Training: Standard Practice at The Palm

The Palm keeps training on the front burner.

By David Farkas, Senior Editor -- Chain Leader, 4/1/2006

The Palm credits its intensive, ongoing training program in part for its low hourly turnover rate of 35 percent.

The Palm quizzes bartenders and other hourly employees monthly on food and beverage programs to ensure consistent operations at the luxury steakhouse.

It’s not unusual for restaurant chains to replace all of their hourly workers once, twice or even three times a year. Attrition goes with the territory, many think, what with the low wages, monotony of the work and scant benefits.

Some chains, however, defy that stereotype, managing to lose many fewer employees. Meet The Palm, a collection of 30 high-end steakhouses. Hourly turnover rate: 35 percent. While the company offers competitive wages and benefits, The Palm also credits its intensive, ongoing training program for high retention.

Director of Training Debra Fox, who has worked for the Washington, D.C.-based chain for 13 years, eight of them as an hourly employee, for example, spends a month at new sites, overseeing orientation and arranging a two-week hourly training agenda covering everything from benefits to bartending. Benefits are the first item on the agenda.

“Jim Longo, our CFO, shows up in a waiter’s uniform with a pocket protector stuffed with pens,” Fox chuckles. “He goes through all the benefits and walks people through the paperwork. That makes a big impression on them.”

Cross-Examination
But a more important impression is made over six days of intense hourly training. After a first day that includes watching “Heart of the House,” a video that introduces them to the Palm Management Group, new hires begin day two with a rundown of the POS system and meet with the new manager. Then they are quizzed on what they have learned.

Fox, born into a restaurant family, believes strongly in testing, particularly on food. “It’s natural to forget things like the ingredients in a dish,” she explains. “But because of allergies and the like, it’s important to remember them.”

Fox e-mails a 10-question test once a month to training managers (typically, an assistant general manager) in each unit, who administer the quizzes at pre-shift meetings as part of the ongoing training for front- and back-of-the house hourly employees. In March, training managers quizzed their staffs about a new coffee program. The Palm, which pours Starbucks, recently switched from House Blend to Verona. Fox wanted to make sure servers could explain the differences in taste and, importantly, discuss it in terms of desserts.

Quizzes are nonthreatening and cover topics that hourly trainees have been over many times. Says Fox: “I’m always trying to refresh their memories.”

Personal Attention
Training at store openings last all day.

In San Diego last December, for instance, day four began at 8 a.m. with a two-hour demonstration on point-of-sales techniques, followed a few hours later by a lecture on lobster. Fox, who says people eventually tire of listening to her, invites vendor representatives to the restaurants to explain their products. In the case of lobster, a biologist from the chain’s Nova Scotia-based supplier talked for two hours about the crustacean.

SNAPSHOT

Concept

The Palm

Headquarters

Washington, D.C.

Units

2006 Systemwide Sales

$159 million (company estimate)

Average Unit Volume

$5 million

Average Check

$62.50

Employees

2,000

Expansion Plans

1 or 2 in 2007

Two days later, the chain’s beef vendor gave an hour-long slide show that illustrated beef processing. “We edited out the part about the slaughterhouse,” Fox recalls, laughing.

Meanwhile, certified trainers drill the new service staff on side work, stations and position numbers. They review napkin folding, service points and glassware. After watching several wine videos that reveal how to serve the beverage, new hourlies attend wine seminars that include tastings. They are quizzed on wine on day five, and on day six servers and bartenders attend a four-hour ServSafe training class.

All the while, Fox weaves into training sessions what she describes as “personalized service in a relaxed atmosphere.” The concept is introduced in the “Heart of the House,” a self-produced video that hourlies watch on the first day of training. “We want [servers] to get to know the guests by name,” she says.

After that, the hourly employees begin preparing for two trial runs with guests who are paying half price. Then comes the grand opening and a visit by The Palm’s owners Bruce Bozzi and Walter Ganzi, grandsons of the founding partners. “They come to all the grand opening parties and make a point of pulling the entire staff together to thank them for their hard work and wish them a long tenure,” says Palm President and COO Fred Thimm, who also makes an appearance at the event. The company, begun by Italian immigrants Pio Bozzi and John Ganzi, has been in business since 1926.

Terri Safferas, a veteran server who The Palm hired at its Atlantic City restaurant opened early last year, recalls her initial training as intense but enjoyable. “It was a week of getting to know all the food. What made it fun was that Debbie [Fox] organized games around learning, like ‘Jeopardy,’” she says.

Moving to the Next Level
Fox is trying to do more with less these days. The training budget, $200,000 in ’06, has been trimmed in recent years. Fox, for example, is a one-woman department who reports to human resources. “She carries the flag for training,” declares Thimm, admitting “these are challenging times” for the luxury-steakhouse category.

To attract more business, some Palms are adding private dining rooms. That, in turn, has required Fox to train experienced hourly employees on the fine points of waiting on parties larger than 10 or 12 people. She recalls recently spending a week in Philadelphia.

“The service staff didn’t have experience with parties of 50 to 70 people, where there was French-style service. The issue was that servers were working for themselves and not used to collaborating,” explains Fox, who wrote a manual on the subject for the restaurant.

Train the Trainers
Fox is so keen on ongoing training for hourly employees that she launched a train-the-trainer program two years ago. This year, assistant general managers responsible for training hourly staff will gather in Dallas in May. The AGMs are required to pass several tests to earn a train-the-trainer certificate. “They also sign a commitment to training,” Fox adds.

Hourlies also have the opportunity to train new hires by becoming certified trainers, a goal Safferas had from the beginning, Fox recalls. “Terri told me the first time I met her that she wanted to become a certified trainer,” Fox says. “I told her she’d have to wait six months.”

Safferas, whose parents operated a restaurant in upstate New York, earned her training certification in October. The designation did not come with an increase in her hourly wages; trainers earn $200 per person trained. Later, at Fox’s request, Safferas flew to San Diego in December to help open the chain’s 30th restaurant.

“I was inspired by the training team led by Debbie,” says Safferas, whose starched white jacket bears the title “Certified Trainer” under her name.

“The Palm understands that the better you teach your team, the higher the leadership perception the hourly members have of their manager. It’s not surprising [The Palm] is reporting low turnover among hourly team members,” says training consultant Jim Sullivan of Sullivision.com, who spoke at The Palm’s first train-the-trainers meeting.

Fox is also testing another training program to lower hourly turnover. Sed De Saber (or “Thirst for Knowledge”) is a take-home language tool that lets Spanish-speaking workers learn English at their own pace. She hopes the voluntary lessons will eventually lead to promotions for bussers. “The only thing holding them up is language skills,” Fox says. “We want to help them get to the next level.”