A short conversation between Donald Burns and another hospitality owner about how independent restaurant operators can structure pay and benefits to compete with larger employers. The speakers emphasize creative, thoughtful employee benefits beyond pure wage competition and link pay practices to company culture and staff engagement.
You know what I think is radical and you talked about this when I was at your restaurant a couple weeks ago. Is that what you pay people?
Well and it's funny because it ties back to culture. Right and it's tough as an independent to compete with big box stores. You know they're offering 401ks and they're offering dental medical vision. We can't compete with that as independents but that doesn't mean that we're beat. But we have to be really creative about what we do and it can't just turn into a pissing match about who's going to pay them more. I mean I think that's a little bit of it. The pay has to be there but we so we have a very, very dynamic construct. The first one is we have an employee benefits piece that it's not really dynamic from a cost standpoint but I think it's thoughtful and I think that's a really critical way to start your engagement with a staff.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
