In the first of a two-part series, George Green tackles the hardest part of the restaurant industry: hiring the right people.

 

Many operators claim that their people come first, but few really walk the walk. Food quality is definitely the most important focus for the best fast-casual operators, but it is our people who actually make and deliver excellent food.

I have seen many operations with great written procedures and standards that fail to deliver consistently great food because of the people they have in place. On the other hand, some fast-casual restaurants don’t have ops manuals, but they consistently outperform the competition because of their people and culture. People act like it’s rocket science to fix problems in these areas, but it isn’t. You just start at the beginning during the hiring process.

First of all, hiring the right people is a combination of both art and science. The science part comes to play at the very beginning, when the prospective employee applies. I am a big believer in online applications, and we use one at our company. This allows candidates to apply whenever they want and wherever they are. The system we use also has a great hospitality-focused assessment that allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff. More importantly, it rates applicants with green, yellow, or red tags and flags potential problem areas. The system also spouts out suggested interview questions based on responses.

 

The inside of the restaurant. Anyone have this done? they are taking pics of the inside and asked for food to be out to be photographed.  Just want to know what to expect