When Alex Rechichi co-founded Extreme Pita in 1997 at the age of 23, he didn’t define the brand’s corporate culture. “We hired people who were like us and enjoyed being in the restaurants and having fun,” he says. “We knew we wanted to create a company that was a reflection of the type of people we were.”
The company has grown up a lot since then: it’s one of four brands now under the Extreme Brandz umbrella (which includes Mucho Burrito, Purblendz and Via Cibo – Italian Street Food) and has five values that define its culture, from putting guests first to giving back to the community — it’s about embodying core values. “But we’ll never forget where we started,” says Rechichi, who is now president and CEO of Extreme Brandz. “We don’t want to be a stuffy, corporate environment. We want to have some fun and be young at heart.”
Workplace culture isn’t just about creating a warm-and-fuzzy atmosphere: it has a powerful impact on all activities within an organization. For foodservice operations, a strong culture engages employees, improves service and boosts the bottom line. And, with today’s job glut and ever-increasing competition, it’s crucial to success.
While companies recognize the importance of a strong workplace culture, many don’t live and breathe their own values. According to Deloitte’s 2012 U.S. report called “Culture in the Workplace,” 94 per cent of executives and 88 per cent of employees surveyed believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success. The majority of executives and employees (83 per cent and 84 per cent, respectively) rank having engaged and motivated staff as the top factor that contributes to a company’s success. However, only 19 per cent of executives and 15 per cent of employees strongly believe their culture is widely upheld within their own organizations.
When it comes to upholding values, the onus is on leaders to walk the talk, says Gerard Seijts, associate professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business. “I’ve seen too many organizations where people have these espoused values. They’re just words on the wall. The leader has to live it, communicate it and drive it through the organization — not just sometimes, but all the time.”
That’s the approach Extreme Brandz takes, embedding its values throughout the organization, from programs that introduce new employees to company goals and policies to performance reviews. “You don’t want to tell somebody, ‘this is our corporate culture,’” says Rechichi. “It needs to be embedded into the processes.”
Extreme Brandz also talks about its values at every opportunity, whether it’s a written communication or at franchisee meetings. The company’s perks-and-benefits programs offer further opportunity for driving home the message. During its quarterly town hall meetings for each of its brands, Extreme Brandz recognizes people who have done a great job and upheld the values during that quarter.
The company gives away prizes such as iPads, “but that’s just the bonus,” says Rechichi. “The reality is they want to be recognized, and it’s another way to provide repetition of the message. And, as you provide more and more repetition of that message, it embeds those values further into your culture.”
At the outset, senior leadership must clearly define its corporate culture. “It’s critical to have a clear mission and vision that employees can rally behind and be inspired by,” says Andrew Martin, VP of Human Resources at Joey Restaurant Group in Vancouver. “It is equally important to spend the time and effort to identify the core cultural traits and behaviours to ensure you hire for them and develop them within the team.”
Martin, who describes the Joey culture as a mix of passion, performance and fun, says it takes incredible time and effort to clarify your culture. “It won’t happen in a planning session,” he says. “However, when you get your culture clear throughout the organization, it enables you to really put the pedal to the ground.”
Having a strong workplace culture has allowed Joey Restaurant Group to avoid having endless rules and protocols for every situation. “When behaviour doesn’t align with our culture, it stands out and can be addressed by the group without quoting a policy number,” says Martin. In addition, its culture of people development has enabled the company to grow by promoting leadership from within. “Each of our restaurants is managed by leaders who have grown up within the company,” says Martin. “In many cases, they have been instrumental in refining [our] culture.”
At Keg Restaurants, the workplace culture is known as “Keg Spirit,” and it’s been engrained in the company since it was founded in 1971, says Doug Smith, the company’s EVP and COO. “We provide a casual, friendly, professional work environment for our staff and managers, and we hope that filters down to our guests,” he says.
To keep staff engaged, and encourage teamwork, the company puts on the Keg Cup, a three-day event held each winter in Collingwood, Ont., and Penticton, B.C. Activities include a ski race, snow volleyball and air-band competitions. There’s also the Keg Oscars, which give top staff the red-carpet treatment at a company awards’ show.
The real benefit of Keg’s culture is lower staff turnover rates, and, as a result, lower training costs. “That’s the most significant thing in terms of hard costs, but, obviously, the longer we have staff, the better service we can deliver to our guests.” The Keg is clearly doing something right: the company landed at number 13 on AON Hewitt’s 2013 Top 50 Best Employers list.
Starbucks Coffee Company, meanwhile, was named one of the best places to work in Canada by Great Place to Work Institute Canada for the third-consecutive year; it placed 18th on a list of the top 50 large and multinational companies.
While many companies may just talk about their mission statement, Starbucks’ guiding principles are “absolutely alive and well each and every day,” says Sara Presutto, director of Partner Resources at Starbucks Canada. “From our executives right down to our store-level hourly employees, it really is something that we hire against and develop against.”
One of Starbucks’ guiding principles is to provide “a great work environment” and “treat each other with respect and dignity,” says Presutto. When that’s achieved, “partners (what Starbucks calls employees) in turn treat our customers in the same fashion, which then translates into positive business results.”
For Starbucks, a key part of its corporate culture is the level playing field it has when it comes to benefits. Its total pay package — called Your Special Blend — is available for all staff. “There really isn’t much difference in what’s offered to an executive versus an hourly employee,” says Presutto. The package includes extensive health-care benefits, unique programs such as adoption assistance, stock options, employee discounts and a free pound of coffee or box of tea for every employee each week.
Another perk gives a select group of employees the opportunity to visit coffee-growing regions for three days every year. Launched in 2010, Starbucks’ Origin Experience program has sent 150 partners from 37 countries to Costa Rica, Tanzania and Sumatra, an island off Indonesia, during their respective harvests.
The program allows partners to “really understand our origins, where we source our coffee from and how we treat our farmers and our partners in that location,” says Presutto. Program alumni then share their experience and knowledge with fellow staff and customers, which elevates the coffee experience in stores.
While not every company can afford to send staff to far-flung places, investing in culture is critical. “People sometimes don’t like to spend money when it comes to building team unity and even letting departments work together off-site, but you have to spend the money,” says Extreme Brandz’s Rechichi. “You need to make investments into helping unify your culture. If you do it consistently, then you no longer think of culture as a strategy, it just becomes what you are.”
