Franchisee to Franchisee Forum

To be honest, my locations have been blessed. While we had periods of time that our staffing was tight and I was very concerned about having to reduce hours, we took a very proactive approach, got extremely aggressive with how we were going to solve the problem and are 100% staffed. Our business is growing by leaps and bounds. We had zero turnover in January, and as of now, lost two hourly team members in February that we quickly replaced.

– Mark Malenchik

The Great Resignation has brought turnover at every level of our organization from team members to directors of operations. We have combated these issues through new hiring methods focused on the employee scheduling their own interviews as well as pushing more employee-focused initiatives. One area we have continued to push is a contest platform each month where employees can be eligible for an extra $1/hour in pay if they are at the winning restaurant. This gives us the flexibility to push initiatives we want to focus on outside of BKC. We have also been focused on reducing equipment issues at all costs by either replacing equipment or updating different parts of our restaurants. If employees deal with issues that are out of their control, such as a fryer or a broiler, it adds an additional level of stress that can be avoided. Lastly, we continue to look at simplifying even the most minor steps throughout the day to make life easier on our teams as well as making it easier to maintain organization at restaurants.

- C.J. Timoney

Like many franchisees and business owners in other industries we have been greatly impacted by the Great Resignation. We are employing many tactics to navigate this blow to our operations. One of the largest factors to this resignation is the policies put in place by our federal and local governments, and it underscored to me how critical it is that we voice our concerns and have an open dialogue with our representatives. We are all competing for the same workforce, but it seems the largest competitor is now our own government.

- Josh Lephart

COVID-19 in general is the impact on employment for all industries, not just ours, so I would not necessarily identify the concern as “the Great Resignation.” People have left the workforce while others changed fields of employment and many who were working two jobs pre-COVID-19 are no longer doing so.

I would focus however on your second question, “What have we been doing to combat it?” The first step was stressing to the managers and leaders of the restaurant to maintain a sense of “normalcy.” Our industry has had challenges around staffing for years, so we are already adept in maintaining our operations even with some increased people challenges. That helped the managers maintain their confidence and general approach to the business while still needing to address the shortcomings of the employment pool.

I believe this helped them think a little more outside the box in terms of the big picture. As a result, we shifted some daily duties to different time frames to ensure they still are completed. An example is that the cleaning of toasters was moved from a closing procedure to a mid-day process that involved the mid manager and the daytime working team. This reduced an item that the closing team had to complete each night and took away some stress. Filtering fryers is another similar example.

Some restaurants added a daytime porter, again shifting some of the closing team responsibility to a dedicated person in the morning.

Other restaurants hired a dishwasher. This might be a limited skill individual that simply works a few hours a day cleaning dishes only. This helped the limited staff focus on sandwich-making and service standards directly with the guest.

We also became creative in advertising our employment opportunities. An example is putting advertising about hiring needs on the trash enclosure gates in some restaurants. The signs are viewed by all cars approaching or in the drive-thru line. This helped maximize the viewing opportunity.

Another area was targeted advertising to recruit 14- and 15-year-old employees. This age group was limited in outside activities during the pandemic yet wanted to get out of the house. While limited in their skills and hours they could work, they filled a need, especially on the weekends, helping stretch the productivity of other skilled employees.

We simply did what we have always done: Keep studying the problem and determine how to mitigate it in ways we may not have thought of during general living times. Keep it normal! Life goes on!

- Keith Egyed