8 more email hacks from foodservice operators
By Alaina Lancaster on May 09, 2017When managing a foodservice department, emails can be a bit of a nightmare, says Joshua Watkins, director of dining services for Palmetto Park Senior Living Community in Palmetto, Ga. One operator even declined to participate in this story because he still had 2,400 emails to answer. So don’t get buried alive in a virtual stack of correspondence; check out these eight operator-approved ways to tunnel out of your inbox.
1. Be direct
Don’t get hung up on the niceties. “You give a response and get the ‘thank you,’ ‘have a good day,’ ‘you too’—that creates extra emails you have to manage,” says Michael Osborne, dining services supervisor for Corning Inc. in Corning, N.Y.
With email, less is more, says Heather Torrey, director of foodservice for Georgetown Public Schools in Georgetown, Mass. “It took me a long time to learn to be succinct with my emails,” she says. “It always felt rude to me to write short, to-the-point emails. But not only will the reader be more likely to get your main message, it saves a lot of typing time.”
2. Find a system that works for you
Some operators check email periodically while others block out certain times during the day. Reading and responding in 10-minute increments helps Anneliese Tanner, nutrition and foodservices director for Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas, remain responsive to the community but still able to complete other work. Watkins, on the other hand, confines his email activity to the start and end of his day. “This saves me from having to stop during the middle of service to check emails,” he says. At the end of the week, Watkins looks back at his emails to make sure he answered them adequately.
With 11 locations and multiple meetings, Osborne catches up on the emails he missed throughout the day while watching TV at night. And taking advantage of downtime on public transit helps Christopher Studtmann, district executive chef for Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., stay on top of his messages.
3. Delegate and prioritize
Fortunately, you don’t have to take on the email tsunami alone. Jessica Shelly, foodservices director for Cincinnati Public Schools, empowers her staff to send responses on the district’s behalf. “A quick email back to the sender with a virtual introduction to the most appropriate staff member is a time saver for me and for the sender,” Shelly says.
Prioritizing messages based on a hierarchy can also help manage the influx of emails. Torrey responds to emails from parents, team members and administrators first. Rob Jaber, director of food and nutrition services for the District of Columbia Public Schools in Washington, D.C., opens every email and manually sorts them into subfolders. He fields staff emails first, and once he has thinned the stack, decides which items to open and respond to next.
4. Stay organized
Splitting emails into two groups is a system that helps Eric Eisenberg, corporate executive chef for Swedish Health Services in Seattle. To maintain a clean inbox, Eisenberg completes quick responses right away and turns those that will take longer than three minutes into tasks he can check off. “The clogged inbox is a killer,” he says. “It just makes you feel like nothing is ever getting done.”
Tanner has set up her inbox to show the oldest emails at the top and more recent emails at the bottom. This helps prevent messages from getting buried and forgotten, she says.
5. Read and reread
When it comes to important emails, Torrey recommends reading, rereading, triple-reading and reciting them to a friend before sending. This process helps to flesh out typos, clarity and tone, she says. “Especially when you receive an email that ruffles your feathers—and we've all been there—it's important to take the time to make sure you are responding in a professional and calm manner,” she says.
6. Go to the experts
To make sure email doesn’t take over her life, Lisa Poggas, nutrition and environmental services director for Parker Adventist Hospital in Parker, Colo., enrolled in a class on managing email. Helpful tactics she took away from the lesson included color coding emails based on response time and turning off her push notifications to stop the deluge of messages.
7. Set expectations
Eisenberg says he spends most of his day interacting with email. As such, if he doesn’t have time to answer a message in a timely manner, he sets up an out-of-office alert and lets his team members know to not expect a quick response.
8. Know when to pick up the phone
Some situations are better served with a phone call. Look at a phone call as an investment to prevent miscommunication, Torrey says. “If a parent emails me with a question about the free or reduced price meal program, I will almost always call them to discuss it since it can be such a complex topic."