager is supervising the recruitment process wherein the manager is involved in putting up job postings, interviewing & selecting candidates, and training the selected candidates. Even staff training is a critical process that requires the manager’s involvement. The training may be either in the form of classroom teaching or on-the-job shadowing. The manager must ensure that each hired candidate is assigned the right training.
5. Ensuring Customer Satisfaction
A significant part of a restaurant manager’s responsibilities is ensuring the highest level of service quality for the guests. At times, it also involves handling difficult customers and their tricky complaints while keeping a cool head. Further, a restaurant manager needs to pay attention to customer feedback from various review websites, guest satisfaction survey reporting platforms, etc. Another way to track customer feedback in real-time is using a sound customer feedback app. A manager should listen to the guests and use their input to create a better customer experience. Basically, the customer preferences are noted in the system, and the information is used to ensure that their needs are met in the near future.
6. Managing Inventory
Although the kitchen staff tracks the physical movement of stock (raw material) at the back of a restaurant, a manager usually takes care of all other associated functions, such as reordering supplies, negotiating contracts with vendors, etc. In other words, a restaurant manager is responsible for timely stocking as well as on-time vendor payment, and restaurant inventory management software can be a great help in this regard.
7. Handling Finances
A restaurant manager is responsible for a restaurant’s overall financial processes, such as vendor invoicing, budgeting, approving timesheets, etc. The manager also needs to ensure that the restaurant sales generate adequate cash flow to cover employee and vendor payments. All these financial transactions have to be reported to the owner as a part of business performance reporting, and this is where restaurant analytics software can prove to be useful.
8. Implementing COVID-19 Safety Protocols
The COVID-19 protocols have been added to the already long list of safety measures that a restaurant manager has to deal with on a regular basis. Hence, a manager now has to create COVID-19 guidelines for both customers and staff and ensure that the rules are followed religiously. Some of these guidelines include enforcing temperature checks of guests, mandating PPE for staff, spacing tables apart, and implementing contactless technology.
So, you can see that a restaurant manager’s job is not child’s play. Hence, if you are posting a restaurant manager job, you need to include all the responsibilities mentioned above to ensure that you find the right person for the job, which is crucial for your restaurant business’s smooth and profitable functioning.
