STAFF: Why Restaurants Should Offer PTO Sick Time to Staff
The flu shot, as good as it is, can only do so much. Talk to any medical professional and they’ll plead people to stay home when sick. For some, this option is fine. Sick time PTO or the ability to work from home makes it a viable decision. But it’s tougher for the restaurant industry where working from home can’t happen and hourly staff trying to make ends meet have little choice but to head into work. By not offering your staff sick time PTO, you’re not only making their lives miserable, but you’re also putting the rest of your staff, your guests, and your restaurant’s reputation at risk.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Avocado Mafia Wins the Super Bowl
While Kansas City (Missouri) might’ve won the Lombardy Trophy, the real winner of the Super Bowl was the avocado industry. Last week was an all-time best for avocado exporters, as more than 75 million pounds of the fruit shipped from Mexico to the US – a 3% increase from 2019.
Electric Cars Grab Norway
Electric cars have grabbed 44% market share in Norway in January, rising year-over-year sales but falling short of the 50%-60% industry forecast for 2020. In January 2019, electric cars made up 37.8% of all new car sales in oil-producing Norway. The country seeks to phase out the sales of combustion-engine cars by the middle of the decade.
NBA Top Scorers
Kobe Bryant is the fourth highest points scorer in NBA history. LeBron James is the only player in the current top-10 to still be playing in the NBA. In third place with 33,655 points, the 35-year-old still has some way to go if he is to beat Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's career tally of 38,387 points.
McBusted
Why it matters to you: Don’t follow McD’s lead on running promotions with prizes
Have you heard about the new HBO mini-series dedicated to the McDonald’s Monopoly fraud, called McMillions? Well, it’s a cautionary tale of how not to administer a prizing program in any restaurant environment. If you don’t remember the basics of the contest, McDonald's Monopoly allowed customers to collect "properties" from food packaging and turn them in for prizes. The biggest winners (either snagging an "instant win" or matching a Park Place with the ever-elusive Boardwalk) could walk away with as much as $1 million -- except that the whole game was rigged, as the six-part docuseries points out. For rank & file operators, the lesson is clear.
Always make your prize offers totally transparent. By creating a complicated game to execute and using a third-party group to execute it, McDonald’s put themselves in a precarious position. It’s a fundamental expectation of your guests that when you offer a prize that it will be awarded in good faith. If there is even a hint of doubt, you damage your goodwill in the community and create questions about whether you can be trusted for even something as simple a fun promotional contest. Start by getting your prizes up front, administering them personally, and effectively thereby giving your guests the confidence to participate and enjoy the fun. Don’t be McD’s and have to clean up after a sloppy execution of what should have been a really fun promotion.
[Source: Mashable]
STEALING YOUR IDENTITY
Why it matters to you: Don’t let third-party delivery apps leverage your brand without your permission.
Ok, so we reported on this briefly a couple of weeks ago, but it bears repeating -- third party delivery apps like GrubHub, Seamless, DoorDash, and Postmates are listing for delivery restaurants that have not authorized a partnership with them. This is an affront to all operators, primarily because it takes control of your business away from you. Take the 1 star Michelin restaurant in San Francisco called Kin Khao whose owner, Chef Pim Techamuanvivit, fielded a guest complaint about a delivery that was running late. Problem is that Kin Khao doesn’t offer delivery. When Techamuanvivit visited the Seamless site to see how this could be. she was provided an even worse shock -- it wasn’t even her menu. So, aside from the insult of listing her without permission, Seamless also provided a menu from another restaurant whose only association to Kin Khao was their Thai heritage.
Let’s start by suggesting all of you visit the sites for any third-party delivery service to determine if you are listed without your permission. Because it appears based on this report and several others that these apps are doing to lots of restaurants without their permission. Presumably, the reason you partner with a third-party delivery service is to market your menu, but also to centralize control over the amount of off-premise business you do and who you trust to deliver it. Let’s face it, these apps are bigger than your individual restaurant. However, if you all complain in unison, this practice of stealing your brand to help theirs will end. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what these companies are doing -- stealing your identity and affecting your operation without your permission. If that doesn’t piss you off, we simply don’t what will.
[Source: Eater]
