My Journey to Ops
With however many thousands of people currently in a service focused job, and with only one Operations role to for every 20-30 GM roles, how can you get there?
As with most things in life, it is being in the right place at the right time and being proactive. I spoke last time about how hard it can be working in Ops, but in this industry, we do not appear to be awash with so many alternatives. It seems like it’s either open your own place or go into Ops? Not necessarily, there are actually such a huge number of different departments within this vast sector that you can grow into, but more on that to come in an upcoming episode…
I thought I would share my personal experience to help you consider your best plan of attack if Ops is the direction you know you want. I became a GM at 21 after graduating from uni with a PR degree after realising I really didn’t enjoy it and loved restaurants more. I moved restaurants as GM every 18 months until I was 26, when I decided that I wanted to get a role in Ops. There was no way I was getting in the Ops team in the company I worked in, the competition was rife and I was the youngest & most inexperienced GM there. So I applied for Ops roles in places that I wouldn’t dream of working in as a GM. Either the product was poor, the company had a bad rep, they had a poor culture, or the environments were shoddy - hoping they would love to learn from someone who had come from a successful, renowned high-quality business. After many failed attempts, I finally got an interview for a Kuwait owned patisserie brand that was on its knees. When I turned up, they sat all the applicants in a room, and I was the only female, the only one under 55 and the only one without a briefcase. I was intimidated and wondered why I had bothered putting myself through this. Fast forward, I stormed the interview process which had included so many stages: 3 presentations, 6 site visits and 2 video calls with Kuwait. I got the job because I offered something fresher, newer and different to what they had been used to and I had been proactive, applied for dozens of ops jobs just to get this interview. It was the most challenging 18 months in that role, but I learnt the art of multi-site management, how to develop and coach GM’s and it was a crash course in managing financials and cost control to a degree I had never imagined in an attempt to save a failing business. I made many mistakes and learned from them. That stepping stone got me my dream Ops Manager job next, one that was exactly what I had wished for in the first place.
I do realise this reads a bit like when the boomers tell you how easy it is to buy a house by just saving more like they did. But despite the fact there are less Ops jobs out there now than there were in 2012, you still need to be so proactive, realistic, ready to compromise and be open minded.
BUT (in what may seem like a contrasting piece of advice - but one I give almost daily) - for those of you wanting to get into Ops who still enjoys the company they are currently in (which I didn’t):
Stick it out, keep developing yourself, keep learning, ask for as much feedback as you can get on your performance, make your career aspirations known to those above you, and wait your turn, because if it’s meant to be, it will come.
Great piece Lauren. In terms of advice, I would add "build up your skillset." Like you say, the ops manager has to be the fount of all knowledge for absolutely everything. That could be wine (go get WSET L3), Excel (buy a Dummies type book) or the latest clever tech (go to trade shows like Casual Dining and see what all the different staff scheduling apps are like). Plus of course eat out a lot and form some opinions about why successful restaurant groups work. Being a self-starter is essential in an ops role so it's helpful to be able to prove it.