Management Moment

Management Moment Exercise

Subsidiary Skills: Oral Communication, Performing Under Stressful Conditions, Decision Making

Date: April 28th, 2015 

I drew a random scenario from a bag and was asked to identify the problem, propose a solution, and determine a follow up. This exercise helped to give a "real world" feeling, requiring me to think critically to make important decisions under pressure. 

Moment #13. “You are the opening manager of a foodservice facility in upstate NY. When you wake up in the morning, there are 12 inches of snow on the ground. When you get to work, you realize that only half of your staff has made it to work and breakfast needs to be served in an hour. What do you do?”

Problem identified:

• The foodservice operation is understaffed due to inclement weather conditions, which poses the potential to negatively effect the quality and timeliness of the fast-approaching breakfast service.

Solution Proposed:

• Find and follow the contingency plan.
• Call all available staff, with respect to staff seniority, to see if any individuals can make it into work on a moment's notice.
• Delegate tasks efficiently across staff members and pick up the extra work myself to serve breakfast with as little deviation from normalcy as possible; guests are expecting quality service regardless of staffing issues.

Follow up:

• After breakfast service, evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken.
• If a contingency plan was used, food quality, service quality, and customer satisfaction should be assessed to ensure that enacting of the plan was in line with the organization’s mission.
• If no contingency plan was in place, then one should be created to provided institutional memory.