While we doubt you'd want your candidates to come Animal Style with grilled onions and fries (or do you?), In-N-Out's company culture, hiring, and management strategies give other fast food chains a run for their money.
The California-born company boasts one of the lowest turnover rates in the industry. And that's because each employee undergoes constant, considerable training and evaluation from the time of hire all the way through the end of their stay with the company. It's their recipe for success, if you will.
Train the team properly. Exchange feedback. Don't compromise employee satisfaction. Build a team that's in it for the long haul.
Send backup, and let talent take its course.
Not to worry – we mean as a way to expand your resources. Former In-N-Out President Rich Snyder, who passed away in 1993, brought in pros from the restaurant industry to teach his employees as part of In-N-Out University, a training facility established in 1984 for coaching top employees moving up into management positions. These team members had to have worked full-time for at least a year and stood out as leaders of their store, and their training focused primarily on best practices for delivering high-quality food and service. Rich created a series of training tapes and also recorded his team members for his critique of them. In store, all associates learned new skills on the job, like prepping meals or dealing with customers during a mid-day rush, simply by diving into it, getting feedback, and doing it again.
Having a curriculum-based training method for your recruiters gradually builds their skills in sourcing qualified candidates, outreach, screening and interviewing, and onboarding. Also, this format of training offers a place for team members to openly ask and discuss questions. Foster continual growth with the team by providing continual training through a mix of channels (i.e., guidebooks, lectures, videos, hands-on practice) and communicating critiques, concerns, and praises.
Run lean and keep it real.
Think of it like going to visit mom. As with other guests, she takes care of you well, leaving you with a satisfied appetite, and, somehow, a fresh pile of clean clothes. You're pretty gung-ho on going back, for the most part, because it was a memorable, comfortable experience.
Just as In-N-Out has a zero tolerance policy for cutting corners, recruiters can boost their team's morale by staying transparent, and providing top resources and full attention to support stable and steady growth. In another sense, motivate the team to have an unshakable commitment to developing a positive candidate experience. Personalize the outreach, stay in constant, controlled communication, and follow-up with talent as needed, whether or not they're selected for the position.
Set high benchmarks from the beginning to encourage productivity and retention.
When they're not in the spotlight for their bomb-dot-com burgers, In-N-Out is famed for their generous compensation. Employees' starting hourly wage is $10.50 with benefits including paid vacations, free meals, health, dental, and vision plans, and a 401k plan. Store managers are said to make at least $100,000 a year, and that's not including their monthly bonus for reaching sale goals. And while most folks in the food and beverage biz leave after a year, managers typically stay for about 14 years, while part-time associates stay for two.
Reward your team appropriately, and refrain from sacrificing decent pay for the sake of your budget to motivate employees for their best performance. Devote your management team to regularly recognizing employees who exceed already high expectations.
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Focus on quality, not quantity.
In-N-Out's menu hasn't changed much since the chain was founded in 1948. Not counting its sort-of-secret menu, it includes five core items: The Double-Double, cheeseburger, hamburger, fries, and milkshakes. In-N-Out applies the same limit on the growth rate of their management team. What's more is the company has expanded slowly to maintain the high standard of their ingredients. No store is opened outside of a 500-mile radius from any of their beef commisarries so they can have fresh food delivered daily.
To put their growth in perspective, In-N-Out has 290 stores in four states across the U.S., while a competitor, say McDonald's, which was founded around the same time, has over 35,000 locations in 119 global countries.
Hire slow, train well, promote from within. Rich had his heart set on growing the business by nurturing his team members with the expectation that they wouldn't only view their jobs as a summer gig, but an opportunity for a career.
Equip your recruiting team with the proper tools, resources, and communication that conveys the message they're an investment to the company, not just another open req that's been filled. Knowing there's a viable chance for advancement, and an actual training program, makes the concept of long-term success more tangible.
As In-N-Out's recruiting and hiring practices have made clear, sometimes thinking inside the bun isn't always a bad thing. Provide your team with the resources, nurturing, training, and compensation, and get them optimistic for a future career with the company, rather than just a job for the time being.
Tell us about your management style in the comments or tweet us @Entelo!
