As communities transform their dining environments, employee’s fear of change often rises up as an unspoken and unsettling barrier to success. I’m an advocate for after meal team huddles, and here’s why.

As a leader:

1. You quickly create an opportunity to reconfirm staff for their effort and contribution after they have successfully accomplished an important job. Everything may not have gone perfectly, however, quick, open, praise and communication about what went right and how we can improve, helps people create stronger bonds and feelings of accomplishment and unity.
2. You affirm the person, the team, and the work of serving a meal. Rarely is the dining environment honored adequately as the heart of the community with the power to draw residents together, strengthen interdepartmental teamwork and given due credit as a means that attracts new residents to move-in. Serving to exceed customer expectations and company standards at each meal is an art. There is a formula for making it work successfully and when people know they are contributing to something special, and willing to make a difference, it warms their spirit and strengthens their commitment.
3. In a very short period of time, you’ve instilled new meaning and value to the myriad of work assignments it takes your entire culinary and service team to accomplish, as they prepare and serve each meal. When employees know they make a difference to your organization they believe in themselves and strive harder. It’s a natural turn-on to do a job right, even when no one is looking.

Look for every opportunity to increase employee job satisfaction as you journey through organizational change by recognizing that each mealtime has a start and a finish. Know that every little accomplishment ratchets up an employee’s sense of fulfillment and restores faith, not fear, in their personal contribution.