The service and food industry

probably has the lowest retention and highest turnover of all the industries

in the United States. The reasons for this are varied, but a lot of it

can be attributed to low pay, long hours, weekends and a workforce that

is perceived to be low caliber and/or low skill.

Rightly or wrongly, this leads

to an industry facing constant turnover and managers who find themselves

frustrated and in some cases reluctant to make fundamental change to the

way they manage people.

However, one company clearly

stands out above the others. La Rosa's Pizza Company is a national chain

of 53 outlets consisting of 3,000 employees with over $100 million in

sales each year.

La Rosa practices the art of

leadership and takes the science of quality management to its highest

form. The first major difference between this company and other food businesses

is they consider their employees their internal customers. They spend

as much time and energy focusing on their internal customers as their

external customers.

Putting their people first

is like the law of physics for every action there is an equal and opposite

reaction. In this case the reaction is a higher level of customer service

provided to their external customers, which in turn generates higher profits.

In most businesses the HR department

is responsible for people issues. The problem experienced in most American

companies is the HR manager is only holding a staff position.

Unfortunately, in some cases,

most HR departments do not have the power or respect to make change. The

power to make change rests with the people who have the authority. The

philosophy is different at La Rosa's.

Their CEO Tillman Hughes says

"The soft stuff needs to become the hard stuff."

They eliminated their HR department

and created a Chief People Officer. They did more than merely change names.

Now the responsibility, authority and the power for the internal customers

rests with the top executives.

Most businesses play lip service

when it comes to taking care of their employees. However, it goes from

lip service to reality when you actually measure it. This puts a company

in a powerful position to make improvements and hold people accountable.

At La Rosa's they use several different measurement methods.

· Managers meet with new

hired workers for the first four weeks and conduct a new hire survey approximately

30 days after they have been on board. Then they ask questions such as

how do you feel about working here and how is training going?

·They do a cultural audit,

similar to an internal climate assessment, once a year, which measures

feelings about pay and benefits, care and recognition etc. This gives

them a quick pulse on how employees feel about how they are being treated.

· Employees evaluate their

bosses twice a year. A bottom-up Internal Customer Satisfaction Index

(ICSI) is conducted twice a year with all employees. The ICSI has only

four questions and asks the employees to give their managers a letter

grade from A to D in four categories listed below. ·Communication:

Use of basic principles, effective method used/established for verbal

and written messages or instructions, feedback provided or allow Code

of Conduct honored. ·

·Accountability: Timeliness,

maintains schedules, facilitates the workflow, responsiveness. ·

·Quality: Provides quality

work and/or service (i.e.: accurate info, support documentation, quality

products etc.) ·

·Professionalism: Exhibits

courtesy and professionalism. Handles situations in a mature manner. Effectively

communicates and delivers quality products/service resulting in total

Team Member Satisfaction.

After the ICSI is completed

and the comments have been tabulated the CEO has the managers come in

and talk about the results. They address specific behaviors and come up

with action plans for improvement that can be tracked daily. The meetings

are held in an open and trusting environment so not to cause any fear

of retaliation.

They also discovered that leadership

training is key to their success. At one time they sent their managers

to those public, one-day leadership courses downtown. Doing this they

found it was hard to reach critical mass because everyone came back with

different ideas, a different philosophy and a different language of what

leadership meant.

La Rosa now sends all their

managers to the same 6-week training program.

Free Newsletter: Sign-up for

Greg,s free monthly newsletter by visiting https://www.chartcourse.com

or by sending an email to [email protected].

Gregory P. Smith is the author

of Dynamic Ideas to Reward, Energize and Motivate Your Teams. He speaks

at conferences, conducts management training and is the President of a

management consulting firm called Chart Your Course International located

in Conyers, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464.

Back

to Business Home Page