Interface: Jerry Newman

A professor finds committed workers but uneven management behind QSR counters.

By Scott Hume, Executive Managing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2007

Jerry Newman is a distinguished teaching professor and chair of the department of organization and human resources at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. He is the co-author with George Milkovich of "Compensation" (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004). His most recent book—"My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter Guaranteed to Supersize Any Management Style" (McGraw Hill, 2007)—gathers insights gained from working as a crew member at seven quick-service restaurants during and after a 2004 teaching sabbatical.

Q. What intrigued you about working in quick-service restaurants?

A. No. 1, I put myself through college as millions of kids did, working in foodservice. I worked at a place called Crazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger, which is a local legend in Ann Arbor, Mich. Then in 1997, I was at a restaurant with my daughter and there was something that looked like a condom in her sandwich. It turned out it was the tip of a sanitary glove, but I wondered, "How could that happen?"

Also, I volunteer at a concession stand for a fast-pitch softball league for girls and as we get more menu items, it gets harder to keep up, and I wondered, "How do people do this day after day after day?" So when I got a sabbatical, I decided to find out.

Q. Where did you work first?

A. The first was Arby’s. I’d originally intended to work just in hamburger places, but for the first month no one would hire me. I’d go to a store that had vacancies and fill out an application. I didn’t lie on the applications: I said I was a university professor on leave pending retirement. But I changed that to "college teacher" and I left off my salary because I was probably making more than most store managers by a reasonable margin. I’m sure they were wondering why this guy would want to work here. Not everyone was interested in having me, but when I got an interview I did OK.

Q. What struck you about that first foray into the quick-service world?

A. Every one of my jobs had a lesson I learned. At Arby’s, the manager who hired me said, "Jerry, the reason I’m hiring you is because I want to change the culture of this place. The people who work here are too sarcastic and their language is just totally inappropriate." He figured a college teacher wouldn’t use swear words as adjectives, nouns and verbs.

Well, I was in the store about a day and a half and I was on the front counter. It was my first lunch rush and I was nervous—lunch rush is a terror you never want to face. One of the sandwiches Arby’s sells is a Chicken Filet sandwich and instead I said over the microphone, "One Chicken Filly sandwich." All of a sudden, from all corners, all the other employees are saying, "Chicken Filly? Is that a horse or a sandwich?" And I thought, boy, he’s right about the sarcasm.

But about an hour and a half later I’m at the front counter and a kid makes a mistake on a coupon order, which is easy to do, and he had to call the manager over. And this manager just lays into him. "This isn’t so hard to do" and "What a stupid mistake." I realized the mood and the culture in a store are determined primarily by the store manager. This guy’s ruling by sarcasm and of course everyone else picks it up. That’s the role model there. He’s trying to change something that he started.

Q. Did you also find that true at restaurants with good managers?

A. A qualified yes. I talk in the book about four different manager types. The Arby’s guy is the Toxic Manager. The Mechanical Manager views fast food as slow death: He didn’t think he’d be here in his career, doesn’t want to be here, and is just putting in time until something else comes up.

The third kind, and this is where your question applies, is the Relationship Manager. I had one at a Krystal who bent over backward to make it a good environment. At least once a week, he worked a 24-hour shift because that’s the only way he could get all the shifts covered and make everyone happy. The problem with the Relationship Manager is that he didn’t focus enough on the bottom line. So he had good workers who would do anything for him, but headquarters wanted him to improve drive-thru times while he thought it was more important to have good relationships. I went back a few months later and he wasn’t there anymore.

Q. Who was the fourth type you encountered?

A. That’s what I call the Performance Manager, who builds strong relationships with crew but does it for a specific purpose: good drive-thru times, higher net profit, low absenteeism or whatever. The best one was a Burger King manager who bragged that she had only 111% annual turnover, opposed to another BK where I worked that had 500% turnover.

Q. Were you surprised to find that crew turnover is so high?

A. I saw people who were hired and who left by lunchtime; they just didn’t like the job. I knew the industry turnover average was 150% to 250% depending on who you talk to, but what I didn’t realize is how much it’s not a function of wages. When someone comes in and fills out an application, they’re saying, "I can work for this wage if this is a reasonable job." But if you’ve never worked in fast food, where do you get your image of what it’s like? You see smiling people in commercials and you don’t see what really goes on behind the counter.

Q. Did you receive adequate training on the jobs?

A. Well, when you start a job you always get a DVD to watch and inevitably it’s a stunning woman whose hair is perfectly coiffed, who doesn’t have a bead of sweat on her face and who is making a burger in a time so long that if anybody really did that in a store, they’d be fired in 30 seconds.

The best managers dealt in reality not fiction. They said, "Here’s what you’re going to like about the job, here’s what you won’t like. Wait until your first lunch rush; that’s going to be tough, it’s tough on everybody, we’ll work to get you through it." I can’t tell you how many times I had crew members say, "This job’s easy; you’ll get it right away." That’s a mistake, because if you don’t get it right away you feel like an idiot, and if you do, well you were supposed to. The simple fact is, it’s a hard job.

Q. What was the biggest mistake you saw managers make?

A. The biggest is that managers have such high turnover that they think, "I can’t spend the time needed to get new people because they’re only going to be here a short time." That’s a self-defeating perspective. Of my seven interviews, four were 5 minutes or less. With the two best managers, one took 45 minutes and the other was an hour and five minutes.

Q. Did you work with crew members who you thought had management potential?

A. I hope I haven’t conveyed that this was a lousy job or a lousy environment. I was shocked at how bright most of these people were and how much they wanted to work. As you find anywhere, there were some who just want to put in their time.

But I also found a lot of bright people who wanted to do the job right. Some intend to make it a career and for some it becomes a career because they’re more interested in the job than they thought they would be. There also are "way-station workers" for whom fast food is a good way station because it’s a way to launch a career.

Q. Were food safety and sanitation important where you worked?

A. That’s the question I get most frequently from people and, frankly, I was stunned by how much attention is paid to the safety and sanitation aspects. The training DVDs always include a section on washing your hands. There was material on how you pass bacteria. At Wendy’s a bell would go off every 30 minutes and someone was designated to say, "Wash, sanitize and stir!" Wash and sanitize your counters, and stir your chili.

Yes, the front of the restaurants can get dirty during lunch rush, but as soon as they have time to catch up, the crew’s out there with their mops and sanitizers.

Q. Will a higher minimum wage improve the culture or quality of the QSR workforce?

A. No, absolutely not. The problem with raising the minimum wage is that it rises across all industries so QSRs are in the same competitive position as before. The real question is whether you can find ways to use labor dollars more effectively. For example, McDonald’s has made a big commitment to benefits packages, increasing healthcare and pension plans. My guess is that instead of hiring kids—which has built-in turnover that leads to customer dissatisfaction, etc.—they’re going to be moving up the demographics and hiring more older folks.

Q. How good at customer relations were restaurants where you worked?

A. One opportunity for fast food is to move away from the rote model of "May I help you?" or "May I take your order?" It’s the same five words every time, and you get awfully bored doing that.

Learn customers’ names. You get people who come every day, and if you ask, "Would you like your usual, Mr. Johnson?" That goes a long way.