Retention: Grabbing the Brass Ring
Buffets Inc. switches back to its original recognition program at its employees’ request.
By Margaret Littman, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 5/1/2007
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About three years ago Buffets Inc., parent of Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet and Country Buffet, decided to follow conventional wisdom. For years employees won swag with restaurant logos, ranging from jackets to rings, when they met tenure benchmarks and completed skill-based training certification programs. The company didn’t want to change the rewards in its recognition program, but the industry was moving away from items with company logos to catalogs in which employees could pick their own rewards.
“We made the switch, and people did not want the catalog,” remembers Executive Vice President of Human Resources Jane L. Binzak. “They wanted this thing that they could share with their peers. They told us that they liked it that you saw someone with the watch, then you knew they had been there 10 years.”
Return to Tradition
Rewards alone are not enough to achieve an hourly turnover rate of 113 percent, which is below the segment average of 132 percent, according to People Report, a Dallas-based benchmarking firm. But Buffets’ decision to switch back to its classic rewards after the catalog fell flat does illustrate how the firm listens to its work force. And that does affect turnover.
Chester Elton, author of A Carrot a Day: A Daily Dose of Recognition for Your Employees (Free Press, 2007), praises Buffets’ quick turnaround when it learned that something that was hot in the industry was not with its employees. “The thing about rewards programs is that you can build up this tradition. You have to be careful not to mess with the Super Bowl ring,” he says.
Early and Often
In addition to offering the right rewards, Buffets offers them early and often. Employees do not have to wait until they have been with the company three, five or 10 years before they earn recognition, a strategy Elton says is taking hold industrywide. Buffets issues pins when workers achieve various levels of training and certification. Workers can start earning these pins just a few months after they are hired. Crew managers can earn pins for training others.
“Some of our employees look like generals with all these pins,” says Mario O. Lee, executive vice president of operations. “They take pride in them, and regular guests notice them.”
Visors and other uniforms are also used to recognize and distinguish employees who have passed certification tests and become crew managers, an element Binzak says motivates the company’s 16,500 hourly employees “People strive to get in that inner circle.”
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