The Ten-Minute Manager's Guide to...Nontraditional Hiring
By Virginia Gerst, Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 9/15/2005
The foodservice industry will employ 12.2 million workers in 2005, according to the National Restaurant Association, a number that is expected to climb to 14 million by 2015. Employers already feel the pinch.
“Restaurateurs tell us their top challenge is recruiting and training employees,” says Hudson Riehle, NRA’s senior vice president, research and information services. “A year ago, it was food costs.”
Faced with jobs to fill, managers turn to nontraditional sources. “Operators should interview everybody who walks through the door,” says foodservice consultant Rudy Miick, founder and president of Miick & Associates, Boulder, Colo. “Just because someone has gray hair or is disabled doesn’t mean that person should not get the job.”
Senior Moments
Older workers score high with employers.
“They bring a wealth of experience, motivation and leadership skills to their jobs,” says Bill Whitman, a spokesman for McDonald’s USA, based in Oak Brook, Ill.
More than two decades ago, McDonalds launched its pioneering McSeniors initiative to recruit graying workers. Today, other chains, including Wilbraham, Mass.-based Friendly’s and Prairie du Sac, Wis.-based Culver’s Frozen Custard & Butterburgers (r.), look to seniors to fill employment rolls.
These initiatives will become increasingly important as the population ages. The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2012 nearly one in five American workers will be 55 or older.
“People live longer and take better care of themselves today,” says Alana McIalwain, employment specialist for the Seattle Mayor’s Office for Senior Citizens and administrator of its Age 55+ program.
Many of the Age 55+ clients have been managers in the past but want less responsibility. They want to work part time to fill leisure hours, or full time to earn benefits, especially in the years from 55 to 65, when they become eligible for Medicare.
“Our older clients are fantastic, not only in their skill levels but in their attitudes toward their jobs,” she says. “Employers are missing the boat if they don’t hire older workers.”
Chuck Housen, manager of Shorty’s BBQ in Miami, is on board. His 55-member staff includes five who are over 60 and 15 more who he says “are approaching that.”
“We hire anybody who has the right attitude and can do the job,” Housen says. “We look at the individual.”
Lighting the Way
Regulars at the Salad Bowl Restaurant in St. Louis are not surprised to see Norbert Sewing using sign language to communicate with an employee.
Sewing, co-owner and co-manager of the family-owned restaurant, learned the basics of signing more than three decades ago when he hired a deaf baker. “We put lights on the oven so he could tell when the pies were done,” says Sewing. “He stayed 25 years.”
The experience convinced Sewing to reach out to others with physical disabilities. Today, 10% of the restaurant’s 100-person staff has some sort of handicap, from partial blindness to missing limbs. “It’s not hard to think of ways to accommodate them,” says Sewing, who works with three local agencies to identify prospective employees. “It’s often just a matter of nourishing a person and giving them time.
“Sometimes the most brilliant people you hire get bored, get another job and move on,” he adds. “But these people are loyal. They cherish their jobs.”
The Mommy Track
Single mothers tend to business at Nick’s Pizza & Pub in Crystal Lake and Elgin, Ill. More than 10% of the restaurants’ 220 employees have children of elementary school age or younger.
“The key is flexible work schedules,” says Chris Adams, director of operations, who hires moms as servers, bartenders, hosts and kitchen helpers. “If you write a schedule that supports somebody’s life, they will stay with you forever.”
As a result, Nick’s Pizza has a 20% annual employee turnover rate—“very low for the industry,” she notes. Absenteeism is not a problem.
“People call in sick when they don’t like their jobs,” says Adams. “When we build a good relationship with staffers, they do what they can to get their jobs covered. And we realize that when her kid is sick, we’re not a mom’s top priority. It’s amazing how people put their hearts into their work if you just give them a break.”
Mothers are a top priority at Saddleback Valley Unified School District in Mission Viejo, Calif. Moms work at every one of 37 Sodexho-run schools, according to General Manager Ralph Peschek. They learn about job openings in notices printed on menus sent home with children and on the district’s Web site. Those hired work schedules that coordinate with their children’s school day.
“They help prepare food, serve it and work as cashiers and clean up,” says Peschek. “Moms are great employees. They have a vested interest in the success of the program.”
Second Chances
There is no law against hiring ex-felons. In fact, many foodservice operators find that it makes good business.
The federal government gives tax credits and free bonding to employers of ex-offenders. Five states—Florida, Missouri, Indiana, Delaware and Pennsylvania—provide supplemental tax credits.
“The foodservice industry is our largest category of employer,” says Tani Mills, chief program officer for the Center for Employment Opportunities, a New York City-based nonprofit that trains ex-offenders to reenter the job market. Two thousand former inmates participated in the center’s training program in 2004, and the agency found employment for 65% of them, according to Mills. Twenty-four percent of those hired landed restaurant jobs.
“We place people as dishwashers, prep cooks, hostesses and line cooks,” says Mills. “It runs the gamut.”
One-half of those hired remain on the job for at least six months, and incidents of theft are rare, she notes. In the past 14 years, the agency has effected only six bonds.
Mills works with medium-sized restaurants and franchise holders, building relationships with individual mangers. She finds those who hire ex-felons once generally are willing to do so again.
They are not, however, willing to talk about it.
“There is a stigma about hiring ex-offenders,” Mills explains. “It’s something restaurants don’t want guests to know.”
Strong Loyalties
Some 1,000 people with mental disabilities report for duty in U.S. Marine Corps mess halls across the country. Sodexho USA, operator of the 55 facilities, works with community agencies to identify potential employees and assigns those hired to front-of-the-house jobs, from cleaning tables to serving. After completing routine training, the disabled work side-by-side with other Sodexho employees.
“It has been seamless to the client; there’s no drop in service,” says Ryan Esposito, senior director of human resources for Sodexho’s Government Services Division. “And people in the program have a lower turnover rate than other employees.”
Nancy Christy can attest to the loyalty of mentally challenged employees. During the 17 years she ran Wilson Street Grill in Madison, Wis., she hired people with what she describes as serious disabilities. “We virtually never had to put a help-wanted ad in the paper, because once you hire them, they don’t leave.
“Restaurants are usually a revolving door,” says Christy, whose 100-member staff included about 30 disabled employees. “You spend a tremendous amount of time hiring and training. I put my time in upfront teaching people.”
CiCi’s also mentors the mentally disabled. In several locations, franchisees of the Coppell, Texas-based pizza chain welcome students ages 16 to 21 with developmental or learning disabilities to a semester-long after-school work program. The young people’s duties range from folding pizza boxes and stretching dough balls to bussing tables and assisting guests.
“They benefit CiCi’s,” says Marketing Manager Cody Pierce. “They are very hard workers, and they are very personable with our guests. They learn life skills they can list on résumés to get other jobs. And some go on to full-time employment at CiCi’s.”
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