Manager Coaching with Metrics: Moving Beyond Gut Instinct

Introduction

"Your labor was high last week—get it down" is not coaching, it's delegation of frustration. Effective manager coaching requires specific, data-driven conversations that identify root causes, provide clear targets, and enable accountability. Most operators struggle to coach managers effectively because they lack the granular metrics needed to make coaching conversations productive. This playbook shows how data-driven operators use intelligent metrics to coach manager performance, replicate best practices, and build accountability across their portfolios.

Why This Topic Matters for Restaurant Operators

Manager quality determines location performance. A great manager can turn around an underperforming location; a weak manager can destroy a high-potential site. Multi-location operators face unique coaching challenges:

- Scale: How do you coach 30+ managers effectively? - Specificity: How do you move beyond generic "do better" guidance? - Fairness: How do you set expectations that account for location-specific realities? - Accountability: How do you track whether coaching leads to actual improvement? - Replication: How do you scale what top managers do differently?

Without metrics-driven coaching frameworks, operators rely on gut instinct, create frustration through vague guidance, and struggle to replicate excellence systematically.

The Limits of Traditional Approaches

Most operators coach managers through monthly reviews focused on aggregate results:

Monthly review: Look at location P&L, flag variances, ask "what happened?" Generic guidance: "Get labor down," "improve food cost," "boost sales" No context: Managers don't know if their 29.5% labor is good, bad, or expected Limited follow-up: Next month's review may not even reference previous issues Inconsistent standards: Different expectations for different managers without clear rationale

This approach fails because:

1. Too late: Monthly reviews discuss problems weeks after they occurred 2. Too vague: Managers don't know specifically what to change 3. No benchmark: Managers can't tell if they're improving relative to potential 4. Limited accountability: No systematic tracking of whether coaching drives change

Result: Manager frustration, inconsistent execution, and missed opportunities to replicate best practices.

How Sundae Changes the Picture

Sundae provides the metrics infrastructure for effective manager coaching:

Sundae Canvas: Manager-specific dashboards showing their location's performance across all key metrics with drill-down to daypart, shift, and role level.

Sundae Report: Benchmarks showing how each location compares to similar concepts, providing context for what "good" looks like given location-specific realities.

Sundae Insights: Proactive alerts when locations trend off-target, enabling real-time coaching conversations instead of month-end retrospectives.

Sundae Nexus: Enables managers to self-serve answers: "Why was my PM labor high Tuesday?" empowering them to identify and correct issues independently.

Best practice identification: ML algorithms identify what top-performing managers do differently, enabling systematic replication.

The transformation: from vague monthly reviews to specific, data-driven coaching conversations that build accountability and replicate excellence.

Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: Specific Labor Coaching

Traditional approach: "Your labor was 31.2% last month, plan is 29.5%. Get it down."

Manager reaction: Frustration—cuts staff arbitrarily, hurts service, still doesn't know root cause.

With Sundae metrics:

- "Your PM daypart labor ran 3.2 points over plan due to scheduling mismatch with traffic patterns" - "Top-performing locations achieve 28.1% by aligning staff arrival with actual traffic peaks" - "Your AM labor is excellent at 26.8%, which shows you understand the principle" - "Specific action: Adjust PM scheduling template to shift start times 90 minutes earlier" - "Expected impact: Reduce PM labor 2.5 points, bringing overall labor to 29.8%"

Manager reaction: Clear understanding, specific action, achievable target, recognition of strengths.

Result: PM labor improved to 28.9% within 2 weeks, manager felt empowered not frustrated.

Scenario 2: New Manager Development

A hospitality group promoted a high-performing server to manage Location 18. After 90 days, location underperformed but feedback was vague: "You need to improve."

With Sundae coaching framework:

- Compared new manager's metrics to experienced managers running similar locations - Identified specific gaps: Void rate 2.1% vs benchmark 1.3%, labor scheduling efficiency 15% below benchmark - Paired new manager with mentor running top-performing location for specific skill development - Set 90-day improvement targets with weekly check-ins tracking progress - Provided self-serve dashboards so manager could monitor own performance daily

Result: By day 120, void rate reduced to 1.4%, labor efficiency improved 12%, location moved from bottom quartile to median performance.

Scenario 3: Best Practice Replication

A Dubai restaurant group identified that top 5 locations achieved 27.2% labor while bottom 5 ran 31.8%—but couldn't articulate what top performers did differently.

Sundae best practice analysis revealed:

- Top performers used 15-minute scheduling increments vs 30-minute - Top performers aligned staff breaks with traffic valleys, not fixed times - Top performers cross-trained staff for flexibility during unexpected rushes - Top performers reviewed yesterday's labor daily, not weekly

Systematic replication:

- Documented top performer practices in specific, actionable terms - Trained bottom performers on specific techniques - Provided daily metrics showing improvement toward benchmark - Celebrated progress publicly to reinforce behavior

Result: Bottom 5 locations improved from 31.8% to 29.1% labor within 90 days, equivalent to $210K annual impact.

Scenario 4: Accountability Through Metrics

A fast-casual group struggled with manager accountability. Generic expectations led to "I didn't know" excuses when locations underperformed.

Implemented metrics-driven accountability:

- Each manager received location-specific targets based on concept benchmarks and location realities - Dashboards showed daily progress vs targets with variance explanations - Weekly 15-minute check-ins focused on exceptions: "Your food cost spiked 2 points Tuesday—what happened?" - Monthly reviews tracked whether managers hit targets, improved from baseline, applied coaching - Compensation tied to achieving location-specific targets, not portfolio averages

Result: Manager accountability transformed from subjective to objective, excuses eliminated, performance improved 2.1 points portfolio-wide.

The Measurable Impact

Operators implementing metrics-driven manager coaching achieve:

- Clearer expectations: Managers know exactly what "good" looks like - Faster improvement: Real-time coaching prevents issues from compounding - Better retention: Managers feel supported not blamed, reducing turnover - Systematic excellence: Best practices replicated across portfolio - Stronger accountability: Objective metrics eliminate excuses

For 30-location portfolio, improving bottom quartile manager performance by 2 points represents $540K+ annual impact.

Operator Checklist: How to Apply This

Step 1: Define Manager Success Metrics

- Identify key metrics each manager controls: labor%, food cost%, void rate, guest satisfaction, revenue per available hour - Set location-specific targets using Sundae Report benchmarks - Document variance tolerance (what's acceptable vs concerning) - Share metrics transparently with managers

Step 2: Enable Manager Self-Service

- Provide each manager with Canvas dashboard showing their location's real-time performance - Train managers to use Nexus for self-directed analysis - Encourage daily review: "How did I do yesterday vs target?" - Celebrate managers who proactively identify and correct issues

Step 3: Implement Real-Time Coaching

- Use Insights alerts to identify coaching opportunities immediately - Conduct brief check-ins when issues emerge, not month-end retrospectives - Focus coaching conversations on specific metrics, root causes, and actions - Provide examples from top performers: "Location 7 handles this by..."

Step 4: Build Coaching Conversation Framework

Every coaching conversation should include: - Specific metric: "Your PM labor ran 3.2 points over plan" - Context: "Benchmark for locations like yours is 28.5%" - Root cause: "Driven by scheduling misalignment with traffic patterns" - Example: "Top performers achieve 27.8% by [specific technique]" - Action: "Adjust scheduling template using [specific change]" - Expected impact: "Should reduce variance by 2.5 points" - Follow-up: "Let's review Friday to confirm improvement"

Step 5: Track Coaching Effectiveness

- Document coaching conversations with specific targets and timelines - Monitor whether coached issues improve - Celebrate successes publicly - Identify managers who need additional support vs performance management

Step 6: Replicate Best Practices

- Use Sundae analytics to identify top-performer common practices - Document specific techniques in operational terms - Create manager playbooks capturing best practices - Implement peer mentoring where top performers coach developing managers

Step 7: Build Manager Development Programs

- New manager onboarding: Shadow top performers, learn specific techniques - Struggling managers: Intensive coaching with daily metrics review - High performers: Stretch assignments, mentor development - Recognition: Tie compensation and advancement to metrics-based performance

Step 8: Create Accountability System

- Monthly review compares actual vs target across all key metrics - Managers explain variances and present improvement plans - Track whether improvement plans drive results - Performance management process tied to sustained underperformance vs targets

Closing & CTA

Manager coaching is the highest-leverage activity multi-location operators can pursue. The difference between vague expectations and specific, metrics-driven coaching is measurable: 2-3 points of portfolio-wide performance improvement through better manager development and accountability.

Sundae provides the metrics infrastructure that makes coaching conversations specific, actionable, and accountability-driven. See how your managers compare to location-specific benchmarks, what your top performers do differently, and how metrics-driven coaching transforms manager development. Book a demo to experience how Sundae enables systematic manager excellence across your entire portfolio.