People Report and Black Box Intelligence honored four restaurant companies Thursday for creating successful and exemplary workplaces.
Logan’s Roadhouse, The Cheesecake Factory, McDonald’s and Eat’n Park were all honored at the 16th annual Best Practices Conference, hosted by People Report and Black Box Intelligence.
This year’s conference was held in Dallas.
Nation’s Restaurant News asked each of the four Best Practices award winners from the four restaurant segments what made their human resources programs especially effective in the past year:
Casual dining
Christy Cox, senior director of human resources, Logan’s Roadhouse
“What drives our great results are what we refer to as the ‘Three Cs’ — culture, compensation and consistency.” She added that consistency extended to the tenure of the leadership team, the regional managers, and communications throughout the organization.
VIDEO: Hear more from Cox about the company culture at Logan's Roadhouse
Fast casual/Family dining
Karen Bolden, senior vice president and chief people officer, Eat’n Park Hospitality Group Inc.
“We have a certified shift-manager program, which we developed to certify our hourly supervisors. They are critical to management success because they cover a lot of the shifts and provide a lot of the support. We have strengthened that program, which has really helped our management. We’ve reduced [management] turnover. When you can reduce management stress with a fully staffed team, it helps. They train in a classroom and then they have a program they go through at the restaurant. Then they take an exam and get certified. We have a little celebration for them as well.”
Quick service
Peter Mazza, senior director of strategy and measurement for U.S. human resources, McDonald’s USA LLC
“For us, the best thing has been alignment — getting everyone behind the same set of actions in the restaurants. We work real hard on communications and working with the operators and talking to our managers.”
Upscale casual
Dina Barmasse-Gray, senior vice president of human resources, The Cheesecake Factory Inc.
“While you do exit interviews when someone leaves, we do ‘stay interviews.’ You have people you want to have stay, so you talk with them about how happy they are, how satisfied they are at work, and what would it take for somebody to take them away from us. And what is the one thing we could do to improve their work experience. When we looked at the retention statistics of those who had a ‘stay interview’ and those people who didn’t, [there was a dramatic difference between the two]. It’s a simple act, but it’s impactful.”
The other eight finalists for the Best Practices award were BJ’s Restaurants Inc.; California Pizza Kitchen; The Capital Grille; Corner Bakery Café; La Madeleine; Monical’s Pizza; Red Lobster and White Castle.
People Report of Dallas provides its members with service-sector workforce metrics for more than 30,000 restaurant locations and a million employees each month. Its sister company, Black Box Intelligence, provides financial and market data for the restaurant industry, covering more than12,000 units.
Finalists for the Best Practices awards this year also answered questionnaires regarding their community involvement, corporate responsibility, employee funds and foundations, and initiatives in sustainable business practices.
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