BY – Mr Manish Sharma, Director(operation) – The Flying Dutchman & Jungle Jamboree
Manish Sharma, Director(operation) – The Flying Dutchman & Jungle Jamboree, sharing his thoughts with businessfortnight on sanitation and regulation of hospitality sector in pandemic times. Speaking about the current situation he, Needless to say, “it is high time to make some major changes to the way you run your restaurant. Ensuring that your customers, as well as staff, stay healthy and safe during this pandemic should be your prime concern. All the way from ensuring the utmost level of sanitation to enforcing measures to protect workers under you, there are numerous changes you need to make right now”.
Food delivery is the best way you can reach your customers right now. It is a good time to evaluate your financial situation and know the extent of damage taking place. Update all your data so that you have a clear idea of how much profit or loss you’re making. Keep tabs on your inventory-perishable items as well as non-perishable items. Evaluate how much your storage capacity is too. It’s okay to limit your menu temporarily if some ingredients aren’t easily available. At the same time, make sure that you create content for your social media pages or blog that is relevant to the current situation.
After all, people all across the world are working from home and are practically glued to their phone screens all day. Use this fact to your advantage by marketing yourself as a reliable business. If your restaurant has a certain minimum order size that customers need to have for food delivery, it is a good idea to take off this restriction for now. When your restaurant is operating solely through food delivery, even an order of Rs.100 or Rs. 150 is better than having no food orders at all.
You could also include reheating instructions along with food deliveries to offer customers a better experience. You should look into expanding your delivery network altogether so that you receive more orders. Given that you don’t have to look after dining in operations, use all the resources you have at hand to provide customers with a pleasant delivery experience. Major players such as KFC and Dominos have launched contactless delivery. As more and more people are opting for contactless delivery, you need to make sure that you provide your customers with this option too.
Worker Safety – The ongoing crisis is difficult to deal with, but it is extremely important for you to ensure worker safety right now. You will have to make changes to staffing according to the level of operations you’re carrying out. This might even mean needing lesser hands on deck. Make sure that you offer paid sick leave to every employee so that they stay home if they’re unwell. Even if you don’t currently offer paid sick leave to your employees, that is something you need to change. Make sure that you offer them all the support that you can. An empathetic employer can largely contribute to reducing stress. Employee benefits such as paid leave are a must. Even though this might be tough especially when profits are running low, it’s better in the long run. Stay connected with your staff at all times and keep checking up on them constantly. Communication makes it easier to deal with everything changing rapidly the way it is right now.