A Georgia restaurant made headlines when the owners made the decision to close its doors for a week to take its employees on a cruise to Mexico.
The staff at the family-owned Pier 16 restaurant in Tybee Island work hard seven days a week, and co-owner Natalia Navon wanted to make sure that doesn’t go unnoticed.
Every year, she and her co-owner husband try to take them on a lavish trip.
“Right now, if I’m going on a vacation I would feel like my employees would want to take a vacation too,” Navon told Fox 29.
Matthew Rodriguez only recently started working at the restaurant, so the cruise was his first trip with the team.
“When I first started, it was only a story I heard and next thing you know, I was in Mexico with these guys. It was amazing,” he said.
An Instagram post from the restaurant showed a group of 20 employees enjoying their time aboard the cruise ship.
Employee Joseph Runfola has attended three vacations with the company.
“The first trip I went to Vegas with them. I had never been out of the South… The second year we went to the Bahamas. This year we went to Mexico. It was amazing,” Runfola told the outlet. “This trip we got to learn a lot about each other … It’s one house … We are a big old family.”
According to Navon, her employees being able to connect with each other in that familial way is the goal of the trips.
Many leadership training experts agree that promoting incentives like this provides benefits for both business owners and subordinates.
“Persons respond to bosses or managers or supervisors whom they have a good relationship with, where they have good rapport. Like asking people, ‘How are your kids? Is everything going well?’” said Dr. Sallyann Gray, the CEO of Gray Focus Training Solutions.
“These things help to boost staff morale, increase company positive culture and it also leads to greater staff retention long term.”
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