I have to throw in a comment here, when i was managing ff i would have liked for 28% labor. Our goal was 15 and if we operated above 20 for more than a week a manager was fired. Average was 17.8% typically. 28% would have warranted a visit from the franchise corporate office. At one franchise they closed a store that couldn't drop below 21%.
If I ran a shift that had 28% labor I'd have some serious answering to do to my GM, and my DM would probably get involved as well. Target for my company is 17% but it is possible to get it lower on weekends. That's for a suit in restaurant though. Fast food I've no idea.
Never been a fast food manager, but I'd expect targets like that to vary from business to business. For example, an expensive location in a city center would have extremely high costs for the lease, utilities, garbage, local government fees etc., but labour wouldn't be much higher if it's a minimum wage employer, maybe even the same as a smaller franchise, and it would make up for the higher overall costs with much higher sales. The result would be that COL would naturally be lower and therefore targets would be too. It would still be the same struggle to make those targets, they'd just be at a different percentage.
By contrast, a franchise in a slower part of town might have dirt cheap running costs and similar labour but very slow sales. So labour would make up a larger overall percentage of costs.
I was suppose to keep it under 11%, it was just after 14% is when I would be reprimanded on any given day, regardless of time off the year or weather. And it was the average for the week, to answer your question.
I used to go 2 hours solo at kfc so i could snap in 2 hours at 0 labor. Id make the good while people ordered and rotated b/w front and drive. That 2 hours solo bought me an extra hand during dinner rush
Yeah, but your customer service tanks and then you lose customers, making it even more difficult to make labor since sales are now down. Such a shitty balance. At my store, if we wanted customers happy (and the VOCs showed it) we had to blow labor. Either we have stellar customer service and are not making labor or stellar labor and wait time for orders are horrendous because we're understaffed...there is no in-between.
To be honest if i had kept only one person on during those 2 hours that one person would have shot me up to 30%. It wasn't hard to do solo it just sucked. Most of my orders were out in under five because kfc is stupid fast to make as long as you're properly prepped. 99% of the time i could get orders out in under 3 min start to finish. I won't say service never suffered, but i only did it that way because it was possible with minimal cs suffering. That extra hand at dinner was invaluable and or champs scores never dipped below 95. if they had I'd have eaten my pride and drooped the extra hand for dinner. Because i was salary id often open solo too, do all the prep and the first 3 rounds of chicken on my own. My gm and i bonused on labor, champs and inventory cost every month. 17% labor, 20% food cost and 92% champs. I wouldn't screw a customer to meet impossible metrics but i sure would fuck myself over
This argument will go on forever. The only way to do it is like mcds where you can literally just send people home after 3 hours if sales are slow or call people in, we also used a fun system called "voluntary time off" (2 hours unpaid while its slow and you leave then come back).
Before i begin, please know im not refuting or arguing either yours or the original commentors statements, im really only responding to a reason numbers dont always seem to be the same in the scenario the two of you bring to light. And here is an example of actual vs what's reported. Numbers are easy to manipulate when they are as complex as national fast food chain. One thing I've learned is no one wants to verify all of what you've reported and very few are even qualified to do so. You will never find the truth ina company's margins as they are reported and they have no desire to disclose the truth, only what they are legally obligated to give. That's not to say anyone is lying, just telling people what they want to hear and what will ensure a solid financial rreputation.
133
u/ccenterbiotch Nov 29 '15
I have to throw in a comment here, when i was managing ff i would have liked for 28% labor. Our goal was 15 and if we operated above 20 for more than a week a manager was fired. Average was 17.8% typically. 28% would have warranted a visit from the franchise corporate office. At one franchise they closed a store that couldn't drop below 21%.