by Erica Michaelson

Created on: August 14, 2010   Last Updated: September 25, 2010

Why follow up is important to your business

Do you lack good follow up with your staff? Managers somehow make this mistake often! Setting goals, and even implementing action steps is not enough to achieve optimal results. Follow through is the key to successful management.

For instance, without the crucial follow up with their workers or with daily tasks, the business operation can quickly get off track, precious losing time and money. Lack of following up will eventually drag the business down.

Without following up, you will not obtain optimal results! For example; in your restaurant, some of the key areas that causing late ticket times during lunch service, were directly a result of poor follow up on the part of the manager.

When managers give direction to an employee, especially a new staff member, checking back on progress is imperative for a few reasons. First, if the employee is facing an obstacle, you can help them to overcome it early on, and not discover the problem when it can cause a delay in service. In addition, every employee requires an ample opportunity to receive feedback from you. This is where standards are set, and how your vision is communicated!

When the on duty manager directs the new cook to prep 15 orders of stir fry for the daily service, a simple follow up to that direction may have prevented the 15 one pound bags the cook produced. This not only wasted precious labor costs and prep time, it also caused lunch service delays, and wasted precious food!

Even the most experienced employees require follow up. It is one way in which the manager can assess performance. Everyone can slide off track now and then. When a manager has great follow up skills, it reinforces and safeguards that standards are adhered to.

A restaurant manager’s lack of follow through will carry throughout the operation. It will be obvious in the quality of the food, the lack of cleanliness of the business, and in the attitude of the staff. A simple act of follow through allows the manager to make adjustments In real time, and head off any furtherance of the problem.

Business is about people! Invest your time in following up, to insure optimum standards, and enhance the ability to achieve success! Never forget the basics, and to exercise duties that give you the capability to achieve goals, and operate a great restaurant.

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