Keeping owners, managers and crews aligned across locations

This is the last part of our 7-part series Running a multi-location restaurant group. Earlier: the owner's job, standards, sharing staff, general managers, comparing stores and ordering and inventory.

At one store, most communication happens in the room. You say it at the huddle, you hear about the problem at the pass, and everyone knows by closing. At two or more stores, information only travels if someone carries it, and it goes wrong in three predictable ways:

• News reaches one store and not the other. A recipe changes at North, and South hears about it from a regular.
• The owner goes around the manager. You tell a barista to do it differently, and now the barista has two bosses.
• Everything goes into one group chat, where the important message sits between a shift swap and a meme.

The fix is a rhythm everyone can count on, and a clear place for each kind of message.

The rhythm

The daily message is short and the same every day: yesterday's net sales against the forecast, labor %, and checklist completion, plus anything unusual (a call-out, a repair, a guest complaint). It takes a manager three minutes and saves you a dozen texts.

The monthly all-managers meeting

Once a month, every GM in one room, or on one call, for an hour. It's where stores learn from each other instead of only from you.

Rotate the host. Write the follow-ups down and open the next meeting with them.

What goes where

What reaches the owner straight away

Most news can wait for the one-on-one. Some can't. Write a short list of things a manager calls you about at once, by phone, whatever the hour. For example:

• An injury that needs medical care (incident report form)
• A guest who says your food made them sick, or an employee with symptoms or a diagnosis your rules say must be reported (illness reporting form)
• A health inspection that finds a serious violation, or closes the store
• A robbery, a break-in, or the police on site
• A power, water or gas problem that stops service
• A harassment or discrimination complaint

Everything else goes in the logbook or the daily message. A manager who knows exactly what to call about doesn't call about everything.

Go through the manager

When you visit a store and see something wrong, tell the manager, not the crew. Then let the manager fix it with their team. The exception is safety: if someone is about to get hurt or a guest is about to eat something unsafe, step in first and explain to the manager after.

The same goes for messages. If you message a barista at the other store directly with an instruction, you've skipped their manager. Send it to the manager, or to a group the manager is in.

Group chats that stay useful

• One group per store for the crew, one for all the managers, and one for group-wide news if you need it. More groups than that, and people mute them.
• No schedule changes by chat. Swaps and changes go through the schedule, so the record is right.
• Managers answer for their own store. The South manager doesn't approve a North request in the managers' group.
• Quiet hours. Set times when hourly staff aren't expected to read or answer, and keep them yourself.

Quiet hours matter for pay as well as morale. Under the federal hours-worked rules, work done off the premises still counts: "The rule is also applicable to work performed away from the premises or the job site, or even at home. If the employer knows or has reason to believe that the work is being performed, he must count the time as hours worked." (29 CFR 785.12) An hourly cook who spends twenty minutes at home sorting out tomorrow's prep with you by text is working. Keep after-hours messages to hourly staff for real emergencies, and pay for the time when they happen. Our federal labor law basics cover the rest of the off-the-clock rules.

Where Mays fits

• A logbook per store. Each location's Logbook (Scheduling → Logbook) has categories such as Shift Notes, Incidents and Maintenance, a Needs follow-up flag and Seen by. The other managers and admins at that location are notified of each new entry. See The manager logbook.
• Chat in the app. The Mays app has one-to-one chats and group chats, and anyone can start a group. People can message the coworkers who share a location with them, and admins can message everyone. Ticks show when a message is delivered and read. See Team chat basics.
• Schedule changes without the noise. When you publish a change, Notify only affected people tells just the people whose shifts changed. See Publishing the schedule.
• Urgent alerts to the right person. An automation rule can create a task and notify All location managers, or send a push to the location's escalation manager. See Automation triggers and actions.

What Mays doesn't do: there are no broadcast channels or announcements, so a group-wide message means a group chat with everyone in it, and there's no way for staff to confirm they've read and understood a change. The logbook shows one store at a time, so you open each store's logbook in turn. Chat is in the phone apps only, not on the web.

Your communication checklist

• A rhythm on the calendar: huddles, shift logs, the daily message, weekly meetings and one-on-ones, and a monthly all-managers meeting
• A table of what goes where, shared with every manager
• A short list of what reaches the owner straight away, by phone
• Instructions to crews through their manager, except for safety
• A small number of group chats, with rules and quiet hours
• After-hours work messages kept to emergencies, and paid when they happen

Keep every store in the loop

Give each store its logbook, keep the crews in their own chats, and tell only the people a schedule change affects.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll set up your stores' logbooks and chats with you.