Operational Plan For Black Bean’s Café

Human Capital

Black Bean’s Café is a business that operates in the hospitality sector which is very competitive and demands the highest level of customer service. For the management to achieve their goals and market sustainability, they have to develop and implement a detailed operational plan. An operational program will be of much benefit to the business because it will majorly focus on the products and services offered and develop strategies to exploit market share and improve financial predictions. Furthermore, the operational plan will focus on the significant components of the business namely human capital, financial obligations, risk evaluation and life span approximation of a project, sustainability, and exit strategy.

The organization’s employees include two cashiers, five waiters (three on permanent and two on a casual basis) and one manager. The waiters work in shifts depending on the time. During peak hours there are three waiters and one cashier and during the off-peak period only two waiters and one cashier are on duty. The peak hours include lunch, breakfast and dinner. According to the Australian Workers union, workers are expected to work for a maximum of 36 hours a week (AWU, 2016). Due to the capacity of customers served and market competition; the business should hire an extra cashier, quality officer, and one part-time worker.

Black Beans café adopts particular procedures for hiring employees by its policies such as ads in the newsletters (Scott, 2015). Stylish posters for existing openings should be placed on the government notice boards. Followed by the scheduling of the interviewing date for the successful job applicants. The professional interviewing panel will then vet all the potential candidates after which the successful candidates will be made aware of the terms and conditions of employment. Employment is only based on merit (Hoque, 2013).

Training should be conducted to the existing employees and the new recruits. The new employees are to undergo orientation so as to make them aware of their respective roles and responsibilities, organizational policies, goals and mission (Nadler and Nadler, 2012). The enterprise should also exploit the method of on job training so as to equip the new (Phillips and Phillips, 2016). On the job Training method is significant because it will make the staff to be aware of what is expected of them and also to instil in them the necessary skills for providing efficient and effective products and services.

Seminars and workshops should be held twice a year in conference halls and a consultant is to be hired on contractual basis to carry out the seminars. Additionally, all staff is to taken to the already established competitors for exposure and knowledge sharing (Singh and Mohanty, 2012).

The management should also undertake capacity building programs as will be planned by the department of the human resource management at the termination of each financial year. This will serve to congratulate the employees for their effort and reward the outstanding ones. Also, such programs will ensure that the workforce is equipped with new skills and encourage brainstorming  (Hameed and Waheed, 2011)

Recruitment

Table 1: Current Remuneration and Incentives

Title	2011	2012	2013
Waiters	50,990.00	70,450.00	130,598.00
Cashiers	324,560.00	432,987.00	898,743.00
Total employees	8	10	17
Total payroll	375,550.00	503,437.00	1,029,341.00

The sales strategy aims at attracting and retaining the first time customers thus promoting sustainability of the enterprise. (Armstrong et al., 2015). The company should introduce a Membership system as a sales tactic. This will offer the customers the opportunity of registering for the membership via email and the privilege of purchase discounts. Additionally, with this system the customers will be able to purchase products on credit. Furthermore, they will be able to book for any meal at any time and collect it later. In addition to the membership system, the enterprise should create an app through which customers can easily access the products and services.

Due to the limited marketing budget of the organization, promotional techniques that are not costly should be incorporated into the existing marketing techniques. These include an offering of FREE Lunch day for the first ten customers (Güler, 2014).

The following is a summary of the detailed operational plan

Strategies	Performance Criteria	Timeframes	Budget	Responsibility	Resources
Human capital:
Recruitment	Done on merit	Feb to April 2014	3,500	HR-Shop manager	Revenue
Training	Efficiency of service and quality delivery	June and December 2014	8,500	HR-Shop manager	Revenue
Marketing:
Membership system	Increase of sales by 30%	May to Sept 2014	5,500	Designated Employee-Technical officer	Revenue
Advertising -Free lunch day	May to Sept 2014	300	HR-Shop manager	Revenue

This recruitment policy and procedure describe the process for attracting and selecting job candidates from outside.

BLACK BEANS CAFÉ is committed to its policy of equal opportunity at all phases. The Hiring teams should ensure the hiring process is well organized and free of any discrimination (Uggerslev, Fassina, and Kraichy, 2012).

This recruitment policy and the procedure applies to all employees/potential candidates associated with the exercise of hiring for Black Beans café.

The following are the general steps to be followed by the hiring team:

1. Recognize the necessity of a vacancy.
2. Resolve to hire externally or internally
3. Assess the job description and create a vacancy advertisement.
4. Decide on the best sources to post the vacancy advert.
5. Select the stages of selection and probable timeframe
6. Examine the CVs on the organization data base.
7. Select interim candidates
8. Shortlist submissions
9. Follow all the stages of selection.
10. Conduct background checks
11. Choose the suitable candidate of all for the job
12. Offer the job (Boella, and Goss-Turner, 2013)

N/B: The process may overlap. However, the initial five stages are compulsory.

The hiring team should design vacancy adverts by full job descriptions, and they should be concise and represent the opening precisely. They should comprise of:

1. A summary of the mission of the business
2. A brief description of the purpose of the roles
3. Responsibilities
4. Qualifications
5. Application procedure
6. Employee selection stages
7. Screening of Resume
8. Screening of phone
9. Task
10. Interview

N/B: Recruiting managers can alter the stages depending on the demands of the vacant position.

The hiring team should inform the interviewed candidates that they were not selected for the specific job position.

If the filled job position is to be reverted, the HR department in consultation with the hiring manager should draft an official document and communicate to the candidate. The reason for revocation should, however, be legitimate and abide by the organization policies.

The process of consultation will be as follows:

1. Identify the need for consultation
2. Identify the specific group of stakeholders for consultation
3. Initiate a consultation plan which consists of:
4. An overview of the agenda
5. Timeframes for consultation
6. The method of consultation
7. The key decision maker
8. Notification of the decision
9. Review, monitoring, and implementation.     

N/B: All employees to be served with necessary documentation before the meeting (operational plan and recruitment policy and procedure of the company)

The success of the operational program was significantly dependent on factors such as the cooperation of the stakeholders, the management, and the staff. The plans aim was to ensure that the organization achieves its mission of quality, effective and efficient delivery of products and services.

The proposal to increase the number of employees by three was arrived at after examining the increase in the number of customers served during peak hours. The current policy of three waiters, one cashier during each work session was becoming complex. Therefore, the addition of one extra waiter and cashier ensured that customers were served speedily remembering that the hotel is located in CBD where people are ever in a hurry. Also, the employment of a quality officer was in line with the goals of the business of providing quality services. The quality officer also ensured that the services rendered met the market standard by supervising the food production process and service. Furthermore, the training of employees enhanced service delivery and career growth of the workers which is expected to generate long-term engagement and low turnover.

The proposal of membership system introduced the business to the technology world. Because most of the competitor businesses had not seized this opportunity, it was timely since the management was not hesitant to adopt the system. The system was also used to track loyalty of customer members. These proposals came with a cost, but this didn’t worry the management because the financial feasibility of the organization was considered. Therefore, the costs incurred were viable, and profitability was guaranteed within the first two months of proper implementation.

However, the proposal of Free Lunch did not work because there was an influx of customers due to the quick implementation of the above strategies and thus the food production was strained, and it was possible to offer free lunch when yet the existing customers are not served satisfactorily. I recommend that the management implement the promotional strategy of providing FREE Lunch in the next financial year so as to attract more customers. 

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Australian Worker Union 2016. National Employment Standards. Accessed on 10 October. https://www.awu.net.au/national-employment-standards

Boella, M. and Goss-Turner, S., 2013. Human resource management in the hospitality industry: A guide to best practice. Routledge.

Fenich, G.G., 2011. Meetings, expositions, events & conventions: an introduction to the industry. Pearson Higher Ed.

Güler, M.G., 2014. A note on:“The effect of optimal advertising on the distribution-free newsboy problem”. International Journal of Production Economics, 148, pp.90-92. Accessed on 10 October 2017.

Hameed, A. and Waheed, A., 2011. Employee development and its affect on employee performance a conceptual framework. International journal of business and social science, 2(13).

Hoque, K., 2013. Human resource management in the hotel industry: Strategy, innovation and performance. Routledge.

Nadler, Z. and Nadler, L., 2012. Designing training programs. Routledge.

Phillips, J.J. and Phillips, P.P., 2016. Handbook of training evaluation and measurement methods. Routledge.

Scott, D.M., 2015. The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.

Singh, R. and Mohanty, M., 2012. Impact of training practices on employee productivity: A comparative study. Interscience Management Review, 2(2), pp.87-92.

Uggerslev, K.L., Fassina, N.E. and Kraichy, D., 2012. Recruiting through the stages: A meta?analytic test of predictors of applicant attraction at different stages of the recruiting process. Personnel Psychology, 65(3), pp.597-660.