This section is dedicated to all the hard working employees who don’t get ANY recognition at all.
Employers! What are you thinking? You’ll lose your more valuable asset – your employees – if you don’t take positive action!
- The Cake– Going into one of my favorite eateries, I noticed that there was not a familiar face. The entire staff had changed! Alarmed, I asked where everyone that I had enjoyed for the last 4 years had gone… answer: “they couldn’t take it anymore!”. I asked about recognition, answer: “none”. I asked about benefits and here is the story: let’s call this upscale place the The Cheesey Factory, for short I’ll nickname it “The Cake”. At The Cake the employees are told to overstate their tips, so the restaurant doesn’t get audited. So many times, the server states that they get substantially more tips than they actually did. In fact, their base pay is so puny that after paying taxes on the tips they have no base left at all. What happens next is that the deduction for health benefits cannot be made and several servers have lost their hard-won health insurance this summer. Wow! They must work 6 days / week to qualify for health benefits at The Cake so when I say “hard-won” I am not kidding. There are several other pranks and ploys this company uses to cause the servers/cooks to not qualify for insurance. Servers in restaurants often deal with lousy employment practices. However, honesty and basic values are missing here. And employee recognition for working at this establishment [many have been here for 3 or 4 years!] is totally lacking. Turnover is very high. We know why, don’t we!?!
- What can we do? Wait staff works so hard, and with the economy in a downturn their tips are reduced substantially. Here is a suggestion from a server in our area: rather than reduce your tip to an attentive server, could you consider having a less expensive meal or one less glass of wine?? Many servers pay their basic bills from their tips – and surprisingly many customers are choosing to NOT TIP or tip at 5-10% in the places they regularly go. Consider, that everyone is affected by this downturn. And your tip for good service may be essential to the server’s wellbeing.
Team members really enjoy a cheerful work environment. If your workplace is a Hall of Shame….. please read this as ….. a lousy place to work…. then it may take some great efforts to overcome the bad feelings. But it is worth it. Keep trying to improve and put FISH! on your reading list right away!