Team Meetings & 1 on 1’s

Good Morning FL Family, and apparently the rest of the world. We’ve had a few folks reach out in my blog-absence to say they’ve read enjoyed and used it. So glad!!! Today!!! I’m drinking a Kalita wave pour over with some very old orange co ferment coffee that I’ve let fall to room temp and fill with ice. Very diluted at this point. I’m listening to some “room 303” Japanese house mixes on youtube and am beginning review on our seasonal 1on1’s plus big ol’ company meeting.

I’m going to try and be succinct about this, so pay attention.

one on ones are crucial

Obviously now that I’m not working on bar every single day it’s especially important because I can’t see everything that happens. My understanding of it all is skewed based on what i DO see. But no one’s a psychic. 1on1’s rock because there are opportunities to discuss topics, give feedback, plan, pitch ideas, and do all sorts of things. THEN LEARN!

When you’re asking a question directly like “how are you feeling about cleaning the ice machine?” You might find out that they aren’t very confident, or that they’ve never been on schedule for that task, or that they’ve been taking an extra 3 hours to do it for some reason after hours and not telling anyone.

That was a technical example but it’s equally important for the soft skills you use with customers and employees! If the vibes are wack in your cafe, insincere or cold, it could be you need to break the ice. I often say “you can’t yell at someone to have fun,” and so how do you foster that comfortable and fun environment? Well you have to confront it head on. Talk to the staff, how are they feeling about each other? How are they feeling about the space?

I think one of our super powers in hospitality is asking people direct and personal questions, then finding out things about others you didn’t expect. Think about how leveraging that for your own team can be hugely beneficial

how often and where?

When I first started this felt pretty redundant. I was like “I’m going to have team meetings every month” but it was just me and one other guy who worked 1 or 2 mornings a week and so there wasn’t all that much to discuss. Especially because we were pretty dead at the cafe. There were no stress on our systems to point me in the right direction on discussions. I also felt this obligation to buy us lunch or dinner so we’d go out and spend $40 on lunch when I was eating rice and beans at home.

As much as possible you should have meetings at the cafe after hours, so you can point to and discuss things in private. Sometimes they get emotional or the person takes feedback better without the pressure of others around. Sometimes you have a sensitive topic or want to talk about others. This also lets things rush or drag as needed to fill the time.

You can offer coffee or water while you talk, and for a team meeting if it takes 3 hours maybe order food, but if you’re all sitting down at a restaurant it’s hard to get much serious work done and it costs a lot. So depending on what you have to discuss and your budget you may want to consider what you want out of it.

We now have 1on1’s and then a team meeting with everyone, every 3-4 months. We try to have them a few weeks before each season gets rolling. Ideally we still have a couple weeks on that seasonal menu, and all the planned events are wrapping up but there’s no urgency to get moving. For example I’m now having our spring discussion around the start of February, and hoping for a launch in March. We have plenty of all our seasonal ingredients but it’s time to stop buying more. We have an event this weekend but it’s a recurring one and nothing super involved.

what to discuss?

This is going to take a few tries as you figure out what works best for your team and the flow of conversation, but here are my standards inclusions for 1on1s.

GENERAL - This is a “hey what’s on your mind / how are you?” category, if an employee came in with notes they want to share then talk about that first. After we cover that, I revisit their comments from last quarter to talk about how we’ve improved or if we still have tasks to work on.

LIFE - Here I ask about upcoming plans for the season, if they have time off they may want to be like “oh but I can work until noon this day” or “I need PTO for these days” or “I may cancel this next week I’m not sure yet.” I also ask if the schedule hours and pay are working for them, so we can have them work more or less, on certain days, etc.

SHOP - This can vary a lot by the season, but some recurring asks are: How are our systems working for you? How were the events this season? How are the shop vibes from your POV? Any new things we need to be doing?

VALUES - We have a list of shop values with some sub categories in our social contract. I read these out and try to open up a couple of conversations on how we’re succeeding or failing.

FEEDBACK - I try to record some feedback throughout the quarter, then have those conversations here. Sometimes it’s notes from other employees and sometimes it’s things I’ve noticed. It can be as simple as “don’t be late” or as complex as “you’ve hurt someone’s feelings” or “the staff is worried about you”

follow up with a team meeting

Once you’ve talked to everyone, you’ll have a lot of ideas to rope in. I’ve found that newer employees are less comfortable giving feedback, but as you have more of these talks everyone will want to jump in. Here are a few standard things we cover in team meetings:

SUMMARY- This is a couple sentences summing up the below notes.
TOP 10 - I go through the top ten selling items last season with numbers.
EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY - I talk about goals last season vs actual execution
Q&A - I go through any topline misc questions for the team
MENU - I open the floor for seasonal menu ideas and my proposals
MERCH - Merch ideas!? Menu and merch are usually the most fun to discuss so we start with these
EVENTS - I go through recurring and planned/new events we’re hoping to do.
PARTNERSHIPS - I go through some proposals on partnerships for the events / seasonal menus.
SYSTEMS - I talk about our current systems, how they’re working / not working, and some new ideas.
PROJECTS - I list out some of the projects I’ve got planned this season, stuff like painting the walls.
WORD OF THE SEASON - one word to summarize the goals this season! The word for this blog would be, SPEAK! or PLAN!
COMMUNITY NOTES - I return to the one on one notes that employees wanted to discuss as a group, or that i think should be brought up!
REVISITING - Anything we talked about last season that still needs discussion.

How to record the info.

I keep running cloud documents of everyone’s 1on1’s and highlight info to return to as we talk, sometimes I’ll share these but usually I keep them to mark up. For team meetings I do the same but let everyone follow along so they can read ahead and think about comments or make sure we record them together. Once they’re all written I’ll make a list of actionable tasks the following week and try to set deadlines for some of them throughout the season. Which can be anything from event planning months out, to dusting a fan on a schedule weekly.

follow up next season

I try to plan the next series of meetings a couple weeks in advance, so I can see if there are any small projects to knock out. Sometimes it can take awhile just to organize your thoughts. As the team leader you’ll need to set the tone and have some direction, which can mean taking some time to tee up a good seasonal or merch idea. Sometimes to even begin proposing an idea, you need to do some research and talk to others; Those little ideas end up leading to more questions if you haven’t looked yourself.

The most important things to return to in my opinion, are employee life updates, and requested systems/projects. You need to show that you care and you’re interested in making meaningful progress. As long as you do that, you will.

This might be my busiest season in years as we prepare for a rebrand and new menu next month, but I’m stopping to write this because I feel that every shop could benefit from this idea of having regular meetings. The employees, the managers, everyone. Maybe there’s a cadence or questions that work better for your team, but like with any system you have to create it before you can edit it.

I hope you’ll give it a shot : ) - Eli