Eat'n Park Career Connection

Why empathy in leadership matters

Most times, we tend to confuse empathy with sympathy; that to be empathetic means agreeing or relating to the feelings another person has regarding a given situation or individual.

SO what does empathy really mean?

In order to appreciate the role empathy plays in leadership, we first need to have a clear understanding of what empathy means. You can sense the emotions of those around you.  You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own.  Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective.-“Now, Discover Your Strengths”

Why does it matter for us to understand the needs of others?

By understanding others we can develop closer relationships with employees- understanding and providing employees with what they need to succeed, leaders can build a sense of trust, thereby strengthening the relationships they have with their employees and consequently, the relationships employees have with one another, leading to greater collaboration and improved productivity.  This so pertinent in any industry.

What traits/behaviors distinguish someone as empathetic?

Empathy requires:

• ·         Listening
• ·         Openess
• ·         Non-judgementalism
• ·         Emotional Intelligence

What do I get from empathizing with my employees

• You gain a greater awareness      of the needs of your employees.

• Empathy      allows you to create an environment of open communication and more      effective feedback.
• It      allows us to understand and explore problems employees face and how to      help them resolve them.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Staying Calm, Cool and Collected…Meshell

While Meshell was attending high school, the local schools decided to consolidate. This consolidation was going to send Meshell’s friends to different schools. Also, it would break up Meshell’s Scooby gang. Not wanting this to happen, the friends all decided to sign up for food service classes at the local vo-tech school. This strategy not only kept the friends together, Meshell enjoyed it so much she decided to make food service her career.

After graduating from IUP with a culinary degree, Meshell worked as a chef; but she soon decided she really wanted to interact with people more. Kitchens were fun but they didn’t create enough interaction with other folks. She soon decided to go back to IUP and graduated with a B. S. in Hospitality Management.

Always thinking ahead, Meshell interviewed and got a job with Eat’n Park restaurants before she even graduated. She breezed through her finals knowing she already had a job. She completed her management training in our restaurant in New Kensington. It didn’t take her long to be promoted to manager and then finally to General Manager.

Meshell said that everything looks so big when you are just starting out. She remembered the first time she was on shift when the power went out. She didn’t know what to do and thought that the restaurant would shut down. She was on the verge of freaking out when her DM called and calmed her down. They told her that she was fine and that these things happen. Now Meshell stays calm, cool and collected during storms, fires, tornadoes, no power or water. Stuff happens… you just need to keep calm and carry on.

Meshell’s advice to everyone is that you get out of everything what you put in it; you just can’t just get by. You need to put real effort into it, be motived and go after what you want. And don’t forget to stay calm, cool and collected.

How to have fun at work!

With summer fast approaching, the businesses of the restaurants will pick up, which can mean higher stress levels but can also mean more fun!

According to a William M. Mercer survey, only 29 percent of employers nationwide encourage humor as part of their company culture, and only eight percent have a policy of using fun to reduce employee stress. Yet, research at California State University Long Beach showed that people who have fun at work are more creative, more productive, work better with others and call in sick less often.

If people are having fun they are going to work harder, stay longer, maintain their composure in a crisis better, and take better care of your organization.

 Some quick tips

•  Make the Most of Your Commute. How do you spend your commute? Make it positive time. Use it for reading, writing, creative thinking, creative projects, listen to audio books, or, heck, write your own book! If you enjoy your commute, that happiness will spill over into how you feel at work.
•  Choose to enjoy your time at work. Find others who are enjoy having fun and spread good cheer it’s contagious and it grows. Try to avoid gossip and negative chat. It can be tempting, but it doesn’t serve anyone well, including yourself.
•  Conflicts with Others. Let your goal be “to make progress.” Don’t get caught up in trying to “be right” or to “win” the argument. That will just slow you down. In your mind ask yourself, “What will move this conflict forward right now?” And then get busy doing that.
• Motivate your Team. Learn about what motivates your employees. Use contests, games, food, prizes and other incentives to get the team excited about running a strong shift. Motivation keeps people upbeat and productive.
• Take  Your Vacation Time.  Try doing something different. If you always go on a trip, try taking a   more local vacation, and really get some good rest time. Or if you always  stay local, try visiting a new place. Variety is one of the keys to happiness.

Have Fun this summer Team!

The Power of Internships

The recruiting team at Eat’n Park Hospitality Group (ENPHG) is now fully engaged with recruiting restaurant management interns for our summer program. We have a very robust internship program. The interns have 10 weeks to be certified in departments, handle cash, complete product ordering and they get a chance to direct the entire team. They get the opportunity to manage an entire shift, sometimes, by themselves. At the end of the 10 weeks the interns present their projects to senior management in the Leadership Center of our corporate office. After the presentation we all go out to have a great dinner at Six Penn Kitchen. You can’t beat that for an internship.

Well all this planning for our summer internship go me think about the power of internships. If it is possible, do as many internships that you can. But don’t go over board. Make sure the are aligned with your long term career goals and they make sense.

Internships can:

Give you a great idea what it is like to work your  chosen field’s work environment. Don’t wait until you are done with  school, built up a lot of debt in school loans, and then decide you hate your chosen field. Either you will need to go back to school and create even more debit or you have to just suck it up and be someone where your don’t  enjoy.

• You will build your network. Get to know the folks you work with during your internship(s). You will never know when those  folks can support your job hunt. Just don’t forget to support those folks when you can.
• Build your resume. Internships offer your value resume building experiences. It doesn’t really matter how you get  experiences. You can gain experience by working, volunteering or by completing internships. It’s all still real live experience.

Batter Up Brittany

Brittany’s goal was to play softball on a winning team while earning a four year degree and enjoy her college life. And she did all three! She received her four year degree in business and accounting and was the designated hitter on her softball team, which won the nation championship 53 to 6. Brittany loved attending a smaller school where everyone knew your name. In between softball and school, she worked at two bars and a restaurant. She did everything from washing dishes, prepping, serving and bartending. She enjoyed working in the restaurants so much she decided that one day she would own her own sports bar in Colorado on the Vale. By the way, she loves to snow ski.

Brittany loves the people and the family atmosphere at Eat’n Park. She knows the CEO, Jeff Broadhurst, and has attended events with him. Her peer advisor, Erin, was greatly helpful; she could ask him how to do just about anything. He even showed her how to count dishes on his night off. Wow, what an awesome peer! Best of all, she gets to have fun and play softball with other Eat’n Park managers.

Brittany says to jump right in and learn as much as you can during training. Ask questions about everything, even if you think it’s a dumb question. Your General Manager, fellow managers and hourly team members can all be your teachers.

Brittany is working hard on being promoted to manager. Go Brittany! We know you’ll knock that one out of the park too!

Elliot – Bigger and Better Things…

Elliot started with Eat’n Park Hospitality Group at the wee age of 15. He started as a dishwasher at our restaurant in the Waterfront. He didn’t expect to stay. Oh no, he thought he would work a while and then quickly move on to bigger and better things. Now, he did move on to bigger and better things but he did it all within Eat’n Park Hospitality Group.

After Elliot had dishwashing down pat, he trained to cook. As soon as he turned 18, he trained to be a shift supervisor. So at the ripe old age of 18 he was managing shifts. He really enjoyed what he was doing so after high school he decided to pursue a culinary degree.  During school, and even during Elliot’s externship, he worked part time at Eat’n Park. After he graduated with his degree, he decided to enter into the management training program.

He completed his management training at our restaurant in New Stanton. After his management training, Elliot was transferred to our restaurant in North Versailles where he was quickly promoted to manager. He also worked at our restaurant on Banksville Road and is presently assigned back to the restaurant where he originally started, The Waterfront.

Elliot loves the people he works with; both management and team members. He loves the fact that he is more then just a name. He gets face time with everyone. He knows and recognizes the CEO, Jeff Broadhurst, and Jeff knows and recognizes him. Eat’n Park’s CEO couldn’t play under cover CEO.

Elliot says to try new things and be willing to learn. No one is going to push you everywhere you go. To do something day in and day out, you need to love doing it; the days aren’t long if you love what you are doing.

I could tell during Elliot’s interview that he loved what he does. He was bright eyed and bushy tailed on a miserable, snowy, wet early Monday mourning.

I would say by far the biggest and best thing that has happened to Elliot during his 12 years at Eat’n Park was meeting his wife. Congratulations Elliot! I know the next 12 years will be even better!

How We Can Change for the Better

Last week we focused on behaviors that inhibit our professional and personal growth this week I’d like for you to review the following tips and implement the most useful.

1.) Feedback -Whenever feedback is given to you in any form, never respond by arguing about it. Instead, write it down and consider it later when your immediate flared passions are calmer. Thank the person for offering their opinion, put the advice aside for a while, and then look at it later with a cool head, and you’ll often find something specific you can improve on. If you want to be proactive about feedback, don’t be afraid to ask for it, but never argue about it.

2.) Apologizing- If you realize that you have done something wrong, either very recently or in the past, apologize. Swallow a bit of pride, go up to the person, and just apologize for whatever it is. Likely, you’ll both feel better for it – you’ll lose at least some of the bad feeling and the other person will feel better too (almost always).

3.) Telling the world- or advertising Now that you’ve apologized, what are you going to do to change? The next step is to define the changes you’re going to make and to let everyone know about them, especially the people you’ve apologized to. Apologies don’t mean anything if they’re not coupled with some effort to change.

4.) Listening- When someone speaks to you, listen to them. Don’t interrupt them, and try to fully understand what they’re saying before formulating a response. This is always a strong tactic to use when someone is trying to talk to you. If you can’t fully describe and articulate the message someone is trying to deliver to you, your response is guaranteed to be less accurate and thorough than it could be if you listened to the message and to the messenger.

5.) Thanking- Whenever someone does something beneficial for you, thank them. Just be sure to take the time to thank everyone who contributes to your success, both directly and in public opportunities when given the chance.

6.) Following up- Once you’ve started to really work on these things and started eliminating the bad habits from your life, follow up on them. Wait a few months, then ask the person you’ve apologized to if things are still okay and if you are doing well on your “advertised” plan of attack. Stay diligent yourself, and try to remind yourself often of your goals. Constant follow-up keeps you on task and on focus with anything in your life.

7.) Practicing “Feedforward”- At this point, you’re making real progress on your negative habits. Now, step back and ask for some future suggestions on where you should go with these changes. Ask someone who you’ve had experience with in the past for two specific things that you can do in the future to help with the behavior(s) you’re working on, listen, thank them, then work on implementing them. Feedback talks about the past while “feedforward” talks about the future.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

In the book titled What got you there wont get you there- the author Marshall Goldsmith seeks to identify habits in the workplace that often keep successful people from making the next big leap in their career and in life.

Here are a few of the habits that hold you back from the top

1.)    Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations.

2.)    Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our 2cents to every conversation.

3.)    Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us witty.

4.)    Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.

5.)    Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.

6.) Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.

7.) Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage     over others.

8.) Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to give praise and reward.

9.) Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.

10.) Failing to express regret: The most basic of bad manners.

If you’ve enjoyed the Don’ts…Please stay tuned for next weeks tips on how to change for the better.