From: Kayayetta Dukes To: Lana Lincoln Subject: Self Evaluation January 17th 2012 Dear Mrs. Lincoln, Here is my yearly self-evaluation report about the managerial decisions I have made regarding the restaurant’s employee retention issues we face. As we have previously discussed at meetings our employee retention ratio to turnover is fairly poor for a restaurant. I think many establishments face this challenge of retaining good employees and there are several reasons that are to blame for the high ratio.
I feel if we didn’t implement these criteria it would snowball and grow into bigger problems so it seemed a no brainer to waste no time in starting this makeover. I’ve come up with a game plan to drastically reduce our turnover rate so we can focus on other issues that warrant our attention in the process of making the restaurant number 1 in all aspects possible. Our major issue at the restaurant is that our employee retention rate is around 15% which leaves our turnover rate at an out of control 85%. With most of our employees being constantly replaced its hard for our staff to have a sense of cohesion, team pride, and stability.
My criteria with this challenge was to create a sense of loyalty with the staff, make them feel like they are a part of a big family; show them that this job can be a long-term career and that we want to promote from within. Weighing these criteria helps me figure which are most important in reaching our overall goal of reducing our turnover rate. The numeric value of 5 will count as most vital in accomplishing our goal and 1 will represent the criteria that can be put on the back burner until the 5’s are implemented and in force. Communicate managements’ goal to promote from within 5 * Reward full-time and part-time employees for length of service 1 * Team-building exercises once a month 1 * Create an employee suggestion box 5 * Revamp scheduling to create more convenience 5 Although I feel strongly about my above solutions I’ve created a few alternatives that could possibly work just as well. My first alternative idea would be to mandate training classes for all employees. This plan would include training on customer service skills, teamwork strategies, and personal growth.
Another alternative would be to mandate employee events to reward good service and promote togetherness. My final solution would be to crack down on the team with serious consequences for being late, missing shifts, or receiving customer complaints. This method would consist of writing repeat offenders up and firing them after so many to show we want to employ and keep worthy employees and we will not tolerate less. To rate these alternatives I used a score of 10 for the best and a 5 for the ones that I have reservations about. * Mandated training classes for all employees. 10 Mandated after work employee events to promote team cohesion. 5 * Rid the restaurant of employees who aren’t doing a good job. 5 I carefully considered these alternatives before making the optimal decision of sticking with the original plan plus including the first alternative to have a fail proof way of getting a serious hold on our retention rate. I did encounter problems completing the challenge though. This included resistance from employees who were reluctant with accepting change. Also we had issues with scheduling for additional trainings and after work events to work on team cohesion.
I overcame these hurdles by making the trainings available more days to accomidate more employees without conflict, we created the suggestion box and also are now taking a majority vote for the monthly reward meeting in which we will have an open forum about issues that have risen in the previous month as well as to cover progress and future expectations. In conclusion, this project has been widely successful in just these few short months. Our team is working more cohesively and taking teamwork to a whole other level.
The suggestion box has been filling up and we have been addressing concerns of our employees which have made them feel their opinion is not only important but wanted. This in return is creating more loyal enthusiastic and eager workers whom are giving great customer service to our guests. I hope you are as satisfied as I am in the team and see the overall difference and growth. Sincerely Floor Manager Kay Dukes Reference: Bazerman, M. H. , & Moore, D. A. (2010). Judgment in Managerial decision making (6th ed. ). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.