Using Task Clarification, Goal Setting, and Feedback to Decrease Table Busing Times in a Franchise Pizza Restaurant

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the effects of task-clarification, and manager verbal and graphic feedback on employee busing times at a pizza restaurant. Using an ABC design, task-clarification was provided in a memo, which described the process, priority, and goal time of busing. The busing time decreased slightly, from an average of 315 seconds during baseline to an average of 284 seconds after the task clarification memo. The majority of this change was accounted for by servers decreasing the time it took them to arrive at the table to begin busing. Subsequent to the employee memo, group feedback was administered in the form of verbal feedback and a weekly graph of average server busing times. This feedback was associated with reductions in busing time to an average 152 seconds. Changes in the feedback phase were caused almost exclusively by reductions in the time it took to clean the table once the server was there. A reversal to near-baseline busing times was observed in a follow-up phase. Prebusing and cross-busing were not associated with shorter busing times.

KEYWORDS:

• Task clarification
• feedback
• goal setting