When you are a busy restaurant CEO, prepping for a board meeting may rank next to a long drive during rush hour traffic or a long wait at the post office on the list of things you want to do. Especially if you aren’t armed with the right data to help you and your board navigate your current challenges.

But with the right information at your fingertips, you can help streamline the entire process from pre- to post-board meetings. You’ll be able to showcase to your board your effectiveness as a leader and ultimately put your organization in the best possible position to make the right decisions.

Workforce Metrics

To be a top-performing restaurant, your workforce must be in the best possible position. Understanding retention is key. Data from our Black Box Intelligence™ solution shows strong retention, especially in the general manager role, which leads to higher growth and guest retention. Make sure you have a solid grasp of your staffing levels and turnover rates. For turnover, be prepared to discuss what is driving it at your restaurant units.

Your board will want to know if your employees are staying with you longer and if you are doing all of the right things to take care of your people. Have your wages or benefits changed and how do those changes compare to the market? Check out our Workforce Intelligence to have easy access to this data and stay informed on all the current workforce trends.

Guest Feedback

The satisfaction of your employees will directly impact the satisfaction of your guests. Black Box Intelligence™ data shows a strong correlation between brands with higher retention having more efficient staff that makes fewer mistakes, thus providing a greater guest experience. Performance tracking of your key business initiatives like menu rollouts or promotions will give you and your board clear insight into where to focus the next quarter, year, or many years down the road.

Guests are not shy about sharing what they liked or disliked about each step of the restaurant experience. Once you have all of that data organized in a structured manner, you can hone in on what is working well and what isn’t. Learn how to measure your customer experience with our Guest Intelligence solution and directly impact your sales and traffic.

Sales and Traffic Benchmarks

You need to have a solid understanding of your workforce, then your guest experience, before you can dial into the financials. After all, “without data you’re just another person with an opinion,” according to renowned engineer and statistician W. Edwards Deming. Whether you are deciding to acquire new restaurants, sell, or even just sit back and ride out the current environment, you and your board need to have reliable benchmarks to make these strategic decisions.

Of course, you can get external information from conferences or news media. Still, your board will recognize how much more well-informed you are with a resource that provides you with clear data points on where the industry is trending year over year, to the month or week. To do this you need a 360 view of your people, your guests, and your sales and traffic. Financial Intelligence is the foundation that makes this possible, learn more about our solution here.

There is a shift in business today where the greeted brands and investors are no longer solely focusing on shareholder wealth at the expense of their employees, social responsibility, and the greater good. The greatest brands are the ones that are leading with purpose, providing opportunities for the employees to grow and impacting their communities.

When you have consistent, clean data to bring to your board meetings, you will be able to show that you are measuring what is more important and relevant to your purpose. Financial data may drive the conversation but to drive financial growth, you must first know how well you are taking care of your people and be able to showcase that to your board. If you are taking care of your people they will take care of your guests and your sales will fall in line.