Effective food service management places customer satisfaction as a top priority. Each of the members of the management team has a task to perform. Any flaws in carrying tasks result in a domino effect that will automatically put the food service institution in hot water.

In every restaurant, fast food outlet, cafeteria, and any other type of institution that offers food service, there is a management team. This team is basically comprised of the general manager, an assistant to the manager and the executive chef.

Responsibilities of the Management Team

The general manager is responsible for monitoring the overall flow of the operation. The manager looks at every minute detail concerning the food service rendered, the employees’ performance, as well as the financial aspects of the business.

The assistant manager is tasked to go over everything from the kitchen, dining, utility and security operations. The assistant manager reports the progress of the operation to the general manager.

The executive chef handles all food preparation actions. This involves the operations in the kitchen, planning of the daily menus and the maintenance of effective food service management.

Qualities of a Good Food Service Manager

A food service manager is punctual and is the first to arrive and the last one to leave.

A food service manager must be able do handle multi-tasking activities. The manager sees to it that every thing is in order from the kitchen, the banquet area, up to the food, utensils and linen supplies and assists the executive chef in planning out menus.

A food service manager has to communicate effectively and handle clients and operational negotiations. It is a must that a manager is endowed with diverse communication skills in dealing with customers, as well as the employees.

A manager has to be firm and just with decisions. Managers confer with applicants, hire and train employees and when needed, fire them.

Apart from the traditional duties heaped upon a food service manager, keeping of records, tallying cash and administering promotional advertisements for the restaurant are additional duties.

The food service industry is escalating in popularity. Many individuals dine out. Be it a fine-dining experience, fast food or banquet services, customers demand good food, service and prices.

Team meetings – just about every team in every industry in the world has them, but just how beneficial are they? A team meeting can be a motivational, morale boosting session where everybody gets to share what they are doing. A great forum for new ideas, a powerful way of working together to solve problems, identify better ways of working, and a fast and effective way to cascade management information down. But when managed or timed badly, it is unproductive drain on your team’s time.

Team meetings have a cost – make it count

Whether it is an hour once a week or ten minutes every day, a recruitment team meeting has a cost to your recruitment company in terms of the time every member of the team spends doing it. Multiply the average hourly rate of every person present by the number of people there and you’ll have an idea of what that cost is, but of course, this doesn’t take into account that your team isn’t billing for the business because they are in a meeting room instead of placing candidates. Appreciate that cost, and make sure that the value the team gets from the meetings is worth it. Think of your recruiter meetings as an investment rather than a cost.

Know what your team think

Do your team think that the current format of your team meetings is beneficial, or do they see it as an annoying thing that they have to go to that takes them away from their work?

Your team may not be too ready to criticise the way things are done in front of you. If you ask for some honest feedback about the way your team meets and shares information and encourage them to tell you what they really think, you may find that they don’t currently feel like the meetings help them. Alternatively, they may really enjoy the meetings, but for different reasons than you might have thought. Good team meetings are about sharing ideas and giving everybody input, so the planning of the meetings should also reflect what everybody wants.

Time management

What time you have your meeting should suit the style of the meeting. If it is a fast update meeting designed to share information and get everybody fired up and ready to go, then first thing in the morning is ideal. If it is a more relaxed weekly session where you celebrate some achievements and discuss some new ideas, then this can be a good way to use that last hour on a Friday afternoon when people tend to be at their least productive and clients are harder to track down. Whatever you do, make sure that your meetings never cut into the prime calling time for reaching people in your recruitment sector, and also that you keep an eye on the clock and don’t allow them to overrun. If this happens all the time, you are either losing control of the meetings or you need to make the actual sessions longer.

Affiliate marketing is a program that pays individuals for their marketing efforts. In these programs affiliates set up an advertising campaign to get others to a certain website, and for this they get a commission based on the amount of web traffic that they generate.

While this is the most common of the affiliate programs out there, some companies instead rely on a system of multi-tier programs that work a little bit differently. In this system the affiliates are based on a network of categorized by the affiliates and sub-partners that are underneath you. Doing this will result in the primary affiliate getting some form of commission for each sub-partner that they sign up as well as commission on their own web advertising efforts.

If you are in this kind of hierarchical network, then it might benefit you to get multi-tier affiliate software. This software will help you to find a way in which you can set up a connecting network between your various affiliates so that you can operate your business in an efficient and streamlines manner that will help to cut back on confusion.

Some people may not realize this, but you can even use the affiliate software to create different affiliate programs within the various tiers that you are operating. This is important because it will help you to not only keep track of your advertising efforts, but also those of the people who are based underneath you. Because running a multi-tiered affiliate program can be something that is difficult to keep track of on your own. Having this software works to make sure that you are doing everything you can to keep track of it all.

Most of these multi-tier affiliate software programs on the market have the ability for you to customize the software so that you can discover and keep track of certain fields of information from your advertisers. This will also help you to make sure that the correct amount of commission is being paid to each individual that is working on the tiers beneath you, thus working to eliminate any further confusion and make it much easier to conduct your affiliate business on a professional level.

The manager’s job is primarily that of leadership and being able to take, subordinates or employees to a place of productivity where they would be afraid to go themselves. Management of resources and leadership of people is an art and there are various skills that are required. Ordinary managers think that just because someone has been given a job description and key result areas they will perform. That is a fallacy. As a manager you can delegate duties but you still remain the custodian of performance.

I identify ten skills that are required of the modern day manager.

1. Effective managers understand the role of directing people’s activities and duties to the attainment of a specific desired result.

2. They realize the importance of making decisions that solve problems before they develop into a crisis. They realize that hesitation and procrastination are the “stealers” of productivity and profit.

3. The effective manager knows when and where to cultivate control. His leadership is based on forming the right relationships and influencing others and does not always need to invoke formal authority to accomplish a task. He instills the discipline he requires in those he leads by setting an effective example.

4. He does not indulge himself in short – term thinking but he rather focuses on planning and longer term thinking because that is what leaders do. They see far ahead of others.

5. He identifies and removes obstacles stopping his team from performing. He does not turn a blind eye to the fact that there are resource constraints whenever one is trying to achieve something but he ensures that there is adequate provision for the fulfillment of the company’s vision.

6. The effective manager is not just focused on his key result areas. It his mandate to provide mentorship and leadership to his team. He strengthens those who are weak and encourages the top performers to unleash their greatness.

7. He realizes that the ability to articulate issues is crucial to his success therefore he works on polishing his presentation, persuasion and public speaking skills.

8. He does not believe for a moment that charisma is something you are endowed with at birth, but instead he works on developing his charisma.

9. The effective manager is transformational. He embraces, change, cultures change and seeks to leave things ten times better than they were before.

10. He sees things not as they are but as they ought to be.

Managers for the future need to be people that are continuously working on self development. With rapid change in the environment they work in managers cannot afford to have a business as usual approach.

Crisis as the name implies is that period when peace is out and even degenerating into abnormalities. When this occurs one will thinks of one vital issue and that is bringing it from abnormalities to normalcy.

One of the greatest traits of a great leader is crisis management because in an environment of crisis every others activities standstill and thereby bringing a lot of degenerating factors that are inimical to progress, one of the factor is fear and when there is fear nothing works and where there is no progressive activities poverty stagnation malnourishment downgrading idea might set in and this will amount to vicious cycle of poverty; that is while every hands must be on desk to manage crisis so as not to result into abnormalities.

Be that as it may, we have got leaders that govern this nation Nigeria right from its inception I mean from the period of amalgamation till date and we have not see a man that manage crisis than the former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, he has written his name in Gold as best crisis manager of the century not only in Nigeria, not only in Africa, but globally and in hundred years to come, can we see a man that can managed crisis like this, real Kudos to DR GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN that have made the whole nation to be at peace even as I speak through this medium.

From inception of his administration he encounter a lot of challenges particularly issues of insecurity and to the best of my knowledge he has been managing this crisis and one should known; has it been not the calmness of the former president who displayed a lot of maturity in handing many issues it would have degenerate to something else.

As if that is not enough, one will thinks of the nation created by God Almighty of passing through such crisis at this stage of her political history.

it will amaze you in the course of this political experiment we are experiencing this time, I wonder where millions of Nigerian would have been if not this man EBELE JONATHAN that maintain statusquo of calmness. In this regard men and women that love peace will ever remained grateful to this God fearing man.

As if that is not enough, the former president also change the political history of Nigeria to a better one and we can best be compared to a developed society that had ever remained a balancing point as far as politics is concern. For the first time in Nigeria political history that a sitting president conceded defeat and took a phone to congratulate the opponent.

What could have result to this if not hundred percent (100%) man of God looking at it from that perspective of milkness.

The legacy of former president goodluck jonathan are indeed a multiple one and truly reformist on the part of moral, justice, fare play are indeed against the syndrome of man inhumanity to man and it is a legacy every generation must look up to both the present and the future generations.

However, the electoral process got its maturity and has leave it embryonic stage through the idea of the former president by approving the used of card reader and has really enhance a true harmonious political environment, the political stability created by the former president also got a credit from environmentalist who embrace nature as nature will ever be grateful to this God-fearing man – Goodluck EBELE JONATHAN.

ln the final analysis, the former president by nature is rare to found in the history of mankind and in the history of Nigeria and even in the global scene- GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN is written in gold in first of its kind to see a man that congratulate his opponent before the final result was announced all to managed crisis. This legacy will ever remain green in the memory of the present and the future generations.

Patrick Eromonsele

Is the CEO

Ostrich Business Venture

+234(0)8133405887

+234(0)8174322488

Email: patrickeromonsele@aol.com

The reasons for assigning a project manager role to an individual from within an organisation are sound ones – knowledge of the company, its products and people should by no means be underestimated. But whether that person has the necessary skills to lead a project is not always taken into account and there can be just as many problems with promoting internally as in hiring an unknown, but experienced, person from a different organisation who has specifically chosen this profession.

In fact, does the person interviewing for the role even know which attributes to look out for in the potential candidates? The skills and attributes required by a truly competent project manager are wide and varied and go far beyond the qualifications they may possess. The attitude, personality and soft skills of the candidate must also be considered but this is often difficult to assess accurately at interview.

So, within an organisation, many people still drift into the role or have it thrust upon them because of the growing need within businesses for people to control the work, the budget and the time of the many projects being initiated. Those promoted internally tend to come from a purely managerial background or a purely technical background and often lack the skills and competencies required to manage a complex project successfully. So along with the boom in projects has come a boom in the need for training so that these individuals can acquire the necessary skills.

Project management is still a relatively new profession but increasingly, as in established professions such as law or accountancy, professional credentials are available to provide recognition for stages, achievements and milestones on this career path.

Many of these relatively recent accreditations recognise (and, indeed, demand) practical experience so they avoid the problems associated with some project management courses where candidates gain a theoretical knowledge of processes and techniques, but lack the practical experience required to fully understand the realities of a real project environment. Because of the considerable effort required to attain these credentials, they are also indicative of a desire to continue within the profession.

The personality traits of an individual are those innate characteristics that are difficult to teach and to learn, yet are key factors in the success of a project. Personal values and motivation also contribute to a project’s success or failure.

Skills, or competencies, on the other hand can be taught and learned – project management, as with many roles, has a basic set of skills required to perform the role effectively, which include attributes such as:

• ability to lead a team
• composure
• motivation
• conscientiousness
• management of expectations
• problem solving

Many of these attributes only come to the fore when an individual is exposed to an opportunity or experience (such as a formal training course) that enables them to be learnt. Standard definitions of core competencies are published by organisations such as the PMI and their PMP Certification is widely accepted as recognition of professional competence. For those new to project management the APM Introductory Certificate is a good first place to start your training. So project manager by choice or not – perhaps it is innate attributes and opportunities in training and experience that define success, or not.

We have been sharing some learning from Procter & Gamble based on my 23 years building brands and businesses with them. The most recent articles have focused on brands, branding and product positioning. This article provides an outline of how P&G creates their positioning strategies for their brands. You may also know this as the Copy Strategy or the Advertising Strategy or the Branding Strategy, in addition to the Positioning Strategy. This is important since in many cases the support of the brand goes beyond just the advertising.

A Brand Positioning Strategy identifies the basis upon which we expect our brand to be purchased in preference to competition. The content emerges directly from the product or service and the basic consumer need that it is intended to fill. It should state clearly the basic benefit which the brand promises and which constitutes the principal basis for purchase. It should also include a statement of the product characteristics that make this benefit possible and the tone or character that is desired to be built for the brand.

This will provide direction for the basic message of the brand which should remain consistent across all communication vehicles, although the execution of the message may change. It is inherently competitive since it is the basis for preference vs. competition.

Developing the Strategy through use of the Creative Work Plan

Start at the top and work down through the rest of the elements.

1 Key Fact

A single piece of known information relating to the brand which is agreed to be the leading factor influencing or describing the brand performance. It may be information about the brand itself, the competition, the customer, innovation etc. but it must be a single fact.

2 Problem the advertising must solve

This is a consumer problem. It describes the awareness, perception or behavior of the prospective user which has resulted in the Key Fact and which we wish to change.

3 Advertising Objective

Usually, simply the counterpart to the problem, although there are a great many distinct options. Eg “Persuade consumers to try my brand” Or “use more of my brand.” Or “use my brand in a different way.” Persuade them that my brand is a viable alternative to brand x”.

4 Strategy

a) Prospect Definition

Both demographics and psychographics.

b) Principal Competition.

Not just a list of competitors but a description of the segment from which we wish to obtain business

c) Promise

The single most persuasive agreement one can advance for the brand framed with the customer and the competition in mind.

d) Reason Why

The strongest piece of support for the promise. Occasionally there may be more than one piece of support but never a list

e) Tone/Character

The tone that messages should convey to provide personality to the message and bring it alive. This is not executional.

As you can see, the format is very simple. However, like everything at Procter & Gamble, the use of the simple tool is handled by experts in the field. That is what makes the tool so effective.

If you would like to have the benefits of this simple tool support your brand or your business and contact us. We would be happy to assist you.

Thanks.

John

IT managers understand that they are responsible for conducting performance appraisals with their team every so often. What many IT managers don’t realize is that they are also responsible for what comes next: coaching…

What Is Coaching And Why Do You Have To Do It?

Coaching is not managing. Instead, it’s a two-way activity in which you work with your team member to help them improve in some very specific way.

Your coaching activities are based on a goal that a member of your team wants to achieve. This goal was identified during the employee’s performance review; however, as their manager you realize that they are not going to be able to achieve this goal by themselves.

This is where coaching comes in. When you are engaged in coaching, you are sharing your experiences and knowledge with your employee in order to show them how they can accomplish their goal. A critical part of coaching is that the employee must want to be coached – you can never force someone to accept your coaching input.

The benefits of coaching when done correctly are immense. An employee’s job satisfaction and motivation can skyrocket when they feel that they are getting personalized attention from you. Additionally, by spending the time with an employee coaching them, you may be preparing them to take on management responsibilities later on.

How Does An IT Manager Coach Their Staff?

The first step in starting to coach an employee is to take the time to observe their actions. The goal of doing this is to allow you to understand what strengths and weaknesses they currently have.

You should also carefully watch how they interact with their coworkers. Taking some of these coworkers aside and finding out what they think of the employee who will be coached can also reveal important insights.

Your next step has to be to sit down and have a discussion with the employee. The purpose of this discussion will be to share with them the results of your observations.

You must be careful to make sure that everything that you say is based on what you saw. You’ll want to describe the behaviors that you saw and what their impacts were.

During this type of discussion what you hear from the employee will be more important than what you say. You need to work very carefully to be an active listener.

When you are an active listener you must maintain eye contact with the employee and repeat what they’ve just said in order to make sure that you hear them correctly. These types of behaviors will show the employee that you are interested in what they have to say.

During a coaching session you also have to be asking the right questions. By asking questions you are showing the employee that you are interested in what they have to say and want more information from them.

When you ask a question, you want to ask an open-ended question. This type of question can’t be answered by a simple “yes” or “no” – it requires a more detailed response from your employee.

Finally, the result of any coaching session needs to be an action plan. This is a plan that you and the employee come up with that will allow them to achieve their goal. This type of plan does not always have to be written down, but it should be created by the employee and it should contain clear goals and a timeframe that both of you agree to.

What Does All Of This Mean For You?

Good IT managers understand that their responsibility to develop their staff includes coaching the team members who need extra assistance to become better. By taking the time to coach team members, IT managers can help them both improve their job performance as well as boost their job satisfaction.

In order to be an effective coach, an IT manager needs to start by taking the time to observe what the employee is doing right and where improvements are needed. Next discussing what needs to be done with the employee and doing a good job of listening is what will allow a plan of action to be created. Finally coaching can occur as you use the information that you’ve collected to offer constructive feedback.

Coaching is one of the most important tasks that you’ll do as an IT manager. Take the time to study how to do it right, and you’ll have developed the skills that you need to turn a good team into a great team.

Whether you’re a music manager or an aspiring musician, I believe you should always hope for the best when you sign your music management contract. After all, your partnership signals the beginning of some very great things. With lots of hard work and a little time, a manager and a musician can accomplish a lot together.

Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. The reality is that even successful musicians don’t always stay with the manager that brought them to the first big break in their careers. Managers and clients often separate when a record label demands that a signed act bring in experienced supervision before cutting an advance check. Other times, managers that are tremendously effective for clients in their home region can get stretched too far when their clients start touring nationally. And, in the worst cases, managers and clients start behaving poorly towards each other after a personal dispute.

Whatever the reason for a split between a music manager and an artist, both parties must protect themselves from exploitation by adopting a “sunset clause” in their music management contract. A sunset clause recognizes the contribution that a manager has made to an artist’s career, while leaving the door open for artists to effectively void their agreement and work with other professional advisers.

In most cases, the “sunset” refers to the amount of commission paid to a manager over the two years after a split. Most music industry professionals agree that it can take two years for a band and their new management to put a new strategy in place. Therefore, a sunset clause typically grants the old manager full commission for six months following the split, stepped down by a third every six months until the former manager no longer can claim a commission.

Without a sunset clause, a band could split with their management and still find themselves liable for paying commissions of twenty percent or more for a period of up to seven years. Some unscrupulous managers sign deals with clients, only to perform no duties and sue for management commissions. On the other hand, an effective manager can use the sunset clause to recoup their investment of time and money when a client becomes successful enough to warrant signing on with a larger, more experienced management team. The sunset clause forces both parties to take their relationship seriously, while allowing for the possibility that a band and their manager might grow apart before the end of their traditional seven-year contract term.

Projects that focus on the needs of the customer generally have more successful outcomes than those that focus on the product itself. So the desire to keep a client happy is paramount to most project managers – they know that the client will have to sign-off on the completed project and if they are not satisfied with the end-result then the project will not be deemed a success.

But on the other hand a project manager also has to keep a tight grip on finances and the project schedule, which naturally means controlling requests for change. If the scope of the project starts to diverge substantially from the original requirements then the client may be happy with the end product but they will certainly not be happy with the budget and/or time over-run.

So how does a project manager put the client’s needs first when they want to change details of the project part-way through the schedule but still manage to deliver a quality product on budget, on time and within scope?

Project managers regularly face this challenge and their skills in managing people, budgets, schedules and deadlines are all vital at such times.

Clients do not always appreciate the consequences of a seemingly simple change. When a change is requested once the project is already in progress it can be much more costly to implement than if it had been built in at an earlier stage. Project plans usually have many tasks running in parallel and often have complicated inter-dependencies so any change can result in huge risk to the successful completion of the project.

But it would be naive to assume that change never happens in a project or that requested changes are always trivial to implement, which is, of course, why change management is considered such an important part of a project and the ultimate responsibility of the project manager. Project managers who are used to dealing face-to-face with clients know that it is simply not acceptable to turn down a change request without an extremely good reason that can be backed up with facts.

More usually the project managers will accept the change in order to show that they are cooperative and flexible and putting the clients needs first. But in order to mitigate the effect of the requested change they will need to have a good project management process in place and the best project managers will often try and negotiate a compromise within the new request to reduce its impact on the whole project or trade off the new requirements with one of a lower priority that was already factored into the plan.

So what is the best way to implement a change control process?

Firstly, it is important that right from the start of the project everyone involved is aware that any change in requirements must be documented through a formal change request.

Every change request submitted should then be reviewed to ensure that those changes that are really necessary or desirable are actually approved. The purpose of the process is not to prevent change but to control it so that it does not jeopardise the success of the project. Requested changes are often the result of ideas that have arisen only as a result of seeing progress in a project in reality. Many people find it hard to think completely in the abstract or to relate fully to drawings, models or prototypes so it is important to recognise that many change requests will result in a better final product.

It is, of course, also important to be able to distinguish between a change that will enhance the end-product and one that is inappropriate and will only serve to delay delivery of the final product.

So a change request has been submitted and reviewed and deemed to be worth investigating further. The next step is to produce an estimate of how long the change will take to implement and how this will affect the existing schedule, and also to weigh up the advantages of making the change with respect to the disadvantages. All of these steps should be documented and discussed with the client.

If it is agreed that the change should go ahead it is important to agree, at the same time, any increase in budget or extension of the completion date as part of the formal agreement to the change. If no additional time or funds can be allocated and the client still requires the change then this is the time to negotiate a trade-off with another, less important task.

In many businesses new ideas can be formed and developed rapidly so resistance to change is never an option. Instead, to remain competitive an organisation and its project managers must be able to deal with changes in projects in an efficient way. This is why change management processes are vital for the delivery of successful projects and why change management is usually part of the project management training undertaken by those responsible for complex projects.

Change is a fact of life in most projects, but how it is controlled and managed is critical to the success of the project and to a satisfied client.