Use this free restaurant pre-shift template to help your staff prepare for the shift ahead and bring in more sales.
A pre-shift meeting serves a very important role in every restaurant: to set the tone for the service ahead and ensure all staff are on the same page. Keep reading to learn what a successful pre-shift meeting should look like and how to organize your meeting agenda with a restaurant pre-shift template.
What is a Pre-Shift Meeting?
Before diving into the details of what a restaurant pre-shift template is and how to use one, it’s essential to first understand what a pre-shift meeting entails.
A restaurant pre-shift meeting is a daily staff meeting that happens before your restaurant opens for service. Running anywhere from five to 10 minutes long, a pre-shift meeting is a time for your restaurant leaders to inspire and motivate your team to prepare for the shift ahead.
What is a Pre-Shift Meeting Template?
Inspiring and motivating your team for the shift ahead, however, isn’t always so straightforward. That’s exactly where a pre-shift meeting template can help!
Our pre-shift meeting template is a form that you can fill out to plan your own pre-shift meeting agenda. Since every restaurant is different, a template can be a great way to organize your thoughts ahead of a meeting, while still ensuring the content is unique to your specific team. Our own pre-shift meeting template is designed for exactly that.
This free, downloadable pre-shift template for restaurants features plenty of room to add important updates for staff, advice that will help each person perform faster and more efficiently, and a section for thanking the team for their hard work.
In the next section, we’ll go into more detail of what’s included in each section of our pre-shift template.
How to Use a Restaurant Pre-Shift Meeting Template
After discussing the importance of a pre-shift meeting template, it’s time to now learn how to use a restaurant pre-shift meeting template.
Fortunately, getting started couldn’t be easier. Below, we’ll cover the key sections of the template to help you fill out each one ahead of your next pre-shift meeting.
Business Forecast
First, the business forecast section gives you space to make predictions about the business day ahead. This includes your expectations for reservations, total guests, and VIP guests. There’s also a section for listing special announcements, such as a new holiday menu or special events like a jazz concert at your restaurant.
Team Updates
Second, the team updates section of your pre-shift meeting template, where you can add any important updates related to service. This may include food and drink specials, specific upselling opportunities, or the limited availability of a featured dish. This section is especially important for noting any changes to server responsibilities. After all, it is your servers who will be speaking directly with guests and guiding them through your menu.
The template also includes a section where you can list specific service goals. For example, you may have noticed that table turnover times have been decreasing lately. In this case, your service goal may be to challenge your servers to increase table turnover times wherever possible.
Staff Appreciation
Third, you’ll find a section to give your staff feedback to recognize their outstanding contributions. Keep in mind that this section is meant for giving praise to your staff and getting them excited for the shift ahead, rather than offering constructive feedback that might be better included in a formal performance review.
For example, you might thank your Lead Chef Daniel for doing a great job grilling chicken yesterday. However, you wouldn’t say, “Daniel, you need to do a better job at cleaning the grill.”
Benefits of Using a Pre-Shift Meeting Template
Now that you have an idea of what a pre-shift template is and how to use it, here’s a quick breakdown of some of the benefits of using our own pre-shift template:
Get Your Team Excited
If you want to know how to hype up your team, you’ve come to the right place. One of the main benefits of using a pre-shift meeting is to improve employee morale and inspire your staff to do their best work. Everything from an inspiring quote to dedicated praise can help staff go into a shift feeling their best.
Improve Team Communication
Running a pre-shift meeting offers time for your team to align on service or menu changes, preparing your team for a productive shift ahead. And when everyone is on the same page right from the start, it helps improve communication throughout the entire service.
Increase Training Opportunities
Even though pre-shift meetings are short, they offer opportunities for short training sessions like menu tastings, for example. You may also choose to add certain vendors, like alcohol distributors, to your pre-shift lineup to share more information about their products.
Time to Plan Special Events
Pre-shift meetings can also help your team plan how to handle special events. For example, you can discuss strategies for serving a high volume of guests during a particularly busy holiday or when to bring out the food from the kitchen during a live concert.
Boost Sales
Last but not least, preparing your pre-shift meeting in advance can help motivate your team to hit daily sales goals. You may even wish to introduce contests or gamification techniques during your pre-shift meetings to drive a little healthy competition among staff to see who can bring in the most sales.
If you want your staff to have a successful shift, it’s time to download our free restaurant pre-shift template today! With this template, you’ll gain access to a customizable document that makes it easy to organize pre-shift announcements, menu updates, service goals, thank-you notes, and more. By using this template, you can ensure your team is prepared to deliver the best service possible to carry out a successful – and profitable – shift.
