What Does a Manager Do - Coursework Example

Introduction

In the restaurant business, managers play the most critical role in ensuring profitability and operational efficiency, while at the same time maintaining their ethos and reputation. Managers are supposed to coordinate a variety of activities regardless of the size and type of the restaurant due to the need to have improved business performance, health, and safety in the restaurant and addressing the issues of quality standards. Ahi Poké Restaurant is a chain of Hawaii themed restaurants which were founded by Gabriel Cohen, Jeremy Coste, and David Ballaiche. The restaurant was opened first in London in 2014 after the founders discovered that they were craving for raw fish meals after they returned from Los Angles trip. The mission of Ahi Poké Restaurant is to offer their London customers with fish which is sustainably caught and responsibly sourced. The restaurant achieves this by ensuring they acquire their fish from some of the world best fish markets. For vegetables which are common on their menu, the restaurant mission is to ensure their customers are served with the freshest local fruits and vegetables and this mission is achieved by working closely with their purveyors. The main objective of Ahi Poké Restaurant is to ensure London resident have a taste of some of the most delicious cuisines from Hawaii and other regions offering seafood in the world through their variety of dishes. Ahi Poké Restaurant is a medium sized restaurant established at the heart of London city, with the restaurant currently hiring 45 employees in each of its three branches in the city. The restaurant has been facing challenges in establishing a noticeable organization culture due to the different backgrounds of the employees but the management ensures each and every employee work towards leaving the customer with a new experience through delicious meals and high-quality services. Mr. Taylor is my manager and he is currently coordinating all the operations in the organization including procurement, human resource, and finances and sourcing among others with help of the three founders who he also reports to regarding the progress of the three restaurants and the expansion plans.

Planning

Managers operating restaurants in the modern business world are expected to have adequate planning skills due to the changes experienced in the industry which need to be integrated with the business without affecting its operations and profitability. Mr. Ali who is the Ahi Poké Restaurant manager does different planning activities in the organization including ensuring the restaurant founders are committed to the firm’s strategic planning processes and are willing to implement the changes arising from the process. The managers planning activities are also conducted when planning for the time frame and acting on the different barriers and issues threatening restaurant effectiveness and profitability (Carpenter, 2010). Due to the changing trends in restaurants operating in London and other major cities in the world, Mr. Ali changes the organization plans depending on the new elements of the business which needs to be integrated into the restaurant. However, the process of changing plan at Ahi Poké Restaurant is undertaken with the consultation of the owners. Mr. Ali is mandated with the development of Ahi Poké Restaurant plans. Once he develops a plan, he communicates the plan with the owners who go through the plan and decides whether there are changes needed or the organization will adopt the plans directly by communicating he plans to the effect work areas. At Ahi Poké, once the plans have been developed and verified by the owners, the managers are tasked with implementing a process where he has to involve all the stakeholders to avoid agency conflicts or resistance with the restaurant. The process of evaluating whether plans have been achieved at Ahi Poké Restaurant is conducted by the manager by checking the progress of different activities which were affected by the new plan. The plans which are working are rewarded while those identified as having issues in achieving are given more resources or are changed to avoid adverse effects at the restaurant (Carpenter, 2010).

Organizing

At Ahi Poké Restaurant, human resource is considered one of the essential assets. With the restaurant expanding every day and increasing the number of customers, having committed and dedicated human resource will have a positive impact on the restaurant growth and profitability. Therefore, as a manager, Mr. Ali is responsible for employees’ attitude towards the customer which is a major aspect of the food and beverage industry. According to Mr. Ali, “To ensure the employees have a good attitude toward the customers, the manager has ensured employees are from different races, age groups, religion, and gender to ensure each and every customer feel represented and make it easy to communicate with the customers”. London is known for business tourism due to a huge number of companies that have established their businesses in the city. Therefore, visitors come from different regions of the world hence having employees who can speak different languages is the responsibility of the manager. Secondly, the time frame is a major issue in restaurant businesses because of the different shifts and schedules among the employees. Therefore, the manager is responsible for ensuring each and every employee is at his workplace at the right time. To achieve this objective, Mr. Ali prepares a well detailed time frame and shares it with all the employees and ensures it’s followed by each and every employee in the restaurant.

Mr. Ali applies different management techniques in managing the employees at the restaurant. Motivation is one of the management techniques used by Mr. Ali in managing Ahi Poké Restaurant employees (Carpenter, 2010). In other restaurants, line cooks, kitchen chefs, dishwashers, and other kitchen staff do not receive any glory from the management regardless of their efforts in ensuring the right food is available at the right time and at the right quantity which is a major element in the restaurant business. Therefore, Mr. Ali has developed different motivation packages specifically for the kitchen staff as a way of increasing they're committed and make them feel part of the Ahi Poké Restaurant family. Also, Mr. Ali uses democratic leadership style where all the stakeholders or representatives are involved in decision making.

Leading

In the restaurant, leading involves informal and social sources of influence that are used by the manager to inspire the actions of the employees. If the manager is an effective leader, then the employees become enthusiastic on increasing the effort targeted at achieving the objectives of the restaurant. Some of the ways Mr. Ali inspire and lead employees including ensuring employees performance is high hence as a way of increasing restaurant profit and the chance of growth. Employee performance depends highly on the employees’ attitude towards his or her job. As a manager at Ahi Poké, Mr. Ali is expected to use different leading techniques to ensure employees have high performance. Secondly, Mr. Ali led and inspires his employees by helping them accomplish their career goals (Carpenter, 2010). For the few years he has been operating as the Ahi Poké Restaurant manager, Mr. Ali has offered a number of chefs’ opportunity to improve their skills by ensuring they participate in the various cooking competitions in London a process which has made some of the chefs at the restaurant celebrities. Also, Mr. Ali has been using the rewards, which are believed to be the main motivation realm for a restaurant employee to inspire them to work hard. For example, ten employees are given full travel package to Hawaii each year’s so that they can experience the culture and discover new trends in the seafood business. He also used other packages such as promotion, pay rise, recognition, and other technique to motivate his employees. After joining Ahi Poké Restaurant, Mr. Ali has made various changes to the employee monthly salaries by increasing and adding several allowances as a way of motivating his subordinates.

Managers are the role models of the subordinate in each and every business. Therefore, individual behavior has a significant impact on the employees conducts because they tend to duplicate the actions and behaviors of a manager. Mr. Ali has been setting a good example to his employees in the restaurant through his effective communication and effective conflict management style. Also, Mr. Ali embraces the human values such as respect, integrity, empathy, kindness, and caring which have been duplicated in the organization hence creating the culture of family. The values also help the employees to operate in an ethical manager (Carpenter, 2010). According to Mr. Ali, his leading skills are from his restaurant operations management degree which he pursued many years ago and experience from the various restaurants he has worked in London and other surrounding cities.

Controlling

The controlling function at Ahi Poké Restaurant involves the manager evaluating how effective the organization is achieving its goals and methods being used to ensure corrective actions are put in place to improve the restaurant's performance. According to Mr. Ali, “Ahi Poké Restaurant manages to achieve a better outcome in controlling functions through an accurate measurement of the restaurant performance and ability to regulate the efficiency and effectiveness of the business”. According to the manager, at Ahi Poké, increase in sales and consistent in demand is a good indicator that the organization's activities are being undertaken as per manager plan. For example, the manager is responsible for the control of resources in the organization including human resource and others (Carpenter, 2010). Therefore, Mr. Ali monitors the restaurant performance by measuring the effectiveness and efficiency in the use of the different resources.

According to Mr. Ali, his function of control goes beyond ordering the employing to perform their duties to ensure the restaurant performance does not deviate from the standards. He highlighted the three controlling stages used in the restaurant including, first, he uses his control function to establish the performance standards in the restaurant, second, comparing the restaurants actual performance against the standards and lastly, taking corrective actions whenever he finds it necessary. He said, “At Ahi Poké Restaurant performance standards are always stated through monetary terms including profits, revenue, costs, and other forms including defective products in a given period of time and level of the customer service quality.”

Technology and Globalization

In the last few years, the internal world has experienced major changes because of growth in technology and expansion of the international business commonly referred as globalization. The changes have affected almost every business function, with restaurant managers being among the most affected functions. According to Mr. Ali, the food and beverage industry in London is changing significantly due to the use of technology in conducting different activities in the organization. He said, “The technology and globalization has both negative and positive effects on the restaurant managers where they have increased competition in the industry due to online business and delivery services which are common in London, but they have introduced new ways of doing things including social media marketing and different data analysis software’s which are helping understand customer trends which are essential in making different decisions in the restaurant.” When asked on some of the ways globalization has changed his job, Mr. Ali pointed out that London being the hub of international business, his job has changed where he has to deal with more sophisticated customers from different parts of the world who are increasingly demanding specific products, services and goods hence making his work more challenging when trying to satisfy the desires of each customer.

Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies

Restaurant managers are expected to have adequate knowledge, skill, and competences in their field to ensure effectiveness in coordinating the different functions. According to Mr. Ali, effective communication, resource management, and effectiveness in marketing are some of the skills and competencies which determine a good restaurant manager from others. However, after the interview, I identified several humans, conceptual, and technical skills and knowledge and other competencies that Mr. Ali need to have to effective manage Ahi Poké Restaurant. Firstly, Mr. Ali needs to advance his information technology skills and knowledge which are essential in ensuring the restaurant is operating on the same levels as the competitors in terms of using technology to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the human resource. Secondly, Mr. Ali needs to increase his competences in creating and coordinating the restaurant menus which change from time to time but customers are not informed about the changes hence resulting in customer dissatisfaction.

Comparing Mr. Ali’s Job and What I Know about Management

Mr. Ali’s job is based on the management principles and practices, although the functions are not divided into components as it is in my coursework. For example, Mr. Ali’s job addresses all the four components of management including planning, controlling, leading, and organizing (Carpenter, 2010). However, at Ahi Poké Restaurant, these functions are interlinked hence making the manager’s job easier. From what I learned about management during the semester, I thought the manager’s job is complex due to the various functions they have to undertake each and every day, but after interviewing Mr. Ali, I found out that his functions are dependent and not as complex as demonstrated in the management coursework.

Conclusion

The assignment was based on information gathered during the interview with Mr. Ali the current manager Ahi Poké Restaurant and information from my course readings. From the two sources, I have learned that: firstly, planning is the primary role of each and every manager in a restaurant business, because of the importance of having an effective decision-making system in addressing the issues of human resource and other important resources in the firm. Secondly, I have learned that involving the stakeholders in the planning and decision making through communicating the business objectives and allowing the affected groups to suggest changes is essential in becoming a good manager in the restaurant business. Lastly, I have learned that effectiveness in leading is a major aspect in becoming a good manager in the restaurant business because of the role it played in inspiring and motivating subordinate into undertaking their roles effectively and efficiently.