EPISODE 2
They Hired 10 Employees in 8 Months. The Restaurant Only Needed 2.
“We finally found the best employee. He is the one we needed”
That’s what they said… each time they hired someone new.
But when hiring becomes improvisation, chaos becomes permanent.
From Day One: No Roles, No Structure, No Boundaries
There was no organizational chart.
No job descriptions.
No operational manager.
No responsibilities clearly defined.
New staff were brought in with vague instructions like:
“Just help where it’s needed.”
But in a restaurant, “help where needed” means nothing without a system.
The kitchen had no station assignments.
The front of house had no shift logic.
The supply orders were handled randomly by whoever had “a minute.”
The POS? No one knew how to use it fully.
In 8 Months: 10 Employees In, 10 Employees Out
Some were fired.
Some resigned.
Some disappeared overnight.
Some just got tired of the chaos.
This wasn’t a big restaurant.
With a lean system, it could have functioned smoothly with 2–3 people.
Instead, it burned through over a dozen hires in under a year.
Each onboarding was improvised.
Each offboarding left more damage.
And no one ever asked the core question:
“What’s the minimum structure we need to make this work?”
The Owners' Logic?
“We just need to find the right people. The rest will follow.”
But people aren’t magic.
Even the best hire can’t compensate for broken systems.
Without training, structure, and direction, even talent becomes a liability.
What SMART COUNTS Would Have Done
If we had been called from day one, here’s how we would have approached it:
- Start with a lean staffing model
→ Define essential roles, no more than needed - Job descriptions for each position
→ Who does what, when, and how - Workflow mapping
→ From kitchen prep to order taking and closing - One-day SOP training guide
→ Visual and practical guide for every new employee - Simple accountability tools
→ Checklist-based daily routines and reporting - Staff cost ratio tracking
→ Monitor wage-to-revenue ratio weekly
Because burning people out is more expensive than hiring slow and smart.
