Retention: Community Reflection

BJ’s Restaurants’ diverse work force stems from its origins, locations and performance culture.

By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 5/1/2007

About 47 percent of BJ’s Restaurants’ hourly team members are non-white, and 40 percent are women.

Because BJ’s guest base tends to be diverse, so is its work force.

BJ’s Restaurants doesn’t have a formal diversity statement per se. And it doesn’t incent unit-level and regional managers on inclusion metrics. Yet its hometown, community relations and performance-management culture tend to drive diversity.

“It’s been somewhat organic,” Chief Human Resources Officer Tom Norton says. “I wouldn’t say there’s an overall strategic initiative, but there are a lot of programs and activities that we do that I think have driven the success in this area.”

California Population

Norton looks back to the Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company’s origins, citing Southern California’s melting pot of cultures: “It’s carried over as we’ve expanded.” BJ’s now has 57 restaurants in eight states.

He also credits BJ’s focus on community involvement, which exposes the company to local schools and groups.

The brewery concept also attracts a diverse clientele, which in turn leads to a diverse restaurant staff, Norton says. “Our concept works in every market in which we’ve tried to open a restaurant, whether it’s an area with a certain demographic profile and high income or an area with more modest middle-class income, and all different ethnic profiles,” he says. “As you look around our team-member base, what we’re hiring for the restaurant is incredibly reflective of the community in which that restaurant is located. If it’s a very diverse neighborhood, you’ll see a lot of diversity with our team members.”

Good Examples

Restaurant staff also tends to see people like them in the management ranks. Fully 30 percent of unit-level managers are non-white, and 47 percent of multiunit management is non-white. When team members see minority groups succeeding at the company, it encourages them to look at BJ’s as a career, Norton says, or at least raises their comfort level. BJ’s hourly turnover percentage is in the low 70s, he says, and management turnover is about 24 percent.

As BJ’s opens new stores, planning 11 more by the end of the year, it will continue to ensure that each restaurant’s team of about seven managers will reflect the community.

Objective Metrics

Helping drive both low turnover and diversity is objective performance management, Norton says, adding that it levels the playing field. “When you have a truly objective approach to performance, recognition, rewards and promotion, it diffuses any issues that arise,” he says. “Regardless of gender, ethnicity, people who perform make it.”

Pick Me Up: Manager training and retention has helped lift hourly retention at Pick Up Stix, too.
Grabbing the Brass Ring: Buffets Inc. switches back to its original recognition program at its employees’ request.
Going Deep: Panera’s detailed assessment of managerial applicants leads to long-term employment.
Weathering the Storm: Good communications helped Raising Cane’s gather ‘round employees when Hurricane Katrina hit.
The Benefits of Good Works: Brinker International’s philosophy of philanthropy creates high morale and engagement all the way to the unit level.

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