Restaurant companies boost employee morale with contests, games

Nation's Restaurant News, June 28, 2004 by Dina Berta

With all the pomp and circumstance of an opening ceremony, the competitors, proudly marching under their unit flags in crisp uniforms, were filled with anticipation and eager to demonstrate their skills, from bagging fries and cooking hamburger patties to getting the customer's order right every time.

Let the Whatagames begin.

Around the globe, world-class athletes are preparing to compete in August in the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. But at any given time in restaurants across America, managers, servers, cooks, busboys and dishwashers are vying for their own gold medals, movie passes, all-expenses-paid trips or, in the case of Corpus Christi, Texas-based Whataburger Inc., $5,000 in cold, hard cash.

Games, contests and competitions have become operation and training staples for restaurant companies looking for ways to emphasize procedures, improve skills and enhance teamwork as well as to boost employee retention and a restaurant's overall performance.

"It has an amazing effect on our folks; it changes fives," Bill Adams, training manager for Whataburger, said of the biennial contest to determine the best restaurant crew in the 626-unit fast-food chain.

For some of the hourly workers, they will be riding planes for the first time when they travel to the final competition, which is held in conjunction with the Whataburger managers' convention, Adams said. With the competitions come all of the benefits of being considered a winner: the applause, accolades, medals and recognition in front of company owners, top executives, bosses and peers.

"We do it for the team-building aspect, to reinforce sales and service performance," said Scott Vasko, vice president of human resources for the Palm Management Corp., the Washington, D.C.-based parent of 29 Palm restaurants. "From an employee standpoint, it has a lot to do with retention and why ours is much higher than the industry average. Our hourly retention was 21 percent last year."

The Palm has been holding games for several years. Some are developed at the corporate level; others, by individual restaurants. Some contests enhance training programs, and others are designed to give incentives to managers at annual meetings.

With a budget of $80,000 this year, the Palm will give out cash and prizes to top-selling bartender teams, top-selling servers, the restaurants with the highest sales of specialty drinks, the top-selling team of servers and top culinary employees. The general manager of the restaurant that outscores all others in sales and various promotions wins a five-day trip for two to the Caribbean to visit rum distilleries.

King's Family Restaurants, a 36-unit family-dining chain located in southern Pennsylvania, has seen its average annual employee retention drop from 108 percent to 73 percent in the past three years, and part of that decline can be attributed to the chain's kitchen and service Olympics, officials said.

Better retention has been a side benefit, said Patti Evanosky, King's manager of training and development. The Olympics were created to focus employees on improving cleanliness, quality and service in the restaurants.

"We started the Olympics as we were revising our standards and putting together new menus," Evanosky said. "We wanted to be ready when we started attracting the guests."

Just as the real Olympics rotate between Winter and Summer Games, at King's restaurants there are the kitchen and service games. Every six months one or the other contest is going on.

Kitchen employees are judged on their culinary skills, food safety and the thoroughness with which they follow kitchen procedures. Servers are judged on the quality of service they provide to customers, and all employees are graded on how well they serve one another. Winning teams are selected from each of the chain's districts. District winners receive $100, a lapel pin and a silver medal, and they advance to the final round. Then a team of judges visits the restaurants and judges the crew for two hours. The winning team receives $500, a traveling trophy and gold medals.

"The employees love it," Evanosky said. "And we achieved what we wanted to--the stores are clean, quality and service are where we want them to be, and we didn't get there by being negative. It's been positive and rewarding."

Biscuitville Inc., the Burlington, N.C., chain of 48 quick-service restaurants, started its Biscuitville Biscuit Bake-Off last year to support training efforts as well as to recognize employees, said Connie Bennett, director of training and development.

A panel of judges critiques finalists who were chosen by managers and district supervisors. The winners--one kitchen employee and one manager--receive $500 in cash and a gold medal.

For restaurant contests to be successful, there has to be a benefit for the company, said Dallas-area consultant T.J. Schier, author of "Send Flowers to the Living," a book on employee incentives.

"A lot of companies make the mistake of rewarding things that don't necessarily pay out financially, either because of the way the contest was designed, or they just haven't thought it through," said Schier, president of Incentivize Solutions.