Motivation, Profitability and Productivity
“In cooking, as in almost all the other arts, theory is worthless without practice, and even the person who knows all the culinary tricks by heart will be incapable of preparing a good stew if he has never put on an apron. Cooking involves so many troubles, concerns and even dangers that those who practice it should be honored”, wrote Grimod de la Reynière, one of the first gastronomic journalists in history, in his Manual of Hosts.
Undoubtedly, cooking requires a lot of dedication and sacrifice, motivation and commitment, effort and involvement, sensitivity and feeling, illusion and emotion, vocation and connection, communication and coordination, but, at the same time, it also brings satisfaction, self-esteem, conviction, security and group relevance to those who dedicate themselves to it. As is the case in “all the other arts”, one of which is human capital management in companies.
The management of human capital in companies is a variable that can produce profits or losses. It does not matter if it is a company related to the hotel and catering industry or belongs to another sector. In all of them, as entrepreneurs, we must achieve maximum levels of “physical and mental performance” and “state of mind” of the human team.
All team members are equally important and necessary. Everyone wants to do their job well. At least a third of our day is spent in the company, with the “work family” with whom many people spend more time than with their own family. The atmosphere created in the workplace will determine the performance and productivity of the team.
It is necessary to create work spaces where the people who share it are motivated and excited to go to work. Where they are demanded with respect and education, but where their skills and competences are valued. An atmosphere of professionalism must be created. Tasks are challenges and challenges awaken interest, keep us away from mental boredom, increase our motivation and focus our attention, improving our confidence and security in our abilities to excel.
Highly motivated teams are more decisive, effective and efficient, which translates into profitability for the company. A high rate of staff turnover in a company is a negative indicator of the management of personnel resources, as well as an increase in costs between registrations, dismissals and training periods, while a high value of productivity per employee, i.e. the return in monetary units of this cost that we transfer to sales, is a positive indicator to be valued in the task of human team managers to improve the efficiency of the necessary resources used to achieve a given level of production.
In the kitchen and catering services there is a high number of emotional ingredients in the interaction with the customer to try to convey a sensitivity of the proposed content, space, environment and, in turn, become an experience of sensations and emotions. Here the moods of the human team are very important to transmit in their performance those levels of joy and illusion, because in truth “In that work is happy”.