What Are Some Restaurant Job Shift Leader Skills?
The shift leader has a vital role in the good running of a restaurant, providing close supervision to staff in a stressful environment and making difficult decisions when problems arise. A bad shift leader will create tension in the restaurant, make staff unhappy and provide an unsatisfactory experience to customers. A good shift leader must have a friendly and natural manner, keeping things running smoothly without the appearance of putting in any effort at all.
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Coolness Under Pressure
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Restaurants and especially their kitchens, are notoriously stressful places to work. The pressure of time, high standards and the heat combine to produce seriously frayed tempers. As shift manager, your job is to make sure that this stress never gets beyond a certain level. A big part of this comes from setting an example. If you yell at the chef, he will probably yell at the waiters and they will deal less well with the customers. But it also means keeping cool and holding everything together in your head despite rapid changes. Much of the stress generated in restaurants comes from poor communication between front-of-house and back-of-house staff. Facilitating this communication is 80 percent of the job.
Memory
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The restaurant is a constantly changing environment, with customers coming and going, stocks being exhausted and tasks building up. A shift leader who forgets what he or she has just been told the minute the next piece of information comes along will not be able coordinate the work of the kitchen and wait staff. If you do not have this kind of memory, you will need the fastidiousness to write things down as they happen and frequently consult the list you make.
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People Skills
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A shift leader needs to maintain a friendly but firm persona for the duration of the shift. Keeping a busy restaurant running requires everyone to pull their weight, and part of your role as shift is making sure this happens. This requires you to be both respected and liked by the team. Your manner should communicate that you are all working together and your role is just one of many, not that they are working for you. However you must also have the force of personality to discipline slaking team members.
Mental Arithmetic
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In a large restaurant, a shift leader needs to be able to crunch numbers in their head. A shift leader needs to be aware of waiting times, number of customers in the restaurant, capacity of the restaurant, stocks and ordering. Most of the time the shift leader will need the ability to keep several running tallies going in her head at once.
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References
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