Setting Your Manager Up For Success: A to Empowered Leadership For Hospitality Leaders

Struggling with high manager turnover and inconsistent performance? The problem might not be your managers—it might be you. Let’s fix that.

Running a bar is tough, and without a solid management team, it’s even harder. Many bar owners fail to set clear expectations, provide financial empowerment, or build strong support systems. But when you do? You create an unstoppable management team that drives profitability, boosts morale, and keeps operations running smoothly.

In today's episode:

• Learn how to set crystal-clear expectations so your managers stop guessing and start leading with confidence.
• Discover financial empowerment techniques that get your managers thinking like owners—not just employees.
• Build support systems that develop and retain top talent, so you can stop the endless cycle of hiring and training.

Hit play now to learn the three essential strategies to turn your managers into powerhouses who grow your business from the inside out.

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.
**We are a SpotOn affiliate and earn commissions from the link above.

A podcast for bar, pub, tavern, nightclub, and restaurant owners, managers, and hospitality professionals, covering essential topics like bar inventory, marketing strategies, restaurant financials, and hospitality profits to help increase b...

Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:01.378)
Today discover how to transform struggling managers into confident leaders, learn proven strategies for clear communications and expectations, and master how to build a culture of empowerment and accountability.

Today we're diving into one of the most critical aspects of running a successful bar, which developing and supporting your management team. We've talked a lot about delegation, we've talked a lot about employee management, but how do you actually set your managers up for success? Now it can be really hard in this business because a lot of owners struggle with high manager turnover, inconsistent performance, and other issues, but a lot of that, if I'm going to be honest with you, as owners, is our fault.

We're not providing clear expectations or good support for our managers to be successful. The challenge really is not finding good managers. There are a lot of great managers out there that will go above and beyond for you. There some bad ones too, but we're not going to worry about those today. The real struggle is creating an environment where those managers can thrive and grow. And when you give your managers a way to succeed,

You're going to have better operations, improve staff morale, and ultimately a more profitable business.

Chris Schneider (01:20.6)
So there are three main things we're going to talk through today when it comes to your management teams. Setting clear expectations, financial empowerment, and supporting systems and growth. So start by setting clear expectations. And this is something that especially when I talk to smaller bars and restaurants, we have a problem with. And the main reason why the expectations aren't necessarily set

It's because no one's taking the time to actually say, okay, what do I want this manager to do? What is their job? And there is no job description. There's no format. There's no plan for how you make that manager successful.

So you need to create detailed job descriptions, detailed duties for your manager to follow so your manager doesn't have to guess at what you want them to do.

Because frankly, if you have a great manager, they will sit there and guess on what they're supposed to do, and maybe they're right and maybe they're not. But if you haven't provided them the framework, it's your fault. I know that sounds harsh, but it's true. And one of the biggest thing with managers is establishing daily routines and creating time management frameworks. So if you've listened to the podcast for a long time, or if you haven't, you should go back to the episode.

that we did last year with Emily LaRouffe of Oracle Hospitality Consulting. This is one of the places where she is absolutely bang on, knows this stuff backwards and forwards, knows how to get managers to do their job. And something she talks about is scheduling admin time. Establish that daily routine, but then schedule it. Don't make your manager fight between being on the floor and dealing with guests.

Chris Schneider (03:14.806)
and getting the back office work done. Schedule them time to do the back office work. A matter of fact, every single person on your management team, now if you're a small bar, you probably have a manager. You might not even have that, it might just be you. In which case you should do this for yourself. But if you have managers, you need to schedule time for them to do back office work. You know, a of times we talk about bars and we say, we have front of house and back of house. And that's true, but we also have back office.

And back office is where the money is made. Back office is where the decisions get made. Back office is where your business gets improved. So your managers, they need time front of house, they need time back of house, and they need time back office. And that needs to be scheduled. So they can balance their administrative duties with their guest facing responsibilities.

If they can't do that, it's hard for them to be effective. Now, the other thing that comes along with setting clear expectations is implementing a goal setting and review process. Now, we've talked about this for the business. How I think it's really important every year as a business, you sit down and say, these are our goals for the year. And then you break those goals down and say, okay, if I want to be here at the end of the year, where do need to be in six months to be on track for that? Where do need to be in three months to be on track for that? Where do I need to be at the end of this month to be on track?

You should be doing the same thing for your managers. Frankly, you should do this for everybody on your team. But for your manager, it's particularly important because you have a lot more skills to develop, a lot more training that needs to take place, a lot more learning they need to do. And so for any person that you're managing that's on your management team, you should be having one-on-ones with them and you should be implementing 30, 60 and 90 day goals. And then if you have a one-on-one every month,

Alright, so these are our goals for this month. These are our goals 60 days out. These are our goals 90 days out. Then when you meet again in a month, you say, OK, here are our 30 day goals. Did we meet them? You can't just set a goal and forget it. Because that does not get shit done. You have to set a goal and follow up on it, review it. So if you're doing a monthly one on one, which you should be doing, then every month you should be reviewing those goals, understanding those goals.

Chris Schneider (05:28.108)
seeing where you succeeded, where you failed, understanding why you failed. If your manager failed to a goal, why? Is it because they were lazy and just didn't do their work? Or is it because you set them up for failure? They didn't have the tools they need. They didn't have the knowledge they needed. They don't have something that they actually needed to get that goal done.

And then you can roll those goals forward, right? So if there was a 30 day goal that didn't get met, it should become a 30 day goal for the next period. Your 60 day goals that you set should still be good for the next 30 days. And so that constant process of having goals out three months, meeting every month and moving them out three months again is really essential to make sure that your managers understand what you want them to do and that they have the ability and actually perform.

Other thing that you have to do to have clear expectations is you have to set up clear communication channels. So I don't really care how you communicate. I don't care if it's a text message thread or Slack or email or through notes on your POS system. It does not matter. But there needs to be clear structured communication channels where everything important goes through one channel. Now, why does it need to go through one channel? Because that's now nowhere to look. Your manager knows, OK,

If something hit this Slack message or something hit this text thread, this is important. This is something I have to pay attention to. If you have 15 different communication channels, it's very hard for someone to always be aware of what's going on on all of them.

So that's setting clear expectations. Now, our second thing that we want to focus on for empowering our managers is financial empowerment. Now, financial empowerment starts by making sure your managers know how the heck to read a P &L and a balance sheet and a cash flow statement and understand basics of bookkeeping. It is amazing to me how many times I talk with a manager at a restaurant and I ask something like, okay, how is this business doing?

Chris Schneider (07:32.526)
do you know? They said, well, we're doing great because I see this on Toaster that they have no clue of what's actually going on in their P &L. Now, I know for a lot of owners, that kind of transparency can be a little bit bothersome. A lot of us don't want to show people how great or terrible we're doing.

Frankly, I think that's fear. I think that's lack of belief in yourself as an owner if you don't want to share that information. And if nothing else, it's just bullshit gatekeeping. And so you need to teach your folks how to read your financial statements and then you need to show them your financial statements. They need to understand how everything they do impacts the bottom line. And I've talked about this before, but if you're managing your

or if you're managing, you're bonusing your managers off of.

sales and not just revenue, but on sales, but say profits, which is where I like to bonus people off. They need to understand that entire PNL. They need to see that PNL. They need to understand how they behave and what they do and how it impacts the PNL.

Because if they don't do that, if they don't understand the numbers, they can't manage them.

Chris Schneider (08:56.29)
And I've said it before, what gets measured gets managed, what gets managed gets done. So you're measuring your finances, but to manage it, your manager has to be aware of what they are.

So once you've taught them the basics of financial management and you're showing them statements and they understand what's going on, they can read that piano.

Chris Schneider (09:20.184)
The next thing on financial empowerment is really teaching labor and efficient scheduling. How does labor cost work? How can we schedule more efficiently? What do we need to look for in our scheduling? Who do we need to schedule when?

You know, I think it's interesting. Most bars have a couple shifts and they don't, you know, the first server comes in at four. Why does the first server come in four? Because the first server comes in at four for the evening. Second server comes in at six. Why does the second server come in at six? Because they've always came in at six. Well, if you're not doing much business from six to eight, why did that person come in at six? There's no point. They should have come in at eight before you got busy for the night.

So scheduling is not just following some format that you've always followed. It's understanding how to adjust your scheduling to your business needs and making sure you're not over scheduled. That means they have to understand that P &L to be able to understand the labor and schedule efficiently for you.

Chris Schneider (10:32.556)
The next thing you need to make sure your team understands, and this is all lumped here together, we could just say prime cost, but the next thing they understand is food cost, beverage cost, liquor cost, how those act, how those actually exist.

Especially when it comes down to we can't price liquor cocktails off just the price of the liquor in the cocktail. You have mixers, have garnishes, you have potentially disposable things that are all getting put into this drink.

Chris Schneider (11:11.534)
And all of that is part of the cost of the drink. So you have to understand costing perfectly, you have to understand labor perfectly. Otherwise, you're never going to understand prime cost. And if your managers don't know this, if no one's ever spent the time to teach them this, yeah, they might have 20 years experience. Yeah, they might have run successful bars in the past, but they're not as good as they could be because they don't know what they don't know. And your job as an owner is to teach them.

The other thing that have to understand, once you get past that labor and food cost, then we have to talk about managing controllable expenses efficiently. So managing controllable expenses. Controllable expenses are things like paper goods, entertainment budget, your marketing, your advertising, charitable giving, all of those things that you don't have to spend money on, but you do because it increases your business. Those are all your controllable expenses.

And they need to understand those and really help you find ways to minimize those costs. If you empower your folks and they see this P &L, and especially if you're bonusing them off the bottom line, they will learn this stuff very quickly.

Chris Schneider (12:30.36)
But the big thing here is...

Chris Schneider (12:34.466)
that when your team, when your management team knows your PNL, when they know how it works, when they understand all the components and everything that drives into it, you can then put in place accountability based upon your metrics.

It's not right to sell somebody, well, I need prime cost under 60%. If they don't understand what prime cost is, if they don't understand how to pull those levers and move things around to do that, they're never going to be efficient for you. So once they understand the numbers, how they work, how they behave, then you can put in those accountability measures and use those measurable metrics on your P &L to guide your management team and their decisions.

The other thing, and this is really true, and like I said, there are a lot of bar owners out there that really do not like sharing financial information with their team. I don't get it. I don't like it. Frankly, I think it is not setting yourself up for success. It's not going to make you the most money doing that, but that is a choice you can make. Personally, I sit down with my management team every time I've ever owned a bar, every time I've even managed a bar.

Anytime I'm even working with a client really closely, I'll sit down with that management team every week and go over the P &L for the prior week. Yes, that means you have to have a bookkeeper that does stuff quick or you have to do your own bookkeeping. But giving them up to date information every week, putting that P &L in front of them, hugely important, and it helps motivate them and keep your managers on task for what's going to actually drive the financial success of your business.

And then of course at the end of the month you look at the monthly statements, at the end of the quarter you look at the quarterly statements. You're just giving them information to drive your business forward.

Chris Schneider (14:31.564)
Now the third thing to empower your managers that needs to happen is you need to create support systems and room for growth. And so like I just talked about earlier, you should have a check in with them, a one-on-one, every single month. Now frankly, you should have manager meetings that are a lot more frequent than that. I personally think it's really hard to run a bar efficiently unless you get your entire management team together for a meeting at least once a week, preferably twice a week. But that's a group meeting. You need to have one-on-one.

individual check-ins with each manager on your team every single month.

Chris Schneider (15:10.53)
And in those meetings, that gives you the opportunity to focus on the metrics they don't know, but also to teach them, to coach them, to help develop them. And when we start talking about things like mindset and philosophy that you have in your business, your mission, your vision, your value, that all comes out in those one-on-one meetings.

If you have a large management team, not everyone does, right? A lot of the folks listening this, you're running smaller bars. So you don't have a, you maybe have a manager, like I said before. But let's say you had four or five managers. You should build peer support networks within your management team. Everyone should have a buddy, someone that they can talk to. And you should structure that basically as a mentoring program so that your older managers are teaching your younger managers the ropes.

Plus that way when your younger managers have a question, they're not coming to you first. They're going to their mentor, that manager that's been there longer first.

You also need to develop career advancement pathways. Now for small bars, and we've talked about this in relation to teams and your team experience. Once you're a manager, it's hard to go any higher. Right? So maybe the career advancement pathway is not at your bar. Maybe that career advancement pathway is I'm going to teach you how to be a great manager and then you can go manage some big chain restaurant. Or you can go be a district manager for a bar group.

That is a fantastic way to set your folks up for success. Even though you know they can't do it in your bar long term, there is no more upward mobility. You've created additional ways for them to move their career forward and you can encourage them, guide them and be happy for them when they quit. To go work for somebody and have a better job and then that gives you the opportunity to take a really good server, a really good bar gender. And raise them up to that management level, teach them.

Chris Schneider (17:09.368)
how to be a manager.

So even if you don't have career pathways within your organization, having them across other organizations, getting your folks ready to go work for other people provides that same experience, that same incentive for growth to your managers.

Chris Schneider (17:32.92)
The other thing here too, and we talked about this with with team management, you need to create meaningful incentive programs. Now my favorite incentive program for managers is always.

the idea that we're going to bonus them off of operating profits. Because that way they're responsible for the entire P &L. If I make a lot of money, they make more money. It's great. We all win together. And that also makes sure that they see it as a team and not you're the boss who just calls shots and hides and makes all the money while they do all the hard work. It's much more of a team approach when everyone gets to share in that bottom line.

Now notice, I will say this real quick. I did not say make them partners. I think making managers partners can get really messy really quick. But bonusing them off the bottom line, essentially they're getting the money like they were a partner, but they don't have any actual say in the business and you can fire them without having to deal with the fallout of firing a partner.

Chris Schneider (18:37.686)
And the final thing for support systems growth, and you guys know I love it, love talking about this and I love just hammering on this, create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Everybody grows every day, everything gets a little bit better every day. When everything ends learning and everything is getting better, eventually you become the best. And you don't have to do it in a way that's difficult or hard. You just have to do it a little bit at a time.

So make sure your managers are buying into that continuous learning and continuous improvement that you want for your bar, because that way they're driving the success for the future.

The success of your business largely depends on the effectiveness of your management team. By providing clear expectations, financial training, and robust support systems, you create an environment where managers can truly excel. Remember, empowered managers lead to empowered teams, and empowered teams drive business success.