​When one of your employees is sick, do they feel there will be negative consequences if they report it to you? To be sure, restaurants are shouldering existential challenges right now and need to be able to rely on their teams. But make sure you prioritize safety – even if it means being temporarily short-staffed. The Centers for Disease Control have been emphasizing employee self-reporting of symptoms during the pandemic – and encouraging transparency with your team may help you avoid a larger safety problem. You can help by keeping up with daily health screenings for all employees, along with regular training to reinforce that you value the safety of your people and want everyone to be healthy – but won’t take punitive action if they aren’t.

This year has asked so much of restaurant operators – as innovators, entrepreneurs, managers and neighbors. While it’s natural for people in the service profession to look for ways to serve guests well, taking care of staff – and themselves – can take a backseat. But the well-being of a restaurant’s entire team trickles down through your business and impacts all of your relationships. The slower period this winter may be a time to refocus on strengthening your team from the inside out. Mental health in restaurants was a central theme of the recent Chefs’ Congress in Lisbon. According to this report in Forbes, the event incorporated videos, workshops and techniques designed to allow owners, chefs, cooks and workers to better understand how to manage teams, partner with human resources, and increase awareness of workers' rights and risk factors. It even offered anonymous therapy sessions for restaurant professionals. As awareness of these issues grows, such events can provide teaching tools and other resources for operators regardless of where they do business.

This is a time of year when people (your employees included) want to gather with friends and family, and perhaps travel to celebrate the season. How can you ensure they don’t come to work with the virus and inadvertently spread it to others? First, be understanding of their desire to be with others – but also reinforce their responsibility to keep your workplace safe. Employees should not come to work with any symptoms of COVID-19 (or flu, for that matter). If an employee has plans to travel outside of the country, make sure they understand and follow quarantine rules upon their return – or at least provide you with a doctor’s note that clears them to work. If you do have a case of COVID-19 on your team, inform your other employees of their potential exposure but maintain the confidentiality of the infected person. Addressing it quickly and with transparency will prevent rumors from spreading and demonstrate to customers and staff that you can be trusted to protect their safety.

COVID-19 infections continue to climb in the U.S. and since virus symptoms can take up to two weeks to emerge, it’s probable that at some point in the coming months, one of your team members will contract the virus or be exposed to others who have. Operators should have a clear plan of action to follow when this happens, to include sending the sick employee home, closing down any areas used by the employee, informing other staff of the infection, and then cleaning and sanitizing the affected areas in your restaurant. In the meantime, consider what support you would need to operate if and when one or more employees cannot come to work. Ensure there are multiple people cross-trained in daily tasks so you can avoid training someone on the fly. Also consider how you could adjust your seating or traffic flow if you had to temporarily close off any areas of your restaurant for cleaning and disinfection.

To be sure, it’s not an easy time to work in restaurants. Your staff may be feeling anxious about becoming ill or facing guests who don’t follow the restaurant’s guidelines for mask wearing and social distancing. Before the added challenge of flu season hits, make sure your policies about employee health and safety are clear – and that your staff are well aware of their own responsibilities when it comes to monitoring and reporting their symptoms, as well as how and where to get tested for the coronavirus if and when the need arises. As much as possible, prepare a backup plan for when you cannot be fully staffed. This report from the Washington Post (https://wapo.st/353BFT1) provides some precautionary accounts of the employee relations challenges some operators are facing right now.

It's more important than ever that restaurant operators convey new health and safety trainings clearly to their team. But what if team members speak English as a second language and miss some of the nuances of language that native speakers understand? Rachael Nemeth, a cofounder of ESL Works, which provides mobile-based English-as-a-second-language training, addressed this challenge in a recent Fast Casual podcast. She estimates that of the 14 million workers in the restaurant industry, one-third don’t speak English as a first language. If you employ team members who aren’t fluent English speakers, what tools or protocols do you have in place to ensure your training is achieving the desired results and no messages are missed?

On July 4th weekend, a San Francisco wedding celebration reportedly became a breeding ground for COVID-19. Following a rehearsal dinner gathering of 40 guests at the Harborview Restaurant and Bar, the wedding couple and at least eight of their guests from across the country tested positive for the virus. But according to an Eater report that addressed reviews of the restaurant’s policies for managing groups, as well as information relayed by a restaurant spokesperson, Harborview seems to have done everything right: They took such steps as spacing tables six feet apart, separating guests by household or family unit, plating food that they had previously served family style, and reminding guests to wear face coverings. After the outbreak, employees were tested and results came back negative. So what is a restaurant to do when it follows guidelines and takes the right precautions but must bear the brunt of bad publicity after an outbreak? Start by going on the PR offensive, collecting facts to demonstrate your commitment to safety, and sharing them with the media and on your social platforms. Partner with your health officials and describe what precautions you have taken, from new employee training procedures and protocols to virus testing to signage advising guests how to maintain safety – and publicize their findings in the news media, on your website and on your social networks. Take photos and video of your facility, introduce staff and talk about how your policies have changed since COVID-19. Finally, for the moment, rethink catering to weddings – and other gatherings where people set out to socialize and celebrate with friends and family, consume alcohol, and perhaps let down their guard and ignore precautions. They may be best left to large outdoor settings or until after a vaccine is readily available.

In all likelihood, COVID-19 has made both your customers and employees more anxious about safety – and your customers may not fully appreciate all of the measures you and your staff have always taken to protect their health. A report from Modern Restaurant Management about the unforeseen challenges of the pandemic advises having a plan for managing both staff and customer responses to new stresses. Ensure your employees are clear on your new procedures and have been trained on how to respond to the range of new concerns they may hear from customers. Empower them to politely set boundaries with guests who demand precautions beyond the requirements of regulatory authorities. Make your expectations clear to your team about not only your service but their own health – they should know they should not ever risk coming to work while showing symptoms of illness. #foodsafety

Amid the spread of COVID-19, it’s only natural to be more concerned about the health of other people and whether you or your team could inadvertently be spreading infection. Just make sure that when hiring new staff and monitoring your team’s health, you comply with regulations and understand where existing and new regulations overlap. The National Restaurant Association reports that, for example, while the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Rehabilitation Act rules continue to apply in the current pandemic, they do not prevent you from following the COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention or state and local public health authorities. So during a pandemic, you can ask staff about disabilities or require medical exams of employees who don’t have symptoms, since it is a means of identifying people at higher risk for complications. You may also take a person’s temperature and ask about potential exposure during a person’s travels. Just remember privacy and confidentiality requirements under the ADA and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).