The Employee Life Cycle - Part 4

In this episode of the Restaurant Roadmap Podcast, Danny, Eric, and Amanda continue their Employee Lifecycle series with a deep dive into performance management; exploring how restaurant leaders can coach employees, reinforce standards, and develop future leaders through consistent communication and accountability.

The discussion begins by distinguishing coaching from correction. Coaching is about developing people and helping them grow, while correction exists to protect operational standards. The hosts emphasize that both are essential, but the most effective leaders deliver feedback in the moment rather than waiting for formal reviews. Immediate, behavior-based coaching creates learning opportunities, improves guest experiences, and helps employees perform at their highest potential.

The conversation also highlights the importance of positive reinforcement. Great leaders don't only address mistakes—they actively recognize exceptional performance. Celebrating employees when they do something well builds confidence, strengthens morale, and reinforces desired behaviors, creating a culture where team members feel valued and motivated.

Amanda and Eric stress that clear expectations and consistent accountability are the foundation of successful performance management. Employees cannot meet standards they have never been taught. Restaurants should rely on structured, repeatable training systems rather than individual managers so that expectations remain consistent regardless of leadership changes. When everyone understands the organization's goals and standards, accountability becomes fair, transparent, and easier to maintain.

The episode also explores career development and promotions, emphasizing that readiness—not tenure—should determine advancement. The hosts discuss the importance of succession planning, leadership development, and ongoing career conversations so employees understand exactly what skills they need to develop before opportunities arise. Promoting the strongest individual contributor does not automatically create the strongest leader, making leadership training a critical part of preparing future managers.

Finally, the hosts examine employee retention and workplace culture. They reinforce the idea that employees often leave managers, not organizations, and that leaders play the biggest role in creating an environment where people want to stay. Trust, recognition, growth opportunities, consistent coaching, and genuine investment in employees all contribute to stronger retention and a healthier culture. The episode concludes with a reminder that leadership is proactive: if leaders aren't intentionally managing their culture, their culture will ultimately manage them

What is The Restaurant Roadmap?

The Restaurant Roadmap is your guide to building and running a successful restaurant. Each episode explores the full journey of operations—from planning and development to menu design, execution, and growth. Hosts Danny Bendas, Amanda Stokes, and Chef Eric Lauer bring decades of expertise, joined by industry leaders and restaurant professionals who share their insights and stories. Together, they uncover strategies, tools, and lessons that help operators improve performance, strengthen teams, and elevate the guest experience. Whether you’re opening your first location or refining an established brand, The Restaurant Roadmap equips you to navigate every step with confidence.

Danny: Welcome to the Restaurant Roadmap podcast, powered by Synergy Restaurant Consultants, your go-to source for actionable insights and real-world strategies from the industry's top experts, clients, and special guests. Whether you're building a new concept or refining an existing one, we're here to help you create a forward-thinking, sustainable brand, elevate guest experience, streamline operations, and maximize your bottom line.

With decades of hands-on experience, our mission is simple: to deliver practical, proven solutions to the everyday challenges restaurant operators face. Let's dive in and get to work

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Restaurant Roadmap Podcast, our next episode in the employee life cycle. I'd like to welcome back, uh, we'll do Eric first this time. Eric, how you doing?

Eric: Yes, I get to be first for once. That's awesome. I'm doing great. Thanks, Danny.

Danny: All right. And Amanda Stokes, our training guru, how are you today?

Amanda: I'm great. Happy to go second,

Danny: Eric. There you go. You know, that sort of reminds you of the old Avis commercials, right? We tried to be number two, right? Or was it Avis? I think it was Avis. I don't know. Anyway Uh, so we're gonna start off, first of all, we've done, uh, a whole series of employee life cycle, hiring, retaining, how do you train, how do you move them up the, in the ladder, et cetera, et cetera.

So let's talk about performance management and how we continue to coach, train, and talk. So Amanda, I'm gonna start with you. There's a thing that is coaching versus correction. How do you define the difference between those two things?

Amanda: Well, coaching develops people. Um, I would say correcting protects standards, and you need both of 'em.

You know? So I think sometimes you're tough on the systems but easy on the people, as of my friend Eric always likes to say, and I think it's how you coach people, um, that makes all the difference in the world.

Danny: Eric, what say you, sir?

Eric: Uh, Amanda stole my number one thing, right? Eas- easy on the people, hard on the tools.

Coaching and correction are both needed 100%, you know, and you're constantly doing them, right? So if you're not talking, you're not coaching. Being out there observing, watching what your people are doing, correcting in the moment, really giving them the feedback they need to be the best version of themselves, not only helps the organization, but it also helps them, right?

So if you see a server who is struggling, and you give them that feedback, who knows? Maybe they get 10% more tips, right? And at the end of the day, they're gonna thank you for that. So I think it's important to be doing both of those items in the moment, during the shift, and then at the end of the shift, to recap and give them more detail on what you were talking about and really putting them on the path to success.

Danny: Yeah. And the whole idea, I agree wholeheartedly. The whole idea of now training. You know, we've done work with a lot of organizations where nothing gets said until the next meeting, and that's, like, so far down the road that you've missed a whole bunch of training opportunities. It's kinda like when you have a puppy.

We've all had dogs, right? The puppy pees on the carpet, you can't, you know, yell at him a week from now because he has no idea what he's gonna get yelled at, right?

Amanda: And I think one thing I would add to what Eric said is, you know, you focus on the behavior and coaching the behavior that impacts the overall, you know, restaurant.

And so versus saying, "Hey, you, you didn't greet that table with a smile," you focus on, "Hey, by not greeting that table with a smile, you didn't set the tone for the experience the guest was gonna have." So focus on- Yeah ... coaching the behaviors and what those behaviors impact, versus making it personal.

Danny: Yeah, and I think having fun with it, and not always just commenting on a negative behavior, you know?

"Hey, Eric, you did a really great job waiting on that table. I just wanted you to know. That was just absolutely amazing." You know, now what does that do to up- uplift Eric? And make them wanna just do a better job. So it's not just about bad things, but it's also commenting on the, on, on the good things that are done too, the positive reinforcement.

Eric: What I used to love to do with that, Danny, is I would be in the window a lot, and somebody would put a dish in the window, you know? And, and I would say, "Hey, who put this in the window?" And then everybody gets quiet 'cause they think I'm gonna yell about something wrong with the plate, and then, you know, Billy finally steps up and goes, "Hey, I, I made that."

And I'm like, "That's perfect. Great job. I wanna see this all night." You know? And, and when you catch that positiveness, and you give them that feedback that way, it really helps to invigorate them and really push them to have a great shift throughout the evening.

Danny: That's a great example that I was gonna reference.

It's about having fun too, you know? If, if, if you don't have fun doing this, if you're just constantly yelling, it's just not a good environment, which gets us back to culture, right? We always get back to the same thing over and over again. So Amanda, why don't you talk about expectations, accountability, and consistency of how you handle the team?

'Cause that can cause a lot of problems also in terms of people's performance.

Amanda: We talked about in our last podcast how it is important from the beginning to set those expectations and what the cornerstones of training look like. I think when you have a team that's all reading off the same sheet of music, if you will, you're gonna, you're, you're gonna have a better structure for how people move through your restaurant.

And so a lot of times, you know, this is people-dependent, and we want this to be process-dependent. There's an actual process to how people move through training. And so if Eric gets promoted, and he gets his own restaurant, and he's my best assistant who kills training, when Eric leaves, then the next person could walk into the process, versus it being dependent on Eric to execute it.

And that's where I see the breakdown in the accountabilities, the expectations. Your team will never meet expectations that they don't know. They just can't, right? And, and it's, and that's not their fault. It's that we didn't provide the clarity at the, at the restaurant leadership level, and so they have no idea, you know, what we're looking for

Danny: Yeah, and I think treating everybody fairly and treating everybody equal, I think, uh, goes right along with that, right, Eric?

Matt: Absolutely. And, and just to add on to what Amanda said, if you ever watch a sports event, the scoreboard's always visible, right? They know what the expectation is, they know what they have to do. And, and for our people that work for us, it's only fair that we give them those same expectations upfront so they know what they have to do.

It just makes it easier for them, and, and it helps them to develop into the best version of themselves.

Amanda: Yeah. Start with the end in mind, right? So we talked about that in the, in the last podcast a little bit. You know, if the end is to have all our guests leaving with a smile, and that- that's what the end in mind is, well, guess what?

Profits follow, tips are increasing. You know, and it, it doesn't have to be an overcomplicated end in mind. But when everybody knows that the end in mind at a sporting event is to score more points with a visible scoreboard. You know, maybe in the restaurant it's for all guests to leave happy and with the intent to return, and that's our scoreboard.

So it's starting with the end in mind. Very important.

Danny: All right. We've touched on this a little bit, but I wanna move into a little bit deeper dive in terms of promotions. How do we promote people? A lot of people say, "Oh, well I've been three, three years, I would like to have a promotion." Um, doesn't exactly quite work that way.

So Eric, I'm gonna throw this one to you and just talk about readiness versus tenure, or feeling like it's owed to me even though it's not, right?

Eric: So in the previous we talked about how we follow those Candy Land maps, and we put people on a track to be promoted to get to the next level. And sometimes, you know, people think they're ready but they're not really ready, so those conversations have to be handled delicately, right?

Because a lot of these times, these people are your higher performing people, and you wanna be able to give them the knowledge they need prior to a position opening up, right? That's the worst, is when a service manager position opens up and your top server comes to you and says, "Hey, that position's open," and they think they're ready, but you haven't had any conversations with them to show them where they are in their development.

So they're expecting to get that role, but they're not ready yet. So that's what I think really hits home, is, is having those conversations throughout their training and throughout their development so they know exactly where they are and exactly what they need to improve upon to get the position when it opens up.

And there's a lot to be said too, right? I, I know most people in our industry, they just go to the dining room when the service manager position opens and they promote the best server. You know, I've found over and over and over again that that's not the best way to do it. You'll see that just because that person's the best server doesn't mean I'm the best manager.

And Amanda talks about magic keys, right? You hand somebody keys, it doesn't automatically make them a, um, the best manager ever. So, and I, I know we've talked about it in the past with, like, Magic Johnson and Wayne Gretzky. They were some of the greatest players in, in their sports, and then they made it to the coaching ranks, and they just weren't able to translate it because it's different for everybody.

So make sure you're, you're putting that into perspective too before you promote somebody because then now, two months down the road, you're gonna be looking for that service manager, and you're gonna be looking for your best server, and that's not good for any organization.

Danny: Yeah, and I think, uh, Amanda, having to...

If somebody wants to move up- What are the expectations and what are the needs in order for them to... They can work on that in order to get to the next step. So you- you're giving them a path to get there versus just saying, "No, you're not ready yet," right?

Amanda: It's interesting. We had a call recently with an organization that we're working with, and so it was interesting.

We talked a lot about succession planning. And so it- it's having a clear definition of who we're preparing for that next level. We're gonna make sure that we know who their next GM is gonna be because we've been training them for 18 months. We know who the next assistant manager- Yeah ... 'cause we've been training them for six months.

Because the great skillsets that your team has do not necessarily translate, you know, to the next level of- of leadership. So, you know, the hardest transition in the restaurant industry is from GM to director. Because what makes you a great GM isn't gonna make you a great director. It's an entirely different skillset.

And so organizations that are focusing on succession planning are accounting for those deficits, and they're incorporating that into modules, into ongoing training so that they're- they're managing the deficits that they know you might experience, so.

Danny: Yeah, exactly. What do you think, real quickly, if I'm a server in a restaurant and I want to get promoted to assistant manager, do I work in the same restaurant?

And if the answer to that is yes, what do I do to avoid the pitfalls of that which we all know and probably have experienced, right? Eric, what do you think?

Matt: I've worked with both sides here and where I've sent somebody away and- and they've become very successful or... and I've worked with someone within the restaurant that has become very successful.

I think there's gotta be a level of maturity that you need to see from the individual in order for them to stay in the same restaurant. It's very difficult for somebody to go from peer to leader in overnight, right? So that's the hardest thing to do. And what I've always tried to coach people on is coach the systems, not the person, right?

You're- you're- you're hard on the system, easy on the people. That way they understand, hey, this isn't Sally coming after Suzy because you messed up, and I did it better than you when I was a server. Hey, you're not meeting our standard. This is what our standard is. I need you to- to step your game up a little bit in this position.

And- and just like you talked about coaching them on a behavior specifically, Amanda, that's what you wanna do there, and it- it helps to separate that- that real close bond that they may have had in the past.

Danny: And that's where leadership training comes into play too. We often find, a lot of work we do, we find there's a void in leadership.

So teaching them how to be a leader, not just a doer, right, really helps them get through that transition as well, right? So- All right, Amanda, why do people leave and why do people stay?

Amanda: So I said this many times, people leave bosses, they don't leave organizations, and people stay because they feel that leadership is invested in them as people and as people who work for them.

I, I, I've said this 100 times, and so when there's a leadership issue and you have high turnover, they're quitting the leaders. So I, I think having that strong culture, you know, and the best leaders are never surprised when somebody quits. If somebody puts their two weeks notice in and you're befuddled by it, you don't have your finger on the pulse of your operation, and shame on you.

Matt: I don't know if I can add to that. Amanda hit it right on the nail. She was perfect with that. You know, it's, it's 100% leader driven, and remember, you're a leader and you're not a manager. You manage inventory, you manage commodities, you lead people.

Danny: Very well said. I like that. And then I think, again, there's this whole thing with culture about recognition and trust, allowing people to grow, giving them a plan for the future.

All of those things are what help people wanna stay, and letting people be, feel like they're involved, right? I mean, having, having a say. Doesn't mean you're gonna listen necessarily, but you know, if you have a great idea, you wanna have a channel to allow everybody to be a part of that team and be a part of the organization.

I think that goes a long way, right? Any final comments before we head out for today?

Amanda: Yes, I have one, and we, you know, we talked about it during our last podcast. If you're not managing your culture, your culture is managing you.

Danny: All right, you guys. Thank you so much. Another great episode. We have episode six coming up here in a little bit.

I want to thank Eric and Amanda. Again, if you have feedback, let us know what you think. Subjects, comments, anything you want to say, [e-mail]. Thank you all for being here. Thank you guys again, and we'll be in touch soon. Bye-bye.

Matt: Bye, y'all. Have a great day.

Danny: Thanks for tuning in. We hope today's episode gave you valuable insights you can put into action.

If you have questions, want more info on today's topic, or need support with your restaurant's specific challenges, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out any time at [e-mail] and visit synergyrestaurantconsultants.com to explore our services, sign up for our newsletter, and catch up on past episodes.

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