Chefs seem intent on giving us a hard time

Our mock audit to see if we were ready to be considered for recognition as an Investor in People went well, and was followed up by a positive recommendation to go for the real thing. The application for assessment has been submitted to the Training and Enterprise Council and we are waiting for a date for the assessor to visit.

We believe our staff turnover is low compared with the industry in general. During the past 12 months, we have lost five of our 20 regular team members and they have all had good reasons for leaving. However, that figure doesn't include chefs, who seem intent on giving us a hard time. No sooner have we spent money on advertising, training, extra wages to other employees, uniforms and other miscellaneous expenses, than they decide that we aren't for them and up sticks. Given that nearly half of our team have been with us for the best part of five years, we can't be all that bad, but chefs - they're a law unto themselves. Paul, who started eight weeks ago, has gone and we are now working with his replacement, Steve.

A visit to the Retail Interiors exhibition at the NEC proved to be a day well spent. The main purpose was to seek new ideas for wall and floor finishes, together with lighting options and, perhaps most importantly, a cost-effective method of producing promotional material on a one-off basis quickly to meet a specific demand. We use a traditional poster writer at the moment, but want to come up with a way of moving the presentation on to a higher plane. One idea is to acquire a printed backing board, on to which we can attach "posters" produced on an A2-size printer that we could buy. The cost of that could be £500, but we would recoup the investment in 12 months.

August sees the start of our new financial year and so we are busy working on budgets for the millennium. There doesn't seem any point in budgeting for much of an uplift in sales, because everybody becomes very demoralised when we "never hit target". Better to be realistic and work to maintain sales and the all-important customer count.

Every six months, we try to implement a modest price increase. We conduct a local price survey, deliberate at length, worry about customer price-sensitivity, and then go for it. Despite our concerns, it is usually accepted without adverse reaction - so why do we get so stressed about it? n

JOHN DOWNS is managing director of Lincoln-based Jay-Dees Family Restaurants

Next diary from John Downs: 12 August