Blanket
October 6, 2022
Sam Sinha
keeping standards high when you can’t be everywhere at once
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The hardest part of managing a multi-location restaurant group is keeping standards high when you can’t be everywhere at once.
You don’t just need eyes in the back of your head, you need a pair in every kitchen, dining room, storeroom, and walk-in refrigerator.
Not only should you keep an eye on what’s going on. But it’s also tough to keep all your employees motivated and engaged if you’re spread too thin.
Restaurant task management software gives you the ability to run multiple sites without physically checking in. With restaurant task management software, you can stay on top of operations and compliance at multiple locations with the visibility to manage multiple teams at once.
In this article we’ll explore:
By the end, you’ll be wondering how you ever got by without it!
Task management software adds more dimensions to a simple to-do list or compliance checklist. It adds easy communication, deadlines, and features, like the ability to add comments and photos to tasks. Tasks can be assigned to one or more users and progress is tracked visually with a progress bar and task completion percentage.
Restaurant task management software goes even further, offering restaurant-specific features that you won’t find in generic task management software, like health regulation compliance tools, food safety label printing, and digital line checks.
Here’s what you can expect from a restaurant task management system:
A dynamic digital clipboard that updates for everyone to see in real-time as tasks are added and completed. Going digital means that checklists can be easily updated and every change is recorded without the need to store reams of old paper lists in file cabinets.
A digital task management system is the ultimate tool for keeping standards consistent. Standard operating procedures and quality expectations are visible across the system to ensure compliance with food and health regulations. Look out for restaurant-specific food safety features such as real-time temperature monitoring and food label printing.
Audits are easy with standardized checklists of actions that can be assigned, scheduled, tracked, and reviewed in real-time. The best tools include interactive comments sections on each task and various answer-type options.
Gamification is a powerful tool that can deliver extraordinary results. Motivate your teams and boost engagement through friendly competition using points, leaderboards, and rewards across locations.
Restaurant task management software allows you to assign, track, execute, and report on tasks from wherever you are on any device. The ability to see real-time actions and changes means you don’t have to be omnipresent at every location.
Multi-location task management tools allow you to handle any critical issues as soon as they arise. It could be the difference between a minor situation being resolved safely rather than escalating into an emergency and having to disrupt operations.
Having tasks, compliance checklists, and action items organized and centralized digitally is a great boost for any restaurant. But for multi-restaurant groups the benefits compound across locations.
Good organization is all the more important when you’re running a larger, more complex operation, and clear communication is vital.
Here are the biggest benefits for large organizations with multiple locations.
Restaurant task management software is designed to make staying organized easy – and even fun! Digital checklists clearly lay out all the steps needed to complete a task and give employees the satisfaction of ticking them off as they’re completed. The ability for the software to be customized to organize your business and employees by roles, groups, locations, and districts to mirror your current setup is the key to success.
Instead of carrying around clipboards with flapping pieces of paper, all tasks are in one place. Managers and floor staff can log in and immediately see which tasks are assigned to them and can easily track their progress on multiple tasks throughout the day.
Valuable task management software offers the flexibility to adapt it to your existing processes, rather than adapting your processes to fit the software solution. That means your best practices aren’t compromised but are instead enhanced and made more efficient with the added tools and features offered.
Maintaining consistency and standardizing operating procedures is the evergreen challenge for multi-unit restaurants and franchises. When standards start to slip at a location, things can quickly degenerate.
Restaurant task management software excels at offering standardization across locations. With all your procedures, policies, and brand expectations saved and accessible to everyone, you can be sure that standards are the same everywhere. If something changes, it is updated globally, so your standards can also evolve and improve without losing consistency across locations.
Maintaining brand standards is essential across multi-location groups. Seemingly mundane daily tasks like opening and closing are in fact vital to maintaining consistent cleanliness and customer service standards. The best restaurant task management software allows staff to add photos to tasks for a visual reminder of standards, and conditional logic to build engagement with the task.
You can go further and reward consistent good standards using motivational leaderboards and giving rewards for high-performing team members. Consistency is the path to scalability for any business or brand.
Restaurant task management software allows you to track and motivate store-level employees without being present 24/7. With standardized tasks laid out in easy-to-use digital checklists, there is an incentive to perform tasks efficiently and thoroughly.
Not only does this add motivation and drive engagement from employees, it also means they are accountable when tasks are not completed properly. You can see what was done and what was not done, giving you the ultimate visibility and accountability.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of clear communication in a business. Communication between departments and locations up and down the business hierarchy is like blood flow around the body. Without it, nothing functions.
The right tools provide the heartbeat to keep that blood pumping – to keep communications flowing around the organization.
With open communication comes transparency across the business which builds trust and improves morale, engagement, and productivity.
Restaurant task management software opens up two-way communication between locations and levels. With tasks accessible across the business and procedures consistent, every employee from the dishwasher to the CEO is connected and feels part of the bigger picture.
Specific features like the ability to leave comments and add photos to tasks serve to build trust and engagement between employees and managers.
Look for robust and flexible reporting tools built-in to the software. This will allow you to get insights right down to the individual employee level and also by location.
Compare performance across the business to identify and rectify problems. But also to pinpoint the best performing teams and locations and make sure this is recognized and rewarded.
In doing so, you’ll also learn what works best and why – then you can implement the best practices at other locations.
With greater visibility comes greater accountability. Coupled with easy-to-use tools with gamification and reward features, you’re likely to see more motivated and engaged restaurant employees carrying out their daily tasks more rigorously – and with smiles on their faces.
And ultimately, more engaged teams produce better results.
If you’re ready to improve visibility, consistency, standardization, and accountability across your locations, it might be time to look at restaurant task management software. y.
Blanket is as easy to implement as it is to use. The dedicated support will help you get started by adding your custom procedures and policies to the system and your teams will find it easy to use from day one.
Visit Blanket.app for more information and to get started with a demo
