Owner of Sails Restaurant in Sydney’s Lavender Bay has turned to Barter Trade Dollars as a new way to incentivise and keep his staff in the aftermath of the global economic slowdown.
Sails Restaurant Owner Greg Anderson bought the Restaurant in 2008 before the explosion of the GFC and says it’s been tricky balancing the cash outlay involved with incentivising staff.
“Motivating and rewarding my staff is a top priority for me. I always try to show them my appreciation in some way or another but over the last two years cash has been hard to come by,” Mr Anderson said.
Seven months ago Mr Anderson heard about the cash savings associated with Bartercard, he became a member and hasn’t looked back since.
“I heard on the grapevine that Bartercard brings in bums on seats. In other words Bartercard utilises my excess capacity. And I realised that by converting the downtime in my restaurant to Bartercard Trade Dollars I could buy almost anything I could want through the network - it was the perfect way for me to afford to buy my staff gifts and incentives,” he said.
“I wanted to give my Restaurant Manager and Head Chef a boost so I bought them each hospitality tickets to go to the upcoming NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium.
“All up, it’s cost me about T$7,000 Trade Dollars but I’m not spending cash so it has allowed me to be more generous. My staff are happier, which makes them want to stay with me longer,” he said.
Mr Anderson also bought a restaurant voucher for his Bookkeeper and a hotel voucher for his Head Waiter.
According to Mr Anderson the use of Bartercard has increased his total available cash by up to 20% each month over the last seven months.
Director of Sydney-based human resources consulting company Human Resources Focus Belinda McLean is also a Bartercard member and believes that like cash Trade Dollars are a good option to motivate staff.
Chatswood based Bartercard Sydney North Franchise Principal Linda Squires believes that Sails Restaurant has been clever in using Trade Dollars to boost their staff morale.
“As Greg gets used to the system, he’ll soon realise the more he uses his Bartercard to reward his staff, the more cash he’ll save - because he’s just using his idle capacity,” Ms Squires said.
