13 Know your labour/wage cost and stay accountable
The second key number to control is your wage cost. This is an
exercise which needs to be done daily – not something that you
chance upon at the end of the year or even the month. You need a
realistic view daily and weekly.
Many operators live in a dream world where they simply won’t take
full account of the real cost of employees. They look at the hourly
wage and take that as the true cost. You need to factor in employee
national insurance and holidays. That’s more than 20% before you
even get started or consider sick pay and other issues. Be utterly,
utterly realistic about this and do not allow yourself to be fooled.
Watch clock-in procedures like a hawk and be very aggressive
about malpractice. They must clock themselves in. Make it a
dismissible offence in your contract to disobey this rule. Any clock-
in errors must be dealt with immediately and clearly.
Make sure they know that there is always something to be done.
Standing around doing nothing is not acceptable. If it’s quiet you
should consider training floor staff to do a bit of kitchen prep or
some deep cleaning. Always have a list with “things to do when it’s
quiet” available so that there is no excuse.
And if you are overstaffed don’t be embarrassed to ask some of your
employees if they want to go home. You can’t force them (in most
situations) but you may find that some of them have other things
they need to get done at home.
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