Serving Alcohol in the Restaurant Industry Essay Sample

In the state of Tennessee, a server is allowed to serve alcohol to any guest aged twenty-one or older. Unfortunately, there are a lot of incidents when this issue is overlooked and a minor is sold alcohol at a restaurant or establishment. It can be easy to overlook the birth month, expiration date, or not check for the holographic image on official IDs used when showing the server proof of age. In the establishment I am employed at, a young lady served a minor and was a part of the local Collegedale police station alcohol sting. After being notified that the sale was final and the minor had been served, the officers approached the server responsible and asked for her manager on duty giving them a form that states what had taken place and the consequences that would soon follow. Meanwhile, the restaurant has a problem to face and a few areas they need to learn from, the server had not received proper training, the management team should have had proper ID validation procedures in place, and ensuring the employees felt confident enough to follow their instincts when checking guests’ identification. 

The server in the sting operation had been employed for a total of five weeks. She was trained quickly due to being short-staffed and thrown on the floor. Since she was trained so quickly teaching her the alcoholic beverages and making sure she knew the procedures was not a priority. The managers figured she would be safe learning the bare minimum from her peers because the restaurant was not expecting anyone from the beer board that month. She was thirty days into her position and per Tennessee law, it is a requirement to have all employees pass and obtain a serving permit. Tennessee says that an employee has a sixty-one-day grace period from the day they are hired to take an online course and get their alcohol beverage commission license.

Training the young lady was done poorly due to managements interaction. Servers with as little experience as her were responsible for her training. The majority of the staff is twenty or younger, leaving them all under the legal age for alcohol consumption. With that being said the only knowledge they had of alcohol in the restaurant industry was what they were told when they started their job. At orientation, the server is informed that they have sixty-one days to pay the fees and take the online courses to receive their ABC license and bring it to their manager on duty or they’ll be removed from the schedule. Then when being trained they are supposed to be told how to properly check the date of birth, the holographic image, the image, and the expiration date. Management should teach the servers themselves because the managers are responsible for the servers and their well beings at the end of the day. There are stricter protocols in place, all servers have to know the date when their shift begins and there is an app used on their cell phones that scan the information available on the card and can immediately determine whether the guest is presenting a valid ID.

Serving alcohol can be very overwhelming and intimidating. On more than one occasion the guest can get upset and frustrated with the employee that asks to check their ID before serving them a drink. Some guests arrive and have already had a drink and some guests arrive and try to get drinks but are not of age. In either one of these situations, it can be very uncomfortable for the server to deny the guests what they came for. Even with good intentions it is never just accepted. While learning the ins and outs of checking guests’ IDs, the talk has to include that sometimes there are hard conversations, and no matter the outcome or how upset someone is the server does have a right to refuse to serve a guest alcohol with good reason. Teaching the server to have the hard conversation and to have been confident that day could have prevented the whole situation and a harder conversation when she was caught and held reliable for her actions.

After comparing the issues at work to class there are a few different things I have learned over the semester. Within the business there were internal forces that caused change, a lack of trust which is important anywhere a team is needed, and there were two of the four techniques used to modify behavior. There were internal forces that caused change because after the situation happened a lot of the employees were upset with management so they had no choice but to look at the root of the problem and try to correct it. (Kinicki & Williams, 2020, p. 382) Another important factor that the restaurant was missing was trust. Trust is defined in our textbook as "reciprocal faith in others' intentions and behaviors" (Kinicki & Williams, 2020, p. 514). The servers trusted management and their peers to have enough knowledge of their position to go and give it their best, however, trust wasn’t warranted because they were misled and not trained correctly. Because there was no trust, the managers had to correct their behavior while leading their employees and then there had to be a correction in behavior in the current employees. They did that by using positive reinforcement and letting the servers know they were doing good by checking IDs and still being confident enough to sell alcohol. The other form they used was punishment because anyone who didn’t have their license or didn’t know the details to serve were taken off of the schedule or put into other positions that would benefit the restaurant.

Knowing boundaries while serving alcohol is extremely important. It begins with familiarizing the server with the state laws and common knowledge of the legal age, the correct birth date, the expiration date, and the holographic images that are reflected on each card. As long as management corrects the server’s training, continues to enforce the ID validation procedures, and encourages the confidence it takes to serve alcohol the establishment can learn and be better than ever before. Fixing these three main problems creates a good look for future guests because the employees are educated about their positions, it creates trust because the employees feel secure in what they know and do, and it maintains restaurant confidence that reflects the service to the past and future guests of the restaurant. The restaurant gained a lot and will be proactive in the upcoming situations and training experiences they come across. 

References

Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2020). Management: A Practical Introduction, 9th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill Education. Retrieved from https://prod.reader-ui.prod.mheducation.com

In-Text Citation:

(Kinicki & Williams, 2020, p. 382)

(Kinicki & Williams, 2020, p. 514)