7 Employee Management Secrets Every Bar Owner Must Know

Are you struggling to keep your best employees while maintaining consistent performance across your team?

Managing bar staff effectively can feel like herding cats - between personality conflicts, scheduling headaches, and maintaining service standards. But there are proven secrets that the most successful bars use to build and retain amazing teams.

In today's episode:
• Discover how to build a culture of accountability without micromanaging 
• Learn the psychology behind motivating different personality types 
• Master the art of effective delegation and empowerment

Listen now to transform your management style and create a team that runs like clockwork.

Learn More:
Email Chris
Schedule a Strategy Session
Bar Business Nation Facebook Group
The Bar Business Podcast Website
Chris' Book 'How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business'

Thank you to our show sponsors, SpotOn and Starfish. SpotOn's modern, cloud-based POS system allows bars to increase team productivity and provides the reporting you need to make smart financial decisions. Starfish works with your bookkeeping software using AI to help you make data-driven decisions and maximize your profits while giving you benchmarking data to understand how you compare to the industry at large.
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Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:01.144)
Today, uncover why personality assessments are the secret weapon for building high-performance teams. Learn how empathy-driven management leads to better retention and results, and master the proven systems top bars use for consistent staff performance.

Chris Schneider (00:19.286)
In today's episode, we're revealing seven management secrets that will transform how you lead your bar, boost employee satisfaction, and drive better business results. As we all know in the bar industry, high turnover, inconsistent performance, and staff conflicts are one of the biggest struggles to making a profit. It is amazing to me how many owners I talk to that are struggling or on the bubble. And when I start to look at their numbers,

A glaring thing that comes up time and time again is labor costs that are 40, 50, 60 percent.

And let's be real honest here, you cannot make money in this industry with a labor cost that's 50 or 60%. You just can't do it. It's not mathematically possible.

Chris Schneider (01:12.012)
And one of the biggest causes of high labor costs is high turnover.

Chris Schneider (01:19.95)
So it's important to remember that if you don't have the correct management approach to employee satisfaction, to making sure your employees are happy and trained and your team is able to succeed.

Those team members are going to become frustrated and leave.

And that just makes the problem worse and worse.

So like I said, today we are breaking down seven key ways.

seven management secrets, if you will, to lower your turnover and improve your staff performance in order to prevent labor from preventing you from making a profit. So let's go ahead and dive into these.

Chris Schneider (02:09.612)
The first management secret I will give you is understand your team's personalities.

And I highly suggest that you actually have your team do some kind of personality profile, whether that's a Myers-Briggs or an Enneagram or something else.

Chris Schneider (02:29.356)
I don't really care what personality profile you use, but get everyone to take the same profile. Not only will this help you learn more about your team, but it will allow you to match their roles to their natural strengths.

Chris Schneider (02:49.464)
Let's face it, when it comes to bartending, you probably don't want an introvert behind your bar. Maybe you do. It depends on the exact personality.

Chris Schneider (03:01.56)
But if you want a bartender that's talkative, that's engaging, you probably want someone that's more of an extrovert.

Chris Schneider (03:10.634)
Likewise, if you have an extroverted person stuck back in your kitchen, they may not enjoy that. They may seek more personal interaction than what they're getting.

So it's important to understand people's personalities to make sure that they can actually succeed at different roles. Now that does mean you're going to have to match your roles with personality types, which can be difficult. And like I said, this is not always 100 % true. I've known very introverted people that can fake it and be great bartenders. But generally speaking, we want to match roles and personalities together so that we're playing to people's natural strengths.

The other benefits you get from understanding your team's personality better is you can adapt your communication styles to the different personality types. Not everyone responds the same way to the same information. Sometimes when you know people's personality, you have a better opportunity to communicate with them in a way that's more effective.

Chris Schneider (04:22.018)
Now there are two other benefits to understanding your team's personality.

Chris Schneider (04:28.568)
First, it allows you to create balanced teams with complementary traits. You don't want everyone on a shift to be an aggressive type of person that's very dominant, that's going to try to run over everyone else. If you do that, all your servers are just going to be competitive and they're not going to gel well as a team. You need different personality traits and complementary traits.

on every shift to the extent that you can. Now that's not always plausible or even something that is remotely possible. But if you can, putting people that work well together together will serve you best, and generally that means they have complementary personality traits. You can also use these insights to resolve interpersonal conflicts more effectively. If people understand personality types and understand

where someone else is coming from, they are less likely to take offense or react negatively when they come into conflict with that person.

Chris Schneider (05:39.746)
Now our second management secret for team management is going to be build systems for success. Now that is both in the documented standards and procedures that you want people to follow.

and in your training programs. So if you want to dive into training programs, last week I did a whole episode on training programs. So go you can refer back to that. Download that one and check it out if you didn't give that a listen already.

Chris Schneider (06:15.906)
But your training will only work to this extent that you have documented procedures. And those documented procedures need to include in them objective, measurable performance metrics.

That way you can use those performance metrics with your team. They're trained on them. They know them. They are aware of them.

And by pushing those performance metrics, you can help them become better.

Those performance metrics also work to develop for you an accountability framework. If people know what the job is and they know how they're expected to perform, when they don't do that, they won't be surprised if you've explained this all to them ahead of time. There is nothing worse than going to write up or fire an employee and they don't know why.

If they understand the metrics and they understand what you're doing. It makes it so much easier. I fired people and they've just been like, you're firing me. I'm like, yeah, do know why I'm firing you? And they're like, yeah, because I didn't show up to work and I'm like, OK, cool. We all understand. We all agree. You knew what the responsibilities were. You didn't follow them.

Chris Schneider (07:33.955)
That's also going to cut down on bad unemployment claims. That's going to cut down on the potential for there to be wrongful dismissal lawsuits and legal issues, labor issues. So having everything defined down to objective measurable performance metrics will make your life a lot easier in the long run because you can use those to hold people accountable.

And no one will ever be surprised.

Chris Schneider (08:07.628)
Now our third management secret to create a great team is to master the art of delegation. And this is something that when I meet with a lot of bar owners, when I talk to people, let's face it, as a small business owner, and I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else, we all have a tendency to want to control every aspect of every process.

And oftentimes we say, well, no one can do this as well as me, and that's why I must do it.

Chris Schneider (08:49.111)
No one can do this as good as me and that's why I must do it. That's probably one of the most detrimental statements that a business owner could make, whether it's a bar or a landscaping company or anything. And the reason behind it is this. No one can do it as good as me. That may or may not be true. There are some things that all of us are naturally gifted in and honestly, no one else in the business can do it as well as we can.

But even if that is true about something, if someone else can do it 80 % or 90 % as well as you, there's no reason not to let them. If nothing else, they get you 90 % of the way done and then you just make a couple tweaks. And those couple tweaks will take you a lot, lot less time than actually doing all the work yourself. So there is never a reason not to delegate something.

Chris Schneider (09:48.195)
Now when it comes to delegating, you need to identify the tasks that are best to delegate. And generally speaking, those are going to be process-oriented tasks. Those are going to be things where there's a standard and a system that someone can implement easily with clear directions they can follow.

Now, obviously, if you're delegating tasks that you do as an owner, some of those are going to be more complex than others. And that's where you need to make sure that you're matching what you're asking someone to do to the skill of what they can produce. Now, this is a ridiculous example, but you would probably never take someone who's working in your kitchen, who may not speak great English,

and have them manage your social media.

A, they're not interacting with your guests and on the floor and they can't take pictures as easily. But B, unfortunately, the fact that they don't speak great English, probably they should not be writing on behalf of your company.

Chris Schneider (11:04.952)
So you need to make sure you're matching responsibilities and skill levels as you go about delegating.

When you delegate, the thing that you absolutely must do is train people properly. If you delegate something to someone and they screw it up and you did not give them clear expectations, clear deadlines, and great training, it's not their fault they screwed that up. It's your fault. Because you didn't lay the groundwork for them to be successful.

Chris Schneider (11:39.715)
Now, assuming you have clear expectations, deadlines, and you've put in place proper training, you should be able to follow up without micromanaging. The one thing that you cannot do that will hurt your team culture more than anything else when it comes to delegation is to micromanage. You absolutely cannot sit over their shoulder and watch them do it. You have to let people do that. Let them make mistakes, but give them the training tools.

standards, expectations, and deadlines they need in order to be successful, in order to not fail. So you don't have to micromanage because when you start to micromanage, you hurt your team culture. People feel like you're always looking over their shoulder because well, frankly, you are. And that leads to a hostile work environment or if not a hostile work environment in the way that the attorneys would like to use it.

At least a work environment that most of the people on your team probably don't want to be in. And you're never going to keep and attract great employees. In a poor culture.

Chris Schneider (13:01.998)
So that's going to take us to our fourth team management secret.

Which is you have to lead with empathy. We work in a business where, for those of you that have been around a long time, you probably remember the 80s and 90s where, you know, the GM going around and calling everyone a fucking idiot wasn't unusual in a lot of establishments. Obviously, we can't do that today. A, your employees will just tell you to go fuck yourself and walk out.

But B.

The overall work framework has changed. The overall culture when it comes to work has changed over the last 40 years.

So you have to lead with empathy, which I know for a lot of type A personalities and own businesses can be very hard. A, because you feel like you don't have the time and B, because whatever you're being told, you just want to shut it down, give them the right answer and move on. But I'm here to tell you that doesn't work. First of all, you always need to make the time to listen to your team, whether it's ridiculous or

Chris Schneider (14:20.98)
fantastic what they're telling you. You need to listen and you need to listen actively. You need to not listen while you're on your phone making an order. You need to not listen while you're doing something else. You need to actively listen, actually hear the words they're saying and react to them. Beyond that, leading with empathy means that you understand people have personal challenges and you accept that.

Chris Schneider (14:52.961)
It's so easy to tell people everything in your personal life, you need to leave that at the door. But if you actually have a real personal challenge and you're that employee, I can be really, really hard.

Everyone has a life outside of work and frankly, and I think this should be true for everyone on your team and you as well, your life outside of work is more important than your life in work. Family, friends matter a lot more than work.

Chris Schneider (15:31.446)
Which means as owners, we have to be absolutely empathetic when it comes to people's challenges, what they're dealing with outside of work. And we have to be willing to give people a little bit of grace. That doesn't mean let your team walk all over you.

But it doesn't mean you have to show genuine care for your team and their well-being. You have to actually care and address issues with compassion.

And while you're addressing issues with compassion, what do you end up doing? You end up creating a supportive environment where people feel not like cogs in a machine, but feel like humans.

And especially when it comes to your Gen Z and Millennial team members, if you're not leading with empathy, they will quit on you.

Chris Schneider (16:24.45)
We've gotten to a society where people know they can walk out the door and get another job in five minutes. So they really don't care about quitting. You have to provide a supportive environment where they can address issues with compassion and will stay.

Now our fifth secret of team management is developing career paths. And this can be really hard.

Chris Schneider (16:57.207)
especially for small operators. you're, I don't know, let's pick on TGI Fridays real quick. If you're TGI Fridays and there's tons of those all over the world, there's almost...

Unlimited upward mobility. I remember a guy that was their CEO a decade ago or 15 years ago, had started as a dishwasher. He washed dishes and worked his way up from dishwasher to CEO. It's absolutely possible in a large company. But for those of you listening who are majority independent operators,

You obviously can't create a growth opportunity like that. There's only so far you can go when your positions in your company range from server to bartender to maybe key shift bartender. That's it. You may or may not even have management positions available for folks, but you still need to create growth opportunities and you can create growth opportunities in a lot of different ways. You can have trainers. You can have key shift folks.

You can reward people for their ingenuity by offering them other tasks like working on a task force to improve your guest experience through continuous improvement.

And yeah, you're going to pay him a little more to do that.

Chris Schneider (18:33.359)
But that's okay and that gives them those growth opportunities. One of the easiest ways in a small bar or restaurant to have some career path and some growth opportunity is to implement a mentorship program. Actually not having older staff train your younger staff, but having older staff mentor your younger staff.

Have someone that they can ask questions of, that they can understand history, that knows what's going on, that knows a lot of the whys behind what you're doing. A, it builds relationships within your team. B, it stops you from having to answer every question and gives them someone else to ask. And C, it creates more community and it allows them to see, can go from mentee to mentor, which, wow, that's not...

actually a growth opportunity. Sure feels like one. And it provides some career path for what they're doing.

You should also constantly be developing people's Whether or not they want to be in management, it doesn't hurt to teach them how to read a PNL. It doesn't hurt to teach them how to program a POS system. Develop their skills and recognize and reward their progress as they learn more and more.

Chris Schneider (19:57.665)
I know some small operators that their entire goal is to train employees and make them managers somewhere else because they know they don't have the job available, but they want to give them the skills and the opportunities to go be a manager somewhere else. And guess what? There's nothing wrong with that. You can train everyone else's managers because you're going to have a constant line of people.

who want to work for you because they know if they come work for you, they'll learn everything to go be a manager somewhere else. Yes, that creates turnover, but that's turnover in a good way.

Now, finally, if you have career paths, whatever they look like, you need to build clear advancement criteria. People need to know if I do X, Y, and Z, I move to the next level. And that's so that it's clear, transparent, and no one feels like they're being subjectively held back. They can see objectively where they're going wrong.

Chris Schneider (21:08.77)
Now our sixth team management secret is going to be to foster open communication. Now this is a lot like having empathy.

Chris Schneider (21:21.954)
But it's having empathy with the group, allowing your team to communicate to you about what they see going on. What's wrong? What's not? What's great? What's not?

And so the first part of that is you need to hold regular team meetings. Not only does that get you everyone in the same room at the same time to make sure everyone's on the same page, but it also allows people an easy form to ask questions, to understand what you're doing better. You need to implement a 360 degree feedback system. So when we say a 360 degree feedback system, there are folks...

who have formalized that and made it into this big thing. But to me what that means is just that you're getting feedback from all directions. So if you have a bartender and a bar manager and a GM, well that bartender should get feedback from the bar manager, should get feedback from the GM, should also get feedback from the servers and the guests. And when everybody is getting feedback from all sides, A, it makes us actually understand what we're doing better.

and be better employees and better individuals, because even as an owner, you should be getting this feedback.

But it also gives people a safe way to, without actually saying it to your face or even anonymously, tell you what's going on and what they think. So you need strong feedback systems in place in order to foster open communication.

Chris Schneider (23:02.092)
Now you can't just expect transparency from your team up. You also have to trust them. Give transparency from ownership down.

Chris Schneider (23:12.576)
And that means sharing your business goals and metrics. Tell people where they are, how they're performing, where you want to see things go, what's working and what's not.

Chris Schneider (23:23.736)
I've said this before, but what gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets done. And that's absolutely true. But what I don't say when I say that is what gets measured and people know about gets managed. If your team doesn't understand your goals and your metrics, they cannot improve. They cannot help you make your business better.

Chris Schneider (23:48.739)
And along the lines of the transparency in the goals and metrics, you also need transparency in your decisions. Regardless of why you make a decision, you just need to tell your team, hey, this is what we're doing and here's why. That transparency...

allows you the ability

to...

foster open communication in a way.

And make sure that everyone at least understands why you did what you did. They don't have to agree with it. It doesn't actually matter. I mean, you're the owner. No one has to ever agree with you. But they should at least understand the why behind your decision.

Chris Schneider (24:32.982)
And our final employee or team management secret is going to be to build a recognition culture.

Let's be honest. Everyone likes getting a trophy. Now, I'm not saying you have to give out trophies, but you need to implement a formal recognition program.

Chris Schneider (24:57.603)
And you need to show people, hey, if you do X, Y, and Z, you'll be recognized. And don't recognize them just with a stupid fucking certificate you printed off your computer at a team meeting and then people clap. That's great. But I don't know that anyone saves those or really cares that much. Give them something cool. And we know Gen Z and millennials, what they actually like more than anything is experiences.

So have a formal recognition system where if you win enough, you get a trip to a brewery or a trip to a distillery or a trip to a winery. Not only will that be a fun experience for them that's something different that they had to work to earn, but it also increases their product knowledge. It also makes them better at their job.

So have a formal recognition program and have the prizes or the incentives for that. Be experiences that make them better at their jobs, but also give them an awesome story to tell.

Chris Schneider (26:08.47)
And this should be true for both individuals and team wins. Sometimes you need to recognize the whole team. Sometimes you need to recognize an individual. You need to create time to celebrate both. I will tell you right now, every team meeting I ever have ends with here's where we've won. These are the wins since the last meeting. This is where we are doing great. A, because a lot of times in team meetings, you're looking at metrics that aren't great.

And you're talking about real issues. And rather than leave everybody in that mindset of, what was me? There are so many issues. Give them something to celebrate at the end of a meeting.

Chris Schneider (26:53.005)
And along with building recognition, the final note on this part, I will say create team building opportunities and team building opportunities. I think are best as experiences. Close the bar, have a party for everybody on the staff one day. I used to do that every Labor Day. Labor Day is a day meant to celebrate the fact that we work hard. So I figured my job on Labor Day was to make sure my employees could have a great time and did not have to work.

but create team building opportunities. It can be something as simple as a party, but you could also do higher ups courses or any sort of team building activity that you would see a corporation do. Though I will say, in my experience, corporate folks are a lot more likely to go along with something hokey than hospitality folks. So make sure whatever the activity is, it's actually engaging to people.

Chris Schneider (27:52.271)
So with these seven team management secrets, you form the foundation for building an engaged and high performing team. By understanding their personalities, implementing systems, delegating effectively, leading with empathy, developing your team's careers, fostering open communication, and building a culture of recognition, you'll create a

workplace where employees want to stay and excel, lower your turnover and boost your bottom line.