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General Management

 

 Sexual Harassment

For owners, managers and employees, the most important thing is documentation. Document, document, document! Unfortunately, some innocent people now have been taken to court for harassment. People working with other people now need to be more careful then ever in what they say and do.
An example:  an owner I had worked for a few years ago was a touchy feely huggy person with a heart of gold. A pat on the back or a big hug after a job well done was typical with him. His touchiness was never inappropriate and all of his employees loved him because we felt like he loved us and treated us like his family.

One fall we had a new waitress come to work at the restaurant. She only worked at the restaurant for several weeks and then quit suddenly one day and we didn't hear from her again for several months. When next we heard from her it was an invitation to appear in court to testify that our boss was a sexual harasser. We were all floored. We did appear in court and testified for him that his touchiness had never been sexual and this woman had obviously misunderstood. Evidently at the job this lady had before she started working with us, she did have to deal with a sexual harasser and was unable to tell the difference. Our boss was cleared of the charges but his reputation was now besmirched as the suit had been in all of the local papers. Our boss had to really think about his actions after that to see if they could possibly be misconstrued.
This is not to say that most harassment is innocent. For the most part people are too afraid to come forward and report it for fear of getting fired or retaliation. It will not stop unless help is sought. If you are being sexually harassed or know someone who is, please consider that the person doing the harassing is not new to this, it has happened before and will continue to happen again unless something is done. Think beyond the fact that even if you leave or the person that is being harrassed leaves, that does not make the problem go away and that person will make someone else's life a living hell in the future unless he or she is reported.

Men who are harassed in the industry are generally too afraid to say anything about being harassed, so much of that area goes unreported. I have heard countless stories (and seen some firsthand) of waiters getting harrassed by the head waiter or a cute young cook getting come on to by the owner's wife. Harassment is not limited to men abusing women, it crosses age and gender lines. It is not a laughing matter and whether the person is male or female it is still sexual harassment and it needs to be reported.


 Employee theft of product

Employee theft is a very big issue and can be very difficult to deal with in the industry. It can also bankrupt a restaurant very quickly; for more information see the article on monetary theft. Theft of product generally occurs when employees feel they are “owed”,i.e.
“I don't get paid enough for all the work I do and all the hassle I put up with”, so they take product to make up for it.

Treating your employees well and letting them know you value them will cut down on the vast majority of this casual theft. Other employee theft also runs along the lines of not being aware that the piece of pie that they are snacking on without asking or paying for adds up. An employee who eats two small packages of snack crackers every shift he or she works is suddenly costing you an extra $12.00 a week.

Theft of high end items, high priced meats, liquors and wines is very common and is definitely done deliberately. Generally done by managers or employees who are alone on a shift is a high factor in this type of crime. Employees who are alone on shift know that most restaurants don't have security cameras or measures in place to deal with theft.  They don't think anything of slipping that bottle of Jack Daniels into their pack because who's going to prove they took it and they felt “owed.”

Unscrupulous management gets away with this much more easily; they are the ones with the keys and often the ones doing the inventory. It's not very difficult for them to put down on inventory that they have 15 cases of Iron Horse Merlot and 16 on hand and then bring home a case.

Another very good reason to spot check your inventory, most thefts of this nature are not found until the employee in question no longer works at the establishment and your new bar manager does an inventory and informs you that you are short 10 cases or wine and 2 of hard liquor. This kind of employee theft is very hard to prove after the fact unless you can catch them red handed.



 Dealing with employee theft

Dealing with this issue can be the most difficult and sometimes heart breaking thing to deal with for the employer. Your most trusted employee of 12 years was caught redhanded taking beef tenderloins out to her car and it turns out this has been happening for many years.

The point that you have potentially lost thousands of dollars through this person's ongoing theft can many times be overshadowed by the fact that you feel betrayed; you can't figure out “why” she did this.

Many times it comes down to the common factor of employees not being valued and compensated for their hard work. For example, this employee may have seen you give raises to people that she may have felt were less deserving and worked less hard than she herself did; she may be right. After seeing this happen many times, a resentfulness may build up which is the longterm effect; she felt like she was “owed”.

I cannot stress enough; to treat your employees well and value them.  In turn you will get honest and better workers. Be honest with your employees and let them know about finding theft in the workplace. Don't be afraid to call the police into investigate the theft; that's what they are there for so use them. It's better to hold the threat of having the police in then to have to search their bags on the way out after every shift. Doing this just makes the people who do thievery wilier and harder to catch.



 Dealing with employee monetary theft

This can occur with any employee, management, regular staff, or inhouse bookkeepers who are notorious at getting away with “cooking” the books. When dealing with consumable products like you do in the restaurant industry, it's fairly easy to cook the books if you know what you are doing.

Wait staff can take money a variety of ways,  including shorting the change given to a customer, because many people don't count their change, they just pocket it. They also can have two sets of checks.

An example is: one check is used for ordering and the order is given to the kitchen or bar; the other check is given to the cashier or manager. A waiter may take an order for three Seagram's on the rocks at $6.00 a drink; the bar produces three drinks and the table gets served and ultimately billed for the three drinks. The cashier and manager end up with a check that says the table ordered two drinks and the extra $6.00 gets pocketed.

The same thing can happen with appetizers or desserts because unlike entrees not everyone at a table will order one. The two ways to cut down on this are to have a POS (Point of Sale) run operation where all orders go through the computer or if you are a paper only establishment, have a paper trail, where all orders to the kitchen or bar get saved instead of being thrown away at the end of the night; match those slips up to the checks at the end of the night or on a weekly basis.



 Helpful Related Links

Some great tips on checking references and some valuable information on questions to ask when inquiring about them.