SALES: Create Friendly Competition to Increase Average Check Total [HACK #106]
Is your restaurant revenue lacking? One great way to boost your business's profits is by gamifying staff sales. Just a little friendly competition can earn restaurants a nice chunk of change per week.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Whopper Neutrality
Apparently, there are still Americans that have no clue what Net Neutrality is. Have no fear, fellow Americans. Burger King is at it to give these folks some education. Check out this video where they teach about Net Neutrality with their hamburgers
Best Employer For Diversity
After months of high-profile allegations involving sexual harassment in the workplace, ethnicity and gender discrimination, the topic of diversity has come firmly under the spotlight. Consistently, studies have shown that diversity can prove an immense asset for a company with more diverse teams resulting in a stronger financial performance. Here are the Top 10 employers in the US for diversity. One restaurant company makes the list. Can you guess which?
Brewing in Disney
Ballast Point is opening a brewery at Disneyland, making the resort just a little more magical. Along with brewing, Ballast Point will offer a “New American” cuisine menu. And yes, there’ll be a kids menu, too.
TRICKLING DOWN
Why it matters to you: What are you investing in your workforce?
Earlier this week, we reported that Brinker International -- parent to Chilli’s and Maggiano’s -- was offering a special program to assist employees in meeting their higher education goals. Well, Starbucks has announced they too are investing in their staff with a $250 million commitment that will fund raises, stock options, and expanded benefits. It appears the grant is directly due to the corporate tax rate changes passed this month by Congress. By some estimates, the Starbuck’s tax bill will drop by nearly $425 million under the new tax plan. If so, they are giving more than half of that savings to their employees. Now that’s one helluva commitment to your staff.
Certainly, few of you are going to be able to follow suit with Brinker and Starbuck’s, but there surely are things you can do to benefit your staff. While the financing of any benefits you provide your team is important, you must also consider the net value you will gain from it. Companies like Brinker and Starbuck’s (and Walmart for that matter) wouldn’t apportion this much money to a thing that doesn’t return value. Whether it’s making them more competitive in the labor pool or reducing their turnover, these companies are publicly traded; as such they have a fiduciary responsibility to make profit. Therefore, you can guarantee they aren’t doing this unless it returns something to their bottom line.
There are lots of options for you to stay in the game even if you aren’t a big player. Remember, every employee you prevent from leaving by offering better benefits is one less employee you have recruit, interview, select, and train. So, consider adding outside training, PTO benefits, or some other thing to demonstrate to your staff that you value them and want them to stay.
SNAP CAN BENEFIT FIDO TOO
Why it matters to you? There is an increasingly compelling argument to include basic pet food in with SNAP benefits.
There is no debate here: pets are part of our families. Large or small, rich or poor, we all love our pets. So why are they specifically left out of the SNAP program? If a family is in need of these benefits and have a pet(s) shouldn’t they be able to provide for the family as a whole and not be forced to leave their pet out of the picture? In a 2015 study by the ASPCA, 30% of low-income people who had to give up their pets said that they would have kept them if they had a free or low-cost food option. So why can’t these people just feed their pets from the table? Sure you can feed certain pets some human food, yet a lot of the foods we eat daily make your pets very ill and a sudden change in your pets diet alone can do the same.
While it is surely a difficult decision for the government to include pet food in SNAP or not, we’re not even sure that much of a change would have to happen. Basic dog food generally will only cost about $20-$60 a month, while basic cat food is even less at around $100-$200 a year. This is a very small fraction of the average $253-$556 a month SNAP families receive monthly. We’re sure, even given the option, that most families would happily buy their pet food out of their monthly allowance; some would even rather go without food themselves than see their dog go hungry. There is currently a petition that is roughly 300 people off from its 85,000 goal to include pet food in SNAP benefits, so there is clearly a desire here. If this is the call that would be a step towards cutting down on strays and euthanasia then we say it’s worth a try.
