Sales Share

How has this idea enhanced your club's operation, etc.?

Sales Share gave us the opportunity to stop having to stress about staffing for significant club events, major weddings, and dinners on Fridays and Saturdays. The staff also learned more about the menu, worked more as a team, and, just as importantly, we hired and retained better staff. The membership is just starting to see the effects of Sales Share, but the comments and happiness of the members in food and beverage have been palpable.

How was this idea implemented, and what have been the club members' reactions?

Sales Share or tip sharing is not a new concept but a new concept to Belle Meade Country Club. We, as many were over the past few years, needed help to get new staff and incentivize our current staff in Food & Beverage to hold themselves to a higher accountability. In Nashville, we could not compete with the downtown bars and Honky Tonks in pay. Nevertheless, we knew we could compete for good staff if we showed the whole package, including pay, no late nights, PTO, and a great team. We were missing the pay component. So, we devised a package deal with a significantly higher base wage than downtown. Instead of paying $2.13/hr for a server, we had a base rate of $17. From there, we did not just want to give raises to the existing staff just for being here. We wanted them to work and get better for it, so we instilled a 7% sales share thanks to our generous board. The sales share is broken up daily, so there is more incentive to work the busier higher income days. We did an exciting thing and included banquets in the sale share. This promoted cross-department teamwork within the group. This 7% equated to roughly an additional $6/hr on Average. It was well over $10/hr for some significant club events and weddings. All we do daily is input FOH staff's hours and revenues into a spreadsheet that will calculate what they should make. At the end of the pay period, we worked with Paycom to easily input those weekly #'s.