Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2017 | Page 54

BY SARA WYKES
FindersKeepers
A
BECOME THE
EMPLOYER OF CHOICE
IN YOUR MARKETS
fter 25 years in the restaurant
business, Mike Richey knows
that an offer of a dollar more
per hour from a competitor
can be too much for an employee to re-
fuse. Richey, who operates five Golden
Corrals, wishes his employees well when
they leave. But that’s not the end of the
story. A couple of weeks later he calls them
to ask if they’d like to return to their old
job—a practice that has paid off for him
over the years.
“People are flattered that we care
enough to call,” says Richey, who once
worked at Golden Corral corporate as a
mid-level director. “We start by asking if
they’d like to come back for at least one
day a week, on whatever time off they
have from their new job.”
After about two weeks, Richey says,
the honeymoon with the new job is over.
Also, it takes about four weeks before an
employee is officially terminated in his
company’s records system. Employees who
return before that window closes retain
their accumulated paid vacation time. For
employees with five years’ tenure or more,
that amounts to three weeks.
“We don’t call everybody back,” says
Richey. “We focus on the best and rely on
our unit managers to make that call, but
one in three people we call do come back.”
Richey’s come-on-back call is an effec-
tive response to one piece of the classic
triad of key operational challenges multi-
unit franchisee organizations confront:
recruiting, training, and retaining the
best people. Conquering this challenge
requires thinking beyond the traditional,
whether through “day in the life” job
videos that appeal to Millennials, or
52
MULTI-UNIT FRANCHISEE I SS UE II , 2 01 7
private Facebook groups for employees
to exchange problem-solving tips and
advice. We looked around for other in-
novative approaches to solving the em-
ployment “big three” and found several
ideas worth sharing.
Finding the best
Social media platforms have become the
go-to first step for recruiting hourly work-
ers. Sites such as LinkedIn can be useful
for higher-level jobs, but Brent Veach,
whose 40 Del Taco restaurants make him
the brand’s largest single franchisee, turns
Brent Veach
to other online recruitment websites to
find hourly employees. These include
PeopleMatter, Snagajob, and Indeed—
and he updates his ads regularly.
He also offers his employees bonuses
for successful referrals. And in this per-
haps overly digital age, he adds another
old-school technique: he posts notices for
available positions in the windows and
on the counters of his restaurants. These
eye-catching notices, seen by thousands
of people who visit his restaurants, tap
into a pool of potential employees already
familiar with the brand.
Familiarity is also at the core of an-
other effective employee recruitment
tool. Brandon Hill was just out of high
school when he began working at Pinch
A Penny Pool Patio and Spa stores, which
today has more than 230 locations. He
stayed with the franchise, rose through
the ranks, and became part owner of mul-
tiple Pinch A Penny locations in Florida.
Today Hill and his wife, Mackenzie Hill,
own two locations in Louisiana, where
he is duplicating his own path to success
for his employees by considering them as
high-priority candidates for advancement.
“Promotion from within has been our
most effective tool,” says Hill. “We’ve had
great success in moving our hourly part-
ners to certification as trainers, then to
hourly shift leaders, and, finally, to man-
agement.” He says half the open positions
he posts are filled by current employees,
a fact potential new hires find attractive.
Seeing the opportunities for promotion
from within, he says, “inspires our people
to strive for that next position—and that’s
great for the quality of our operations, as
well as morale.”