Presented by:

Warren Dietel, President & Owner Orlando, FL

Event Staff Innovation Making Event Staff a Profit Center

Warren Dietel, Owner & President

• Reside in Winter Park

• Entrepreneurial from the beginning

• Professional Experience – Car Detailing, Puff ‘n Stuff Catering, Disney

Weddings, Disney Institute, Scott Kay

• Purchased PnSC in 2003

• Current ICA board member and regular speaker for the ICA, NACE and The Special Event

My Story

• Opened in 1980 by mom and dad

• Purchased in 2003, annual sales of $1.8M, at operational limit

• Infrastructure required improvements to support growth

• Positive reputation in the community

• Tremendous potential + aggressive growth plan = 267% growth in 3 years

The Puff Story

• Over 400 staff members strong (50 FT) – Diversifying segment base

• Expanded the award-winning team into the Tampa market with an acquisition and opening of a second office

• Five exclusive venues & many more preferred

The Puff Story

Today’s Session

Caterers make money on food, beverage, rentals, décor and many other services, but are often willing to settle for breaking even or even

loose money on event staff.

Today, learn new thoughts and structures that can positively impact the profitability of service

staff at events.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

COMPENSATION

EDUCATING

PROFIT

How to recruit, hire, and train an

ENGAGED event staff team

Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement is a positive attitude held by the employees towards the organization and its

values.

An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within

the job for the benefit of the organization.

Recruit, Hire & Train With Precision

• Fish in the right pond – Employee referrals

– Hospitality and traditional colleges

– Young professionals

– Staffing agency partnership

• Be upfront about expectations, responsibilities & opportunities

• Immerse new hires in your company culture and values

• Develop a picture of today, tomorrow, and what governs decisions

• Put the foundation in place to support excellence and growth

• Use an outside source to assist with development

• Create a plan that includes assessment of and future planning for

– Management

– Staff

– Customer Base

– Research and Development

– Human Resources

– Operations

– Sales and Marketing

– Financial

– Technology

Mission, Vision & Values

The Mission A mission statement is a brief written statement of the purpose

of a company or organization. Ideally, a mission statement guides the actions of the organization, spells out its overall goal, provides a sense of direction, and guides decision

making for all levels of management.

Vision A vision statement outlines what the organization wants to be. It

concentrates on the future. It is a source of inspiration. It provides clear decision-making criteria.

Puff ‘n Stuff Catering will possess the systems and

procedures necessary to provide the foundation for excellence and profitable growth. We will be recognized as the event/catering organization of choice by our team

members and clients.

Core Values Core values reflect what is truly important to an organization.

These values do not change from time to time, situation to situation, or person to person, but are the underpinning of a

company’s culture.

Professional – In behaviors and appearance

Respect – For self, team members and clients

Own – Accountable for each others’ success and safety

Anticipate – Serving team member and clients needs

Communicate – Timely, accurately and honestly

Creating Engagement

Leadership must: • Acknowledge individual contributions • Deliver supportive feedback • Foster collaborative interdepartmental working relationships • Provide empowerment that promotes success • Discuss expectations that set clear, challenging and attainable

performance goals • Show that you and the company care about employees and

their success • Trust and get out of the way

“When you give a little respect you get a more effective

organization, with reduced turnover and absenteeism and employees at all levels who are

engaged, focused, and committed to succeed as a

team. In short, you get maximum ROI from your

organization’s most powerful resource: its people!”

Paul Marciano,

Ph.D.

Happy Staff = Willing Staff!

At the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Pete, Florida.

STATE OF THE PUFF

• Annual meeting

• Know your audience – cater to them

• Fun atmosphere – get global message across then have fun

• Recognize success

• Share the future

• Avoid discipline

• Anniversary lunch

How an established TRAINING system can directly

effect the PAY rate for event staff

• Trained staff equate to less hours needed to produce the same task

• Allows company to be competitive in marketplace

• Results in higher hourly wages

• Greater success potential even when faced with difficult situations

• Work is fairly distributed

• Ability to hire for attitude and values – train for skill!

• General SOPs & Steps of Service

• Consistency and use of technology

• Specific for new events & concepts

• Consider same day/pre- event OJT

As leaders, it is our

responsibility to ensure everyone

understands the value of

training

Event Specific Training – Restaurant 20.12

Event Specific Training – Restaurant 20.12

Event Specific Training – Restaurant 20.12

Direct Implications – Structure #1

Basic Structure – 2 Pay Tiers • On-call Employees

• Lower hourly rate,

basic event skills

• Supervisors

• Promoted from

within, earn the

most hours,

have diverse skills

Direct Implications – Structure #2

Advanced Structure – Multiple Pay Tiers

1. Entry level ($8-9 per hour) - Ex. Basic steps of service, culture and core values, waiting tables, butler-passing

2. Mid level ($9-11 per hour) - Ex. Setting rooms, section leadership, interfacing with clients and venue staff

3. Captain level ($12-15 per hour) - Ex. Meeting with Sales Team pre-event, loading and verifying truck packing sheets, supervising event set-up and execution

4. Specialists – Bartenders, culinary, venue managers, etc. 5. Department Managers – promote from within to lead an

entire team

Connect the value of training programs and graduations to higher pay and responsibilities

Indirect Implications

• Well trained staff earn higher and more frequent gratuities on top of hourly wages

• And the drama factor is reduced because they are happy and appreciative of their jobs

Gratuities

Gratuities in addition to higher hourly wages

are a very powerful motivator - employees can understand and see the connection

between their performance and their

rewards.

“When employees think, act and feel like owners… everybody wins.” - Jack Stack

The power of CONFIDENCE!

How to EDUCATE your clients about event staff

• Training

• Uniforms

• Event Impact

• Guest Satisfaction

• Share Positive Client Feedback

“Sell the benefit, not the feature.”

Tell Your Story!

Communicate your unique value

• Own a distinct place in the mind of your customers. You purchase that place by promising and delivering value

• Tell stories of how you solve problems for others on your client facing communication

• Make it personal and connect it!

• Do not allow yourself to become a commodity

• Use names and real experiences

– Charles Schwalb, Joe Love, Cake Disasters

Client Feedback

Client Feedback

“I want to give a special acknowledgement to Emerald. She was very professional, calm and organized. I

really appreciated the fact that she came to check on ME a couple times to

see if I needed anything personally. It was a busy night for me and when you host, you know you don't get much time

to enjoy anything yourself. If the opportunity arises we will definitely call

on you again!”

How to bring

PROFIT to

the bottom line from event staffing

• Use Technology – Caterease / ADP Enterprise

• Estimate Properly

• Capture Data

• Evaluate

• Re-invest

You’ve sold it, now

keep it!

Turning Revenue Into Profit

Estimating Labor

Supervisor, Lead Culinary, and Lead Bartender come

to the commissary – Billed at $30per hr

All others meet on site – Billed at $25 per hour

Client is charged for all hours dedicated to the

production of the event

EVENT EXAMPLE

Event 6:30pm – 10:30pm

Call time: 2pm

Departure: 3pm

Arrival on site: 4pm

Event set-up: 4pm – 6:30pm

Event: 6:30pm – 10:30pm

Breakdown: 10:30pm – 11:30pm

Return to the commissary – 12:30

Leads billed for 10½ hours

All others billed for 7½ hours

AUTOMATING THE PROCESS

Caterease used for estimating the labor

ADP Enterprise software used for employee schedule

management

Staff control their available to work.

Leadership uses Enterprise software

to manage abilities and skill levels

Service manager clicks staffing button

when time to schedule

All necessary reports, event related data,

and scheduling data is pushed up from

Caterease to Enterprise

Enterprise auto fills the shifts based on skill level and

availability

Service manager approves and/or edits schedule.

Enterprise pushes details to the service team –

location, Google map, schedule, appropriate event

details, and co-worker/supervisor details.

Enterprise then pushes the scheduling information

back down to Caterease. Shifts are now replaced with

names so sales is informed who is working their event.

CAPTURING THE HOURS WORKED

• Geo-fencing technology allows staff to use their smart phones to clock in when they arrive to the event location and forces clock out when they depart the site

• Service manager reviews and approves the hours in Enterprise. Actual hours worked are then pushed back down to Caterease.

• Automatic notification is sent to Sales if additional billing is necessary.

• Job costing / P&L reports are automatically generated and sent to management.

• Enterprise automatically sends the data to ADP Total Source for paycheck creation.

Process Flow - Blueprint

© Copyright 2011 ADP, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential Information

Time Collection ADP ENTERPRISE ETIME

TOTALSOURCE

CATEREASE

Time and Labor Management – ROI ($2+mil Payroll) $82,500.00 - Error Rate (4%)

$61,750.00 – Lost Time (15 Minutes)

$39,950.00 – Recovery of Excess OT (5% $98K/40% Recovery) Reduce lost / “stolen” time

Eliminate errors

Eliminate manual process

Pay policy misinterpretation

Improved efficiency, productivity

Overtime management tools

Mitigate risk of non-compliance

ESTIMATED ANNUAL TOTAL SAVINGS

$184,200.00

The ROI

• Gives clients piece of mind knowing they are only charged for the hours worked.

• Keeps honest people honest

• Eliminates time consuming manual entry into time

keeping system. (100+ hours per week)

• Eliminates human errors

Thank You!

Warren Dietel| warren@puffnstuff.com |

407.398.6306

To download a copy of my slides, go to: http://www.slideshare.net/WarrenDietel

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Twitter: @pscatering