Raising Cane’s Restaurants LLC has unveiled a refreshed program that adds layers of wellness and development support to its managing partner platform.
The Baton Rouge, La.-based chicken fingers quick-service concept, introduced the new Restaurant Partner program after reaching $1.5 billion in annual systemwide sales and nearly 500 units.
“I think this is the right time for a compensation program that’s really going to attract and retain the best of the best in the industry to continue to fuel this growth that we’ve had,” said Todd Graves, below, founder, owner and co-CEO, in an interview Monday. “I think it will inspire a lot of our team members … to stay with us and become a Restaurant Partner with us.”
AJ Kumaran, Raising Cane’s co-CEO and chief operating officer, added, “The biggest thing I’ve heard in this industry is you can work really, really hard and then go someplace else and make some money or have a better quality of life. We believe we can have both.”
Raising Cane’s new program covers four key areas for employees in the Restaurant Partner program:
- Education, development and training;
- Support from experts in marketing, training, facilities, recruitment and other areas of operations.
- Wellness, including health and financial planning support; and,
- Compensation, including base salary and bonus to exceed $100,000 annually, and business-building incentives with the ability to accumulate a net worth of more than $1 million within 12 to 15 years.
Kumaran said the platform builds on the original Managing Partner Program that Graves launched in 2009. “I wanted a partner at every one of our restaurants or trade areas,” Graves said. “We came up with a long-term incentive program. … We’ve had great success over the past 10 years.”
Kumaran said the evolution to the Restaurant Partner program includes the foundation of a management training and support system for those in the Partner program.
The company business units support team, which offers expertise in marketing, finance and operations at the local levels, has grown from about 20 people to 175 to accommodate a structure for the Restaurant Partners, Kumaran said.
“We wanted them to have a great lifestyle, a balanced personal well-being,” Kumaran said, which includes paid time off for the restaurant leaders and a balanced schedule with many holidays and two full weekends off a month and, in other weeks, two consecutive weekdays off.
Health also is part of the platform, Kumaran said, with a concierge service for medical benefits.
“If you are a restaurant leader and want to get an opinion about a specialist or make an appointment, you simply pick up the phone, call and they set it up for you,” Kumaran said. “That gave us a foundation for personal well-being.”
Another component includes guaranteed base salary and bonus of at least $100,000 a year as well as incentives for driving sales and profits, Kumaran said. In addition, the company has put in place a profit-sharing program for Restaurant Partners. Each Restaurant Partner also gets access to a personal financial adviser to build net worth, he added.
Candidates are qualified into the program based on performance, Kumaran said. “Generally speaking,” he explained, “a manager who joins us from an external business – as an example – gets to be a Restaurant Partner within two years. They go to one year of management training and then they can become a Restaurant Partner candidate. Through that year of candidacy, they get additional professional development and leadership development. Then they could be a Partner in the third year.”
The company has 78 partners coming out of the legacy program, Kumaran said, and 45 new candidates will likely join the program this year. He said he expects about 130 in the Restaurant Partner program this year.
“That’s about a third of our leaders,” Kumaran said. “Todd’s ultimate goal is to see every one of our restaurants with a Restaurant Partner. … Our goal is to get to the 50% mark over the next several years.”
Graves said partner restaurants perform significantly better than those without. “The goal is to get to 50% to 75% as quickly as we can,” he added.
Graves founded Raising Cane’s, named for his dog, in 1996 in Baton Rouge.
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