Your Recruiting Process Reflects Your Company’s Image
by Bob Gershberg, CEO/Managing Partner Wray Executive Search
We in the hospitality industry are driven to delight our guests. We roll out the red carpet for the chap buying his morning cup of coffee. We do somersaults to serve up a San Pellegrino, no ice with lemon to the classy lady at the bar. And heaven knows we will bring service to unparalleled levels when the jovial four top orders that second bottle of Caymus. How is it then, we so often treat the six-figure executive who has shown great interest in joining our team so poorly?
Facilitating the recruiting process from phone screen to job offer is cumbersome at best. Accommodating the busy schedules of both candidate and hiring authority can test any admin’s mettle. Add the burden of travel arrangements, flight delays and day to day snafus along with the gathering of feedback from the various parties involved, it is no wonder the process can become overwhelming. But wait….we are restaurant and hospitality folks. We thrive on an industry with lots of moving parts. We are best when challenged with a bit too much on our plates. The truth is we need to focus on treating the professionals interviewing with our companies as we do our guests, particularly during these tight talent pool times.
Restaurant Imperatives: People, Product, Pricing, and Planning
by John A. Gordon, Principal and Founder, Pacific Management Consulting Group
So we are back from Restaurant Finance Conference last week where we were delighted to catch up with 2000 or so of our extended family. The same will happen in 60 days at ICR Exchange Conference in Orlando where the public traded CEOs and pre-IPO hopeful companies attend. I’ve attended both conferences for 16 years straight. In every year, there was a set of themes and critical challenges that emerged.
In my view, this year, and forthcoming years, the industry will be challenged by the bitter backbite of the Pandemic, in four key areas: PEOPLE, PRODUCT, PRICING, and PLANNING. Simply, we don’t have enough employees; we will have to struggle with supply chain problems to get product at the backdoor costs we need; the need to cover dual food and labor cost impacts make pricing a prime concern; and lastly, effective short-run and long-run corporate planning are essential for all kinds of brands. Planning will be a challenge because business and social conditions are incredibly confusing right now.
Check out a recent Nation's Restaurant News article on the shifting balance between customer relations and restaurant employees in wake of the COVID pandemic
"Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."
Peter Drucker
Check out the October 2021 Restaurant Industry Summary from Compass Restaurant Research & Consulting
by Rebecca Patt, SVP Development at Wray Executive Search
You have a special employee culture at &pizza and refer to the employees as Family (F&m). What sets the organizational culture apart?
One of the things that's most unique about &pizza is how committed the organization has been since the beginning to democratizing decision making. When Michael Lastoria founded the company, he was really determined to change the experience for the hourly workforce in the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry employs 10% of America's workforce, so it's a big opportunity in restaurants, retail, and everything else to be able to change that work experience and raise it up.
If you go back in time several decades, manufacturing was such a large employer of America's workforce, and that changed as those jobs went away. The service industry started; it came along and took more of those lower wage jobs. And unfortunately, the work paradigm for many people in restaurants today is unsustainable for them. I think we're seeing that right now with just how people are responding to the current economic environment. And so, for us, the one of the foundational elements of what makes the culture special is that approach to pushing decisions down as deep into your organization as close to the people who are most impacted by them as we can.
Yum! Brands Reports Third-Quarter Results; Record 760 Net-New Units and Same-Store Sales Growth of 5%, Driving System Sales Growth of 8%; Sustained Digital System Sales of Over $5 Billion
