An effective restaurant manager will ensure a restaurant operates seamlessly. However, their effectiveness requires someone that is working behind the scenes to balance many complex processes, including the appropriate management of staff.

Our Essential Business Skills for Restaurant Managers course will outline the duties of a restaurant manager and give you the skills and knowledge to effectively manage a restaurant. You will learn how to lead and manage people and teams and support and encourage commitment through effective leadership. You will discover strategies to coordinate the recruitment, selection and induction of new staff members within the framework of existing HR polices and procedures. You will study how to develop, implement and monitor an operational plan to provide effective and efficient workplace practices within an organisation’s profitability and productivity plans.

You will also gain insights into managing the delivery of customer service, developing, adjusting and monitoring customer service practices, develop policies and procedures for quality service provision and communicate and consult with colleagues and customers.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking a course where you will learn about the duties of a restaurant manager include:

• Learning how to develop and manage quality customer service practices
• Exploring customer information, bundling and professionalism and courtesy
• Gaining an understanding of expectations and suppliers, collecting customer information, surveys and data gathering
• Studying organisation planning, trends and changes and the development of practices
• Examining policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities and the expectations of staff
• Understanding staff communication, workplace meetings, induction and training and dispute resolution
• Attaining knowledge of the effectiveness of customer service and systemic customer service problems
• Gaining insights into new approaches to customer service
• Learning about customer complaints and the Problem Solving Model
• Exploring how to manage business operations and establish an operational plan
• Gaining an understanding of resource requirements, stakeholder consultation and developing contingency plans and explaining these to work teams
• Studying recruitment and induction, the acquisition of physical resources and monitoring profit and productivity plans
• Examining intellectual property, managing under performance and gap analysis
• Understanding performance reviews and support for individuals and teams
• Attaining knowledge of variations to operational plans, the approval process and proposal development
• Job skills requirements, how to create ads and how to process applications
• Learning about selecting staff, using selection criteria and interview questions
• Exploring how to contact referees, employment offers, induction programs and organisational objectives and policies
• Gaining an understanding of how to implement and monitor work health and safety practices
• Studying regulations and codes of practice and standards and how to explain WHS information
• Examining regulations and codes of practice and standards, workplace inspection lists, H&S action plans and workplace culture and attitude
• Understanding health and safety policies and procedures, communication channels, health and safety meetings and accessible health and safety information
• Attaining knowledge of health and safety management systems, how to monitor procedures and practices and adherence and compliance
• Gaining insights into consultation arrangements, staff contributions, resolution procedures, hazard identification and risk assessments
• Learning about risk management, workplace changes, Safe Work Australia’s Code of Practice,Training Needs Analysis (TNA), WHS records and reporting, legislative recording requirements and hazard list and risk assessment forms
• Exploring training plan records, workers’ compensation and records management systems
• Gaining an understanding of national data set and analysing data and trend analysis
• Studying verbal reports and recycling facilities

And more!

Dealing with Customer Complaints

When you have customers, you will occasionally receive a customer complaint about a product or service your business provides. One of the duties of a restaurant manger is to deal with these in a professional and timely manner. Your procedure for handling complaints should also be easy to understand and accessible to all staff. If you don’t have a procedure, it’s time to draw one up! Here are some basic tips from Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that will help you get started.

Initially, you should try to reduce customer complaints by providing excellent customer service and addressing complaints quickly and fairly. There are Australian Standards for complaint handling and customer service which may be useful guides.

To show you clearly understand a customer’s complaint you should:

• research the issue before you speak with them
• check internal records
• speak to staff and check how their version of events compares with the customer’

When a customer has a genuine complaint:

• speak to the customer in person — don’t rely on written complaints or records of conversations
• thank them for raising the matter
• treat them with genuine empathy, courtesy, honesty, patience and fairness
• try to respond to the complaint quickly
• tell the customer how you will handle it and when to expect a response.

When you talk to the customer:

• listen carefully
• don’t jump to conclusions, become defensive or lay blame
• ask questions to clarify the situation
• summarise your understanding of the problem
• tell the customer what will happen next.

When resolving complaints:

• Nominate one staff member to manage the complaint until it is resolved.
• The nominated staff member should have the authority to organise solutions that the customer will accept — this could be a replacement, refund or a free service.
• Adopt a solution-focused approach and actively involve the customer in the process.
• When you find a solution, check the customer is happy with the approach.
• Make sure you undertake all promised action as quickly as possible.
• Tell the customer how you will stop the problem from happening again.

An effective customer complaint policy can be developed by:

• considering how well you currently handle complaints
• involving your staff in developing a complaint handling system
• deciding who will handle complaints
• writing down your complaint handling procedure
• making sure all staff are trained in your complaint handling procedures
• making a complaint form
• displaying a sign saying you welcome genuine feedback about product quality or service
• clearly advising customers where and how they can report problems
• making sure your customers can report problems to you at any time
• recording all problems and complaints
• trialling the system and using customer and staff feedback to improve it over time.

If you cannot successfully resolve a complaint yourself, you have other options. Mediation is a way to settle a dispute without taking legal action. It lets you and the other party meet with two neutral mediators who will help you discuss the dispute. It helps people reach an agreement in 90 per cent of cases.

COVID-19 WHS Laws

Another one of the duties of a restaurant manager is taking care of the health, safety and welfare of staff and customers at your venue. This is particularly the case in these challenging COVID-19 times.  Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws will obviously differ by state and depend on the extent of infection in the community, but can include:

• providing and maintaining a work environment that is without risk to health and safety
• providing adequate and accessible facilities for the welfare of workers to carry out their work, and
• monitoring the health of workers and the conditions of the workplace for the purpose of preventing illness or injury.

Duty to staff

You must do what you can to ensure the health and safety of your workers, and eliminate the risk of exposure to COVID-19 if reasonably practicable.  If you are not able to eliminate the risk of exposure, you must minimise that risk, as far as is reasonably practicable. Ways you can protect your staff from the risk of exposure to COVID-19 include:

• requiring workers to practice physical distancing
• requiring workers to practice good hygiene (for example, through workplace policies and ensuring access to adequate and well-stocked hygiene facilities)
• requiring workers to stay home when sick, and
• cleaning the workplace regularly and thoroughly.

Duty to customers

You must ensure your business does not put the health and safety of other persons at risk of contracting COVID-19. Ways to protect customers from the risk of exposure to COVID-19 include:

• requiring them to practice physical distancing
• requiring them to practice good hygiene
• requiring them to wear a face mask
• requiring them to use the Check In

Duty to maintain the workplace and facilities

You must maintain your workplace to ensure the work environment does not put staff and others at risk of contracting COVID-19. Ways you can maintain a safe work environment include:

• cleaning the workplace regularly and thoroughly
• restructuring the layout of the workplace to allow for physical distancing, and
• limiting the number of people in the venue at any given time.

You must also provide adequate facilities in your workplace to protect your staff from contracting COVID-19.

Facilities that are required include: 

• washroom facilities including adequate supply of soap, water and paper towels
• hand sanitiser, where it is not possible for workers to wash their hands, and
• staff rooms that are regularly cleaned and allow for physical distancing.

You should provide staff with regular breaks to use these facilities, particularly to allow workers to wash their hands.

 

Duty to provide information

You must provide your staff with any information or training that is necessary to protect them from the risk of exposure to COVID-19 arising from their work.

Information and training may include:

• providing guidance on how to properly wash hands
• training staff in how to fit and use any necessary personal protective equipment(PPE)
• training staff to exercise adequate cleaning practices throughout the day
• providing staff with instructions on staying home from work if sick.

Duty to consult

You must consult with staff on health and safety matters relating to COVID-19:

• when you conduct a risk assessment
• when you make decisions on control measures to use to manage the risk of exposure to COVID-19 when you make decisions about the adequacy of the workplace facilities to allow for control measures such as physical distancing and hygiene
• when you propose other changes that may affect the health and safety of staff, and
• when you change any procedures that have an impact on the WHS of staff.

Enhance your management skills and learn the key duties of a restaurant manager to confidently operate a restaurant with our Essential Business Skills for Restaurant Managers course.