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2 2 * June 13, 2005
NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS
HUMAN RESOURCES
Operators using prescreen tests to overturn turnover
By Dina Berta
Behavioral and personality tests, once
used almost exclusively by deep-pocketed larger restaurant companies, are
becoming common tools for prescreening job applicants at smaller companies,
too. according to operators.
Given a greater number of lessexpensive, standardized prescreening
tests, more operators are seizing the
opportunity to weed out less-desirable
applicants and realize savings later as
turnover rates drop.
Mailland. Fla.-based Sonny's Franchise Co., parent to the 152-unit Sonny's
Real Pit Bar-B-0 chain, began prescreening job applicants last year at its
16 company-owned stores.The rest of the
chain's units, which are located in nine
states, are franchised.
Since then, the company's hourly
average annua! turnover has dropped by
30 percent, said Jeff Yarmuth. president.
Annual average turnover for managers
is now less than 20 percent.
Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Village Tavern began using behavioi.
"You can sit and languish with 200- stem the turnover of new servers.
percent turnover — we have some franchisees with 300-pereent turnover — or you can do some"It gives you a better understanding of the individual,
thing about it." Yarmuth said. "There is not one operation so you can make a better call if that person will fit in with
out there that would not like to cut its turnover in half, our culture." he said.
given the cost of hiring, administrative eosts. cost of uniFor the past year Sonny's has been using a hiring test
forms, not to mention the time you waste orientating peo- developed by Colorado Springs, Colo.-based CorVirtus.
ple and training people who don't stay."
formerly DeCotiisErhard, a human resources consulting
Village Tavern, an eight-unit, casual-dining concept and research firm. The program is similar to highly cusbased in Winston-Salem. N.C., began using behavioral tomized tests CorVirtus does for such larger companies as
tests to stem the turnover of new servers. Before such Outback Steakhouse.
testing began, the company had good retention of its man"There is no perfect system for hiring people, but it's
agers and most of its hourly employees, with one excep- a great filter for us," Yarmuth said.
tion, servers on thejobfor less than three months.
Yarmuth added that the testing has changed the way
"All of our turnover was happening with servers in the company approaches hiring.
their first 90 days," said Tony Santarelli, president and co"We had employee benefits, and we spent a lot of time
owner.
on training," Yarmuth said. "We believed better training
The testing has made it easier to find those servers would help us, and it has. But we were looking at
who could learn Village Tavern's extensive menu and approaches outside the hiring process. We were doing
wine list and fit into the company's culture, Santarelli said. everything else new. but hiring the old way."
Prescreen tests flip the tables on the traditional way of
hiring, said Suzanne Zuniga. chief operating officer and a
partner at CorVirtus. Typically, a company has a job opening and then finds someone to fill it, she noted.
"We go the opposite way." she continued. "We put a
person through a series of hurdles, hoping to eliminate
people who won't perform in thejob.We want to find out
whom not to hire."
CorVirtus has tested hundreds of hourly and management candidates for restaurant corporations, rating them
on sueh things as job performance, friendliness and enthusiasm.The firm took those data and developed a standard
set of performance traits of successful employees who
would do well in any type of restaurant. Zuniga said.
Tests ean be done with paper and pencil during a job
interview or online for hourly job candidates, she
explained. Management tests are online. Tests are tabulated and evaluated automatically online or by faxing
paper tests to a computer. Hiring managers can have the
results in five to 10 minutes.
For hourly candidates the test results will indicate
whether the hiring manager should "continue" to consider the applicant or "discontinue" the interview, she said.
Santarelli at Village Tavern said prescreening has
changed the way people there think about the hiring
proeess.
"Say you're a general manager, and you need servers."
he explained. "You meet a person who has a great image
and says the right things, and automatically you start trying to talk him into coming to the company. You're trying
to get people in instead of screening them out. This has
made us a whole lot more selective."
The initial prescreening results at Sonny's corporate
restaurants were phenomenal. Yarmuth said.
In that first year, the biggest problem was overhiring
servers for a restaurant opening, he said, noting that officials had been warned not to hire too many applicants
who made it through the prescreening process. But overhiring is a standard practice in the industry because often
many employees will quit after a store opens, and they
realize serving is not a job they want.
At the new Sonny's, however, the restaurant ended up
with too many servers, he said. No one wanted to quit.
Employees had to be transferred to other restaurants.
NEWS DIGESTS
IHOP chief Stewart to receive CHARTs Commitment to People Award
WESTFELD, N.J. — The Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, based here, will
present Julia Stewart, president and chief executive of Giendale, Calif.-based IHOP
Corp., with the 2005 Commitment to People Award at its conference In Boston this
summer.
CHART, a 500-member nonprofit
organization dedicated to training in
the hospitality industry, chooses as a
recipient of its award an executive
who communicates effectively, supports programs and creates opportunities for employees to grow and
develop.
Stewart, a 34-year veteran of the
industry, has a management style
that is one of collaboration and
inclusion, said Joleen Flory Lundgren, CHART president and vice
president of human resources and
training for Famous Dave's of
America in Minneapolis.
CHART'S 70th semiannual hospi-
tality training conference will be held at the Boston Park Hotel and Towers July 24-26.
Scheduled events will include a panel discussion by hotei and restaurant executives, motivational speakers, such as author Jim Smith Jr. and Nation's Restaurant
News columnist Jim Sullivan, and breakout sessions on training techniques and
management development programs.
Comeirs hotel school, Le Meridien team up for development program
ITHACA, N.Y, — The School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University here has collaborated with London-based Le Meridien Hotels & Resorts to launch a professional
development program designed to improve the strategic management, knowledge
and skills of high-potential hospitality employees.
The six-day program is scheduled to occur every six months. Senior executives
nominate for the program employees whose performance indicates an ability to
advance in their companies.
Thirty-six hospitality employees attended the first event, held recently in London.
The delegates worked on case studies and shared best practices. They are eligible for college credit after completing the program.
Human resource items may be sent to Dina Berta, Nation's Restaurant News, 2266
Ivy St., Denver, CO 80207, or e-mailed to dberta@nrn.com. Or they may be faxed
to (303) 333-1867.
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