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Writer's picturejoan hutchinson

How You Can Build a Strong Team


Teamwork is essential in a any business environment, especially hospitality- it enhances customer satisfaction, improves efficiency, facilitates effective communication, promotes flexibility, boosts employee morale, and fosters professional development. By working together, your team can provide outstanding experiences for their guests.

Building a strong team starts with great leadership.

Managers need to lead by example and start with respect. If we expect our employees to respect us, we must respect them first. This is what “servant leadership” is all about. Treat your employees like you would like to be treated. Let them know you wouldn’t ask them to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.Have empathy and compassion in all interactions.


Share the company mission and goals with your team. Be specific with your goals and define the steps to reach them. Just saying, “We want to be number one” isn’t enough. What does being number one look like? 4 + stars on trip advisor? Increase revenue by 4%? Clearly define what those goals are. Your team can’t help you reach those goals if they don’t know what they are.


Foster an atmosphere of open communication. Listening is such an important skill for leaders. When employees feel listened to, it creates an environment of trust. Knowing that the leader is open to others’ opinions, nurtures the team and builds community.

A study done at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory found that social time is deeply critical to team performance. The study discovered that team members needed to talk not just to their boss, but with each other. And, when they talked with each other, they performed better.

We need to find ways to help our teams communicate and be there for each other. How can we do this?

• First, lead by example.

• Second, consider pairing new employees with a senior employee who will help with orientation, give a facility tour, offer to answer the new employee’s questions. Have that senior employee check in each week for the first few weeks with that new employee.

• Third, have regular team meetings and play some “ice breaker” games to get the team to know each other better.


Encourage positive thinking. Mel Robbins, motivational speaker and podcaster, talks about looking for hearts every day. When you look for them, they appear. The same effect happens when we look for the positive. Encourage your employees to compliment their co-workers when they go above and beyond. We use a “Shout Out Box” for this. Our crew members write it down whenever they see a team member going above and beyond. That paper goes in the Shout Out Box. At our team meetings, we pull a few out and have the writer read their submission. The writer and the employee who went above and beyond get a small prize, and applause-of course! This gets our team members looking for positive things in their co-workers. And promotes good feelings among the crew.

Use your imagination and be creative with new ways to build camaraderie and a sense of team. You will be glad you did!


Here's to your success!

Joan Hutchinson, Your Restaurant Maven

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