Finding managers that could preserve the successful culture
With 300+ restaurants, each often hosting in excess of 200 staff members, this North American restaurant chain was undergoing rapid expansion. However, with growth came an urgent need for managers, and a need to speed up hiring without diluting the culture or quality that made them so successful.
About the Company
Industry
Retail
Company Size
300+ Restaurants
Region
North America
The Challenge
Growth was outpacing the supply of good managers
In a retail environment where skilled managers were hard to find, many competitors shortened hiring processes to recruit fast, often skipping processes such as pre-hire assessments. Aware that talent assessments enabled a more science-based approach and brought rigor to people decisions, this retailer decided to stick to their guns, so instead of abandoning them in the face of business pressure, decided to ensure their value was seen across the business, while streamlining the end-to-end acquisition process.
The Solution
An assessment-led process that scales with the business
Partnering with SHL, the organization were able to build an assessment-led process, validated against existing corporate KPIs and success metrics. This helped redesign the process to one that was much more efficient and effective.
SHL’s solution enabled the business to:
- Assess every applicant, every time
Every applicant takes an initial SHL assessment early to measure learning agility, motivations, behavioral fit and leadership potential. This replaced ambiguous interviewer feedback with clear, comparable data to determine whether the candidate should progress. - Halve the number of interviews
Interview rounds were halved freeing up hiring manager time, and structure was added so questions could focus on cultural fit and personalized areas that assessments highlighted resulting in more meaningful insights. - Leverage data to drive employee growth
The assessment data is reused for employees as they move through their careers to identify leadership development gaps and build leadership pipeline.
The Result
Stronger retention, faster hiring and a leadership pipeline built from within
50% of restaurant manager promotions are now internal, driven by fast-track leadership programs that use assessment data to optimize spend and target key skills gaps.
The new data-driven framework has successfully balanced rapid commercial growth with defensible, objective data that minimizes legal risk for hiring decisions.
In the past two years, the restaurant chain has posted record retention, highlighting the decision to measure behavioral fit and role alignment early in the hiring process.
The time taken from interview to offer has been reduced to less than a week, so candidates can be interviewed on a Monday and be in training by the following week.
Proactive career pathing means if an employee’s promotion doesn’t work out, the individual is helped to transition to another role—preserving their knowledge in-house.
Employee engagement has hugely improved. Now individuals can see routes to progression and are motivated by available opportunities that weren’t visible before.
In a continuing competitive landscape both for customers and talent, this restaurant chain has built a process that protects their culture, creates a strong leadership pipeline to drive customer loyalty and growth, and remain a great place to work.
Learn more about how organizations can better manager and leadership development, and the skills that make a good manager.
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