A discussion is proposed from the experience of chains to the White House to country clubs and resorts - how NOT to waste valuable time in operations.

1. New Technology and How to
Waste Salaried Employees Time
Martin CJ Mongiello
CEC, MCFE, CPFM, CHM

2. Martin CJ Mongiello
When you’d like to throw away money then give a $60,000.00 a year,
Manager, an $8.00 an hour job and get nice and angry when things don’t
work out.
A lot of inexperienced managers spend too much time in self defeating rage
spirals over the latest Executive Chef that they just hired. These managers
typically have a point of sale system installed such as Squirrel, Micros or
Jonas and a number of the back of the house functions have been enabled.
Some of them use Chef-Tec.
Part of the reason for the anger is the fact that somebody who wears a white
chef’s coat can get paid so much money. This typically can get them started
in the wrong direction every day they get out of bed. Armed with this
resentment they then believe that all of the money invested into the POS
system should be used.
Recently visiting a Country Club where this was the case - it was noticed
once again. The resentment towards Executive Chefs commanding good
wages is childish and immature – especially when you look at the number of
hours that are typically worked in the job position – 60 to 100 per week in
high season and 60 to 80 hours per week in the low season.
The fact that the POS system should be used is actually very good. POS In
the back of the house can crunch food costs and keep a menu up to date by
the hour. Labor can be quickly analyzed and overtime wages prevented
easily. One can easily establish high and low limits to trigger alarms.
For instance, let’s say the General Manager comes in and asks the Food and
Beverage Director ( F & B) for food costs on ten items off of a 150 item
menu. Before the F & B can get a chance to answer, she relies is that there
has been food deliveries this morning of probably 400 different line items.
Judging from how busy the chef has been in the kitchen - the probability of
him having had the time to sit down and type in the latest food costs for each
item is slim to none!
And that is where the mistake begins. Everybody wants POS and related
software to be affected and efficient to provide usefulness to the operation.
However, Having a $60,000.00 year shaft sit in his office for five hours
typing in the latest receipt prices is a complete waste of money – when it
comes to evaluating the price per hour that you are not only paying the
Friday, January 15, 2010 2

3. Martin CJ Mongiello
individual – but consider they lost the amount of time held in the operation
that he is not present.
It is for this reason that it is highly recommended to have a minimum wage
worker sitting in the office doing nothing but:
1. Menu typing
2. Email answering
3. New food supplies ordering based off of instructions from the chef –
phone time can be up and kill the chefs at hours instead of being
present in the kitchen with instruction, coaching, mentoring and
examining items coming off of the line.
4. Inventories and crawling around storerooms for two days counting
boxes one of the time and jars of spices. In no way does this mean the
Executive Chef is off the hook for responsibility.
5. The answering the phone and taking messages.
6. Typing in the latest prices on stacks and stacks of receipts.
7. Typing up last minute daily specials that the front of the house has
asked for three times already!
These generalize duties can completely eat up a chef’s time as it is related to
POS and all back of the house functions.
At no time does the Executive Chef get relieved of responsibility! However,
judging from the things that were liked and disliked about POS during the
visit – it pretty well matches up to over 30 years of experience. Which has
been the same old thing, A senior manager who’s angry and jealous over the
amount of money being paid - figures, “to heck with him – let him wriggle
and squirm all over the floor. Soon enough he’ll crack and everyone knows,
we can just bring somebody else in.”
This type of behavior and attitude towards and operation is extremely
detrimental to the flow and financial success of a country club. Stability and
excellence in mature leadership has always lead to highly successful and
financially sound operations. In fact, it can be noticed that the most
successful clubs do not go through managers every three to four years and
do not go through chefs every couple of years.
Friday, January 15, 2010 3

4. Martin CJ Mongiello
If you’re looking for signs of poorly to ship in the business world – one only
needs to take a look at the history of their own country club that they are a
member of.
Success in business within the professional world led a group of people to
open up a club – the same success should be evident. There is no excuse For
lackluster performance on the P & L statement and human beings are not to
be listed on the Liability side of the ledger – good and happy humans are
assets!!!
Carroll, Charles. Leadership Lessons From a Chef: Finding Time to Be Great. Wiley,
2007
Cullen, N. C. The world of culinary supervision, training, and management. Prentice
Hall, 2000
Huo, Y. H. “Information technology and the performance of the restaurant firms.”
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. 1998: 239
Scornavacca, E. and Prasad, M. and Lehmann, H. “Exploring the organisational impact
and perceived benefits of wireless Personal Digital Assistants in restaurants.”
International Journal of Mobile Communications. 2006: 558--567}
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