Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 269 184: Major Bad News—Employee Free Dining Canceled

Friday.

Wang Ziqin got up early, planning to accompany his wife for breakfast before heading to the cliff top construction site to check the progress.

The opening ceremony is to be held tomorrow, and this afternoon through the evening needs to be reserved for the girl groups to rehearse. The venue must be set up before noon.

If all goes well, the other girl groups should be on their way, and it won't be long before they arrive.

After preparing for this event for so long, whether it will be a big success all depends on this weekend.

Besides, he has been paying attention to guests' feedback on the hotel website, and considering the breakfast and lunch rush he has personally experienced, it's indeed inconvenient.

The upscale restaurant environment has essentially been turned into a place where you have to scramble to eat, like a crowded eatery. This system needs adjustment.

But the problem is, dining at staggered times will lead to longer work hours for kitchen staff, and if they can't keep up, more staff is needed, which increases costs.

It's not about the money, but it's unnecessary — there must be a compromise.

"What are you thinking about?"

Chu Yueyue finished her grooming, put on a simple and natural makeup, and prepared to go downstairs for a meal.

Seeing her husband dazing on the balcony, she called out twice without a response, then walked over and patted his shoulder.

"You ready? Okay, let's go."

Wang Ziqin suddenly snapped back to reality, standing up from the deck chair, "I was just thinking about how to balance employee dining with guest dining, how to satisfy both groups without increasing the kitchen's workload and hours…"

"Isn't that simple?"

Chu Yueyue said without thinking: "It's normal for a lofty boss like you not to figure this out; this is the work of us HR people."

"Simple??"

"Yeah, first think about it, the total number of people dining every day is fixed, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then the amount of meals needed is roughly fixed too, right?"

"Right."

"You still haven't figured it out?"

"Huh?"

Wang Ziqin scratched his head, how does he figure it out?

"Are you stupid!"

Chu Yueyue rolled her eyes at him, a bit annoyed, "Firstly, letting employees dine at the restaurant increases the congestion, causing guest experience to drop — this is the primary issue right now."

"Secondly, employees dining at the restaurant unavoidably leads to them slacking off. A meal that could be finished in ten minutes may be stretched to two hours due to queuing and food preparation, which is hard to manage."

"So, why not just solve these two problems?"

"First, cancel the mechanism for employees to dine at the restaurant by themselves; this will immediately improve the situations, leaving only the issue of employees' dining."

"With fewer people in the restaurant, guests don't need to queue up and compete, reducing Lin Chen's stress. Given his efficiency, it's easy to cook a few more dishes while satisfying guest dining; anyways, the total amount remains the same."

"Just have them pack the food, then send someone after nine to pick it up and distribute it to employees. Does this not solve the issue?"

"It resolves the guests' requests and prevents employees from slacking off. Simple, isn't it?"

After hearing her out, Wang Ziqin slapped his thigh and leaned over with a fawning smile to massage his wife's shoulders: "Great, great, my wife indeed came up with such a simple and efficient solution!"

"Are you praising me or praising yourself? If you can't praise, I suggest you don't."

Following this plan, Wang Ziqin thought of some fine-tuning points.

This plan seems perfect, but actually has minor flaws.

That is, packing food for dozens of people is an added workload to the waitstaff, affecting service quality.

He plans to send four employees from the logistics department to pick up the meal every day, taking charge of packing food themselves without adding strain to the restaurant staff. After all, logistics is just doing odd jobs; haven't you seen them leisurely queuing up while patrolling?

Since they're so idle, then increase the work content.

As for whether they'll do any tricks when packing food, like giving more or less meat, he doesn't bother to care.

No job can be perfectly balanced; anyway, it rotates, and a bit of benefit must be left to motivate employees to continue working peacefully.

On the way downstairs to the restaurant, he already made a call to notify the dining mechanism change.

Upon arriving at the restaurant entrance, he saw many people sighing, holding their phones and walking back, evidently employees of the hotel.

"What bad luck, how come we're soon not allowed to dine, and I came half an hour early to queue."

"I already felt the system wasn't reasonable, too loose on employee management and poor guest experience; didn't expect adjustments to be so quick."

"Dude, what's with you defending the boss?"

"Were you one of those leaving comments below the forum on the official website?"

"Yeah, I left a comment, what's up, don't you guys think I'm an employee? Buddy's here for a trip! You guys stole my fried rice yesterday, made me wait another ten minutes, I still remember!"

"Uh… sorry, sorry!"

"Will definitely be careful next time!"

"Off we go, off we go."

The dozen or so people queuing quickly dissipated more than half, leaving seasoned diners. Having undergone yesterday's rigorous test, they unexpectedly hit the jackpot today, witnessing the hotel's change in mechanism firsthand.

"Great, no need to worry about queuing too long today!"

"The hotel management here is really good; fixed yesterday's suggestions today, no wonder they say Great Xia People know business."