1. Event Staff Innovation
Making Event Staff a Profit Center
Presented by:
Warren Dietel, President & Owner
Orlando, FL

2. My Story
Warren Dietel, Owner & President
• Reside in Winter Park
• Entrepreneurial from the beginning
• Professional Experience
– Car Detailing, Puff ‘n Stuff Catering, Disney
Weddings, Disney Institute, Scott Kay
• Purchased PnSC in 2003
• Current ICA board member and regular
speaker for the ICA, NACE and The Special
Event

3. The Puff Story
• Opened in 1980 by mom and dad
• Purchased in 2003, annual sales of $1.8M, at operational limit
• Infrastructure required improvements to support growth
• Positive reputation in the community
• Tremendous potential + aggressive growth plan = 267%
growth in 3 years

4. The Puff Story
• Over 400 staff members strong (50 FT)
– Diversifying segment base
• Expanded the award-winning team into the Tampa market with
an acquisition and opening of a second office
• Five exclusive venues & many more preferred

5. Today’s Session
Caterers make money on food, beverage,
rentals, décor and many other services, but are
often willing to settle for breaking even or even
loose money on event staff.
Today, learn new thoughts and structures that
can positively impact the profitability of service
staff at events.

6. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
COMPENSATION
EDUCATING
PROFIT

7. How to recruit, hire, and train an
ENGAGED event staff team

8. Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement is a positive attitude
held by the employees towards the organization and its
values.
An engaged employee is aware of business context, and
works with colleagues to improve performance within
the job for the benefit of the organization.

9. Recruit, Hire & Train With Precision
• Fish in the right pond
– Employee referrals
– Hospitality and traditional
colleges
– Young professionals
– Staffing agency partnership
• Be upfront about expectations,
responsibilities & opportunities
• Immerse new hires in your
company culture and values

10. Mission, Vision & Values
• Develop a picture of today, tomorrow, and what governs decisions
• Put the foundation in place to support excellence and growth
• Use an outside source to assist with development
• Create a plan that includes assessment of and future planning for
– Management
– Staff
– Customer Base
– Research and Development
– Human Resources
– Operations
– Sales and Marketing
– Financial
– Technology

11. The Mission
A mission statement is a brief written statement of the purpose
of a company or organization. Ideally, a mission statement
guides the actions of the organization, spells out its overall
goal, provides a sense of direction, and guides decision
making for all levels of management.

12. Vision
A vision statement outlines what the organization wants to be. It
concentrates on the future. It is a source of inspiration. It
provides clear decision-making criteria.
Puff ‘n Stuff Catering will possess the systems and
procedures necessary to provide the foundation for
excellence and profitable growth. We will be recognized
as the event/catering organization of choice by our team
members and clients.

13. Core Values
Core values reflect what is truly important to an organization.
These values do not change from time to time, situation to
situation, or person to person, but are the underpinning of a
company’s culture.
Professional – In behaviors and appearance
Respect – For self, team members and clients
Own – Accountable for each others’ success and safety
Anticipate – Serving team member and clients needs
Communicate – Timely, accurately and honestly

14. Creating Engagement
Leadership must:
• Acknowledge individual contributions
• Deliver supportive feedback
• Foster collaborative interdepartmental working relationships
• Provide empowerment that promotes success
• Discuss expectations that set clear, challenging and attainable
performance goals
• Show that you and the company care about employees and
their success
• Trust and get out of the way

15. “When you give a little respect
you get a more effective
organization, with reduced
turnover and absenteeism and
employees at all levels who are
engaged, focused, and
committed to succeed as a
team. In short, you get
maximum ROI from your
organization’s most powerful
resource: its people!”
Paul Marciano,

16. Happy Staff = Willing Staff!
At the
Salvador
Dali
Museum
in St. Pete,
Florida.

17. STATE OF THE PUFF
• Annual meeting
• Know your audience – cater to them
• Fun atmosphere – get global message across
then have fun
• Recognize success
• Share the future
• Avoid discipline
• Anniversary lunch

18. How an established TRAINING system can directly
effect the PAY rate for event staff

19. • Trained staff equate to less
hours needed to produce
the same task
• Allows company to be
competitive in marketplace
• Results in higher hourly
wages
• Greater success potential
even when faced with
difficult situations
• Work is fairly distributed

20. • Ability to hire for attitude
As leaders, it is and values – train for skill!
our • General SOPs & Steps of
responsibility Service
to ensure • Consistency and use of
technology
everyone • Specific for new events &
understands concepts
the value of • Consider same day/pre-
training event OJT

22. Event Specific Training – Restaurant
20.12

23. Event Specific Training – Restaurant
20.12

24. Event Specific Training – Restaurant
20.12

25. Direct Implications – Structure #1
Basic Structure – 2 Pay Tiers
• On-call Employees
• Lower hourly rate,
basic event skills
• Supervisors
• Promoted from
within, earn the
most hours,
have diverse skills

26. Direct Implications – Structure #2
Advanced Structure – Multiple Pay Tiers
1. Entry level ($8-9 per hour) - Ex. Basic steps of service, culture
and core values, waiting tables, butler-passing
2. Mid level ($9-11 per hour) - Ex. Setting rooms, section
leadership, interfacing with clients and venue staff
3. Captain level ($12-15 per hour) - Ex. Meeting with Sales
Team pre-event, loading and verifying truck packing sheets,
supervising event set-up and execution
4. Specialists – Bartenders, culinary, venue managers, etc.
5. Department Managers – promote from within to lead an
entire team
Connect the value of training programs and
graduations to higher pay and responsibilities

27. Indirect Implications
• Well trained staff earn
higher and more frequent
gratuities on top of hourly
wages
• And the drama factor is
reduced because they are
happy and appreciative of
their jobs

28. Gratuities
Gratuities in addition
to higher hourly wages
are a very powerful
motivator - employees
can understand and
see the connection
between their
performance and their
rewards.
“When employees think, act and feel like owners…
everybody wins.” - Jack Stack

29. The power of CONFIDENCE!

30. How to EDUCATE your clients about event staff

31. Tell Your Story!
“Sell the benefit, not the feature.”
• Training
• Uniforms
• Event Impact
• Guest Satisfaction
• Share Positive Client
Feedback

32. Communicate your unique value
• Own a distinct place in the mind of your customers.
You purchase that place by promising and
delivering value
• Tell stories of how you solve problems for others on
your client facing communication
• Make it personal and connect it!
• Do not allow yourself to become a commodity
• Use names and real experiences
– Charles Schwalb, Joe Love, Cake Disasters

33. Client Feedback

34. Client Feedback
“I want to give a special
acknowledgement to Emerald. She was
very professional, calm and organized. I
really appreciated the fact that she
came to check on ME a couple times to
see if I needed anything personally. It
was a busy night for me and when you
host, you know you don't get much time
to enjoy anything yourself. If the
opportunity arises we will definitely call
on you again!”

35. How to bring
PROFIT to
the bottom line from
event staffing

36. Turning Revenue Into Profit
• Use Technology
You’ve – Caterease / ADP Enterprise
• Estimate Properly
sold it,
• Capture Data
now • Evaluate
keep it! • Re-invest

37. Estimating Labor
Supervisor, Lead Culinary, and Lead Bartender come
to the commissary – Billed at $30per hr
All others meet on site – Billed at $25 per hour
Client is charged for all hours dedicated to the
production of the event

38. EVENT EXAMPLE
Event 6:30pm – 10:30pm
Call time: 2pm
Departure: 3pm
Arrival on site: 4pm
Event set-up: 4pm – 6:30pm
Event: 6:30pm – 10:30pm
Breakdown: 10:30pm – 11:30pm
Return to the commissary – 12:30
Leads billed for 10½ hours
All others billed for 7½ hours

39. AUTOMATING THE PROCESS
Caterease used for estimating the labor
ADP Enterprise software used for employee schedule
management
Staff control their available to work.
Leadership uses Enterprise software
to manage abilities and skill levels
Service manager clicks staffing button
when time to schedule

40. All necessary reports, event related data,
and scheduling data is pushed up from
Caterease to Enterprise
Enterprise auto fills the shifts based on skill level and
availability
Service manager approves and/or edits schedule.
Enterprise pushes details to the service team –
location, Google map, schedule, appropriate event
details, and co-worker/supervisor details.
Enterprise then pushes the scheduling information
back down to Caterease. Shifts are now replaced with
names so sales is informed who is working their event.

41. CAPTURING THE HOURS WORKED
• Geo-fencing technology allows staff to use their smart
phones to clock in when they arrive to the event location and
forces clock out when they depart the site
• Service manager reviews and approves the hours in
Enterprise. Actual hours worked are then pushed back down
to Caterease.
• Automatic notification is sent to Sales if additional billing is
necessary.
• Job costing / P&L reports are automatically generated and
sent to management.
• Enterprise automatically sends the data to ADP Total Source
for paycheck creation.

42. Process Flow - Blueprint
CATEREASE
Time Collection ADP ENTERPRISE ETIME
TOTALSOURCE
© Copyright 2011 ADP Inc. Proprietary
,
and Confidential Information

43. Time and Labor Management – ROI ($2+mil Payroll)
$82,500.00 - Error Rate (4%)
$61,750.00 – Lost Time (15 Minutes)
$39,950.00 – Recovery of Excess OT (5% $98K/40% Recovery)
Reduce lost / “stolen” time
 Eliminate errors
 Eliminate manual process
 Pay policy misinterpretation
 Improved efficiency, productivity
 Overtime management tools
 Mitigate risk of non-compliance
ESTIMATED ANNUAL TOTAL SAVINGS
$184,200.00

44. The ROI
• Gives clients piece
of mind knowing
they are only charged for
the hours worked.
• Keeps honest people honest
• Eliminates time consuming manual entry into time
keeping system. (100+ hours per week)
• Eliminates human errors

45. Thank You!
To download a copy of my slides, go to:
http://www.slideshare.net/WarrenDietel
Warren Dietel| warren@puffnstuff.com |
407.398.6306
www.facebook.com/puffnstuffcatering
Twitter: @pscatering