About nine years ago, a general manager working for Parkside Projects had a heart attack and died. At the time, Shawn Cirkiel, owner of the Austin, Texas-based restaurant group, was living a stereotypical chef lifestyle—working long, hard hours during the day and imbibing with industry folks at night. “That was the realization that things had to change,” Cirkiel says. Since then, Cirkiel and his team have been committed to helping staff live healthy, emotionally balanced lives.
A major part of the initiative has been offering a better work-life balance for employees—a selling point in this always-on-the-job labor climate. Creating truly flexible schedules is hard, but worth it, Cirkiel says. “As a restaurateur, it’s a unique time,” he says. “If you set some clear goals of who you want to be and how you want to accomplish it, you can do it. And your staff will reward you with loyalty and sales.”
Here are a few ways Cirkiel and other operators are making flexible schedules business as usual.