One Heart at a Time: fast food in perspective

Liu, a Shift Manager for Pizza Hut Singapore, shared with us his experience of being a manager in a fast-paced environment where he has to juggle multiple tasks as well as managing his staff, customers and ensuring quality of service and how ‘Virtual Leading with Heart’ encouraged him to lead with love. 

‘Usually, during my work day, I’ve got two things that are always troubling me and stressing me. The first one is how to handle our customers. The second one is how I can manage my staff. I sometimes think that I’m younger than them, how can I make [my] staff follow my example and how can I handle my customers when they complain? I used to be scared to talk to customers if their order was running late. After attending the course, I now know that I need to be thinking of how the situation affects the customer, I can listen to them and talk to them confidently and explain the situation.’

We always rush.

Working in the fast-food industry means that Liu and his team have to work efficiently in order to deliver a service to customers within tight timeframes which sometimes means that he doesn’t necessarily focus on how to best motivate his staff to grow and develop. This is something he knew he wanted to address, to become better at giving his team what they need: ‘We always rush. We work in fast food. We are always rushing, always rushing. I’ve learned I was too hard on my staff. ‘Faster, faster, be faster!’ Even though I was trying to guide them, I was trying to help them, my staff were thinking that I never thought about them. Heartstyles has taught me that sometimes we need to be encouraging our staff, in fact most of the time we should be like this, giving them positive encouragement and being more compassionate.’

He believes this is particularly important for his younger team members who are just entering the world of work: ‘Some of my staff have no choice but to work. Some of them are just 16, maybe 17 years old, very young. Maybe they’ve just finished school, maybe haven’t [even] had their lunch. They come here and they have to work. This is something I never thought about before. I used to think that my staff come here to earn money, so they should do their jobs. After being on Heartstyles, I have learned to deal with them using love, to show kindness to them, to help them grow, to help them and myself become better. Better together.’

A new perspective.

Liu is working on adopting a new mindset in his work practices and management style and hopes that this will filter through the work environment. He is taking the time to find what works best for him and his team:

‘I used to sometimes think, how come training my people and coaching them is so difficult? I didn’t have the real experience and the skills to do this. Now I’ve been through Heartstyles, I know I can lead with love. I can be encouraging, I can develop my staff, I can show kindness, I can adapt my tone of voice when I talk to my staff and I can calm myself down in times of stress. All of these things, I can apply to my life and my work life.’