does anyone have an end of the year bonus program for non managment employees? if so, what is it based on?
For Christmas I gave each employee a zippo lighter with my logo etched and painted on, a restaurant gift card and between $0 and $300 depending upon how long they have worked for me, how many hours they are available and how flexible their scedule is. I also regularly give bonuses on each of our bussiest weekends when everyone works twice as hard to just keep the store from falling apart. I would rather give smaller bonuses throughout the year to show immediate appreciation for a job well done, than one bonus at the end of the year that likely will be forgotten by July. Of coarse, the end of the year bonus will be remembered next December as the employee expects the bonus again.
we have been giving bonuses for a busy day or a busy week. the problem that i see is that you give a bonus based on the small picture, yet end up losing money for the year, in which case no bonuses should have been given.
Well I guess in the case of looking at the BIG picture, if you’re losing money, you shouldn’t be giving end of the year bonuses either!
paul, thanks for the input. you’re right about new end of the year bonuses if one loses money.
as i said, we have been giving bonuses for particularly busy days or if the is an especially big catering, just as you have. also, if the gross income for a week exceeds a certain threshold, we also give a bonus.
you are absolutely right that the employees probably appreciate more immediate gratification. i was just looking to if anyone had a different system because of my concern that one could be giving bonuses in the short term while losing money in the long term.
I give bonuses every week if sales are above a certain target, food costs are at a certain percentage, and my mystery shopper that week (which is always some random friend of mine) gives great reviews. It is a reachable target, but not easy. The sales they have no control over, but they understand I am in business to make money and that I need to make money to pay extra. They have a lot of control over food costs. I can’t even quantify how much waste has decreased since I implemented this. The mystery shopper knows my recipes. He makes sure that an appropriate amount of toppings are on. He’s basically verifying for me that food costs are being met the right way, not by skimping (and also that good service is going on).
I will also place an order using a fake name sometimes and be the mystery shopper myself.
All this works out phenomenly. My food costs has dropped 3% over the past year.
Re: end of year bonuses/food cost calculation
in terms of food cost, i know about and understand portion control. re food cost percentage, i find myself paying my supply cost for this month next month. should i be tracking my costs for each week even though the actual payment is later. if so, how do i deal with what is pulled from inventory. for example, if i have received my flour for the month and i want to calculate my food cost for a week, do i need to know how many bags of flour i used for the week?
Re: end of year bonuses/food cost calculation
boaz1
I take inventory every week before I calculate food costs. If there is stock that had a price change since the last inventory I us the first in first out method to calculate.
For example if I bought 5 bags of flour at $10/bag and 7 bags at $11/bag and used 9 bags the food cost would $50 for the first 5 and $44 for the remaining 4, so the food cost would be $94 for the 9 bags of flour I used. At the end of the week I should have 3 bags of flour worth $33. The next week I buy 9 bags at $11/bag and my inventory is now worth $132.
Wherter I bought on credit or paid COD does not change the cost of the food used.
PM me if you want more detailed information.