«Structure for "Yakitori"» - Free Essay Paper

Introduction

Planning of the specific details of a new business is vital for every company. These details can usually be found in a special document known as the business plan. However, in order to make a successful business plan some preparatory work should be done. Thus, the purpose of the current paper is to describe several business aspects regarding the opening of a new “Yakitori” restaurant. The familiarisation with these aspects is important for making a business plan for the new business. 

The document is divided into four parts. The first part describes the recruitment and selection process. The second part characterises the methods used for staff motivation. The third part contains the descriptions of the forms of business financing. Finally, the fourth part describes the features of the chosen business structure.

Recruitment and Selection Matters

Employees’ Positions

One of the first phases of starting business is to consider the number of employees before hiring them. Since some staff members work by shifts, it turns out that some employees do not work out sometimes. Thus, the business-starter should hire a few more employees than necessary. At the same time, he or she should make certain that the restaurant is able to pay salaries for the planned number of employees. The staff positions can be divided into two types.

The first type includes employees in the back-office, such as general manager, accountant, cashiers, etc. The leading position in the back-office staff is the general manager. It is a person who oversees the operations and is responsible for ensuring the quality of food in the restaurant. Furthermore, the duties of the restaurant manager may include the hiring of employees, their schedule and daily operations. The second position is the accountant, who is responsible for financial affairs, including ordering and paying vendors, payroll and taxes. In case a restaurant is small, it is possible to outsource the accounting services and reduce the costs. The next position is cashier, who is responsible for drawing bills and collecting payments from the clients. The cashier also works together with the accountant to handle record and store all cash correctly.

The second type includes employees in the front-office, such as chef, chef assistants, barista, and servers. The chef is in charge of cooking the food. He also creates and adjusts receipts and menu. Furthermore, he coordinates the kitchen work and monitors the costs of food and inventory. Chef assistants prepare food in the kitchen. They also clean, cut, store and prepare food for cooking. They also follow directions from chef. Servers are responsible for taking orders from the restaurant guests. Moreover, servers should offer information and suggestions about the menu, if the guests ask. Finally, they prepare bills together with the cashier and collect payment, which they give to the cashiers.

Thus, the total number of required staff is thirteen, which include: one general manager, two cashiers, one chef, four chef assistants, and six servers. Cashiers, chef assistants and servers will work on schedule that is why it is necessary to hire more employees for these positions. The accountant services are planned to be outsourced.

Recruitment and Selection Tools

In order to successfully hire the required staff, it is necessary to produce a relevant number of appropriate candidates within reasonable cost constraints. In order to find candidates for senior or specialised positions, such as general manager or chef, it is possible to use the services of a recruitment agency (Armstrong & Taylor 2014). The next tool of recruiting is to advertise the vacancies on the relevant websites, and distribute them among the college or university students, or people, who live near the campus in close proximity with the restaurant. The first selection tool is the resume pre-screening. When all CVs for the relevant positions are collected, it is necessary to select the CVs of those candidates who fit the position’s requirements. The next selection tools are interviews with the selected candidates. Furthermore, an interview gives candidates an opportunity to ask questions to their potential employer. The next tool is skills testing, which is useful for positions that require certain level of competency (Rees & French 2010). Reference checking and police checks are also important selection tools, since they allow maintaining the employee quality rating (Rees & French 2010).

Employees’ Motivation

Motivation can be defined as a force that acts either towards or within a person to initiate behaviour, for example, doing work well. There are multiple motivation theories. In the given case the most appropriate theories were selected for the restaurant staff motivation.

The first chosen motivation theory is the motivation-hygiene or dual-factor theory. This theory was suggested by the psychologist Herzberg in the 1950s. Based on his research, Herzberg found that there are two factors, which influence employees’ satisfaction and motivation. The first are the motivator factors. These factors can lead to the employees’ job satisfaction, thus motivating them to work harder (Armstrong & Taylor 2014). For example, employee will be motivated if he or she feels recognised and/or has career prospects. The next are hygiene factors. Without these factors employees become dissatisfied and less motivated. Among the examples of the hygiene factors are the following: financial and nonfinancial benefits, salary, relationships with other employees (such as co-workers and senior managers), and company policies (Miner 2013). Despite the fact that both of these factors have an impact on motivation, they may appear independently from each other and influence the employees’ motivation from different perspectives. Therefore, according to this theory, if the employee wants to have the most productive staff, he should improve both of these factors. First of all, it is necessary to create appropriate conditions for the employees to feel that the company appreciates and supports them. This can be achieved by the feedback from the staff. Moreover, it is important to ensure that the restaurant employees understand and use their growth possibilities in the company. Further, the business owner should ensure the best working conditions and the fair pay for the employees (Miner 2013).

The next motivation theory is based on the Hawthorne effect, which was described by H. Landsberger in 1950. The researcher has noticed that some people work harder if they understand that senior staff is monitoring their work. Thus, the observed employees usually perform better than other (Miner 2013). For this reason, this factor could be used for motivating the restaurant staff to work harder. For example, if the employees know that their work is being monitored by the business owner or general manager, they will perform better. However, it is not necessary to hover over the staff watching them the entire working day. The business owner may just provide regular feedback. Thus, he/she will show the results of their performance to the employees. Moreover, if the business owner shows that he/she cares about his/her employees and tries to provide the best working conditions for them, it may also motivate them to work more productively.

Finally, the third relevant motivating theory is the Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs. This theory was described by the psychologist Maslow in 1943. According to his theory there are 5 levels of human needs. The first level contains physiological needs, such as needs for shelter, food and water. The second level includes health, wellbeing, financial and personal security. The third level includes needs for friendship and family. The fourth level includes the need to be self-confident and be respected by others. The last fifth level includes a need for self-actualisation (Miner 2013). In order to apply this theory to the workplace, the business owner and general managers should focus on the concept of self-actualisation (Armstrong & Taylor 2014). Thus, it is necessary to convince the employees that their job is important to the company and its clients.

Forms of Business Financing

The proposed forms of business can be divided into two types. The first type contains sources of borrowing, and the second type contains the capital investment sources. The difference between these two types lies in the fact that borrowing requires business to service the debt and provide financial guarantees. On the other hand, capital investment involves giving up some part of ownership to the investor (The British Business Bank 2014).

The first proposed borrowing source is a bank loan, which can be used for long-term investment and/or to fund working capital. Loans from banks are divided into two categories: overdrafts and fixed-term loans. Overdrafts are more suitable for day-to-day operation expenses incurred through running the business. Fixed-term loans, such as usual loans, leasing or hire purchase agreements are more suitable for larger longer-term purchases, for instance, for investing in machinery, equipment, computers or transport. There are two main types of leasing: a financial lease and an operating lease, or contract hire (The British Business Bank 2014).

Moreover, other financial institutions propose start-up loans and peer-to-peer business loans, which can be used for opening a new restaurant. For example, it is possible to receive the government’s start-up loan from the government’s start-up initiative, where the average granted amount of money is around £6,000 (The British Business Bank 2014). Furthermore, peer-to-peer business loan is a direct alternative to a bank loan. In this type of lending, the internet-based platforms are used to match lenders with borrowers (The British Business Bank 2014).

The next proposed type of financing is the capital investment. This type of financing requires giving up of some part of the ownership in exchange for investment. The capital investment may become an additional source of financing to the bank loan or governmental grant. However, it will result in involving the third parties in the process of running the business. Thus, it is necessary to choose an investor, who will be able to bring useful experience, skills, contacts and cash to the company. 

Among the major sources of capital investment are the following. Firstly, it is a web-based crowd source funding which uses web platform to attract investors, similarly to peer-to-peer lending. This type of investment can either be equity based or reward based (The British Business Bank 2014). Secondly, the GrowthAccelerator, which is a privately backed programme for young and developing businesses, may be used as a led service providing both, funding and support such as business coaching (The British Business Bank 2014). Thirdly, the restaurant owner may attract business angels in capital investing. Business angels are wealthy individuals who may make equity investments in businesses. Such type of funding typically ranges from £100,000 to £500,000 (The British Business Bank 2014).

Business Structure

Before establishing a new restaurant, the business owner should consider certain corporate structure to become fully legitimate, which will also affect a restaurant's tax structure and liability. Most businesses in the UK have the following business structure: sole traders, limited companies, and partnerships. The positive factor for the given start-up is that it is cheaper to set up and run business in the UK than in many other countries. Moreover, anyone is able to set up a company even with little or no working capital and open a bank account in one day (GOV.UK n.d.).

A limited liability partnership was chosen as the most appropriate form of business for the given restaurant. This business structure suggests that individual partners in this partnership are not responsible for the illegal or wrong actions of each other. One of the benefits of setting up a limited liability partnership is a favourable tax regime for the British companies. For example, this partnership pays no corporation tax, since the individual partners should pay their own tax. This tax will be paid proportionally to the share of restaurant earnings (GOV.UK n.d.). Moreover, a favourable tax regime of the limited liability partnership allows partners, who are resident s of other taxpaying jurisdictions, to pay taxes in their country of residence. The value of paid taxes is proportional to their level of participation in the company (GOV.UK n.d.). Furthermore, each individual partner is not personally liable for any debts the business is not able to pay (GOV.UK n.d.).

Nevertheless, it is necessary to fill up the company’s financial statements. Every LLP is obligated to file financial statements with Companies House each year, and the relevant Partnership Tax return must be filed annually (GOV.UK n.d.). Thereby, a correct financial policy of the LLP Company will allow ensuring tax optimisation, which will result in significant saving of financial resources. Moreover, this will give a restaurant a considerable advantage over its competitors.

Conclusion

Before starting up a new restaurant, several issues should be considered and justified. After considering several business aspects, the following conclusions can be made. Firstly, the thirteen employees should be hired. Among them there are both staff for front-office (servers, chef and chef assistants) and staff for back-office (general manager, and cashiers). In order to recruit them, the following recruiting tools were chosen: using a recruitment agency services for senior or specialised posts, and advertising the other vacancies on the relevant websites. After pre-screening the CVs, the most eligible candidates will be invited to the interviews. Furthermore, after the skill-testing, reference and police checking, the most successful candidates will be chosen. An important part of the human-resource management is staff motivation. Thus, the following theories were chosen as the most relevant for motivating the staff to perform better: motivation-hygiene theory, Hawthorne effect, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In order to finance the restaurant, the two types of financing were identified: bank lending and capital investment. Finally, the limited liability partnership was chosen as the most beneficial form of business.