Words of Wisdom: Hiring, Training, and Retaining

Todd and Kelly Mulvahill, Owner/President/CEO; Owner/Secretary

Brands: 6 Papa Murphy's Pizza; 14, Gyro Shack

How do you hire and fire, train and retain?

We always try to hire and promote from within with management whenever possible. We have not gone outside the company for management now for three years. When we have gone outside, we use Indeed as a media tool to find candidates. If I'm guilty of one thing, it is leading a horse to the water trough too many times thinking they will drink and they just don't. I tend to believe everybody is good. But sometimes it's just clear, an employee needs to go find their happiness somewhere else when company standards are not followed. We have a main store that we call our training store. New hires, or current employees climbing the company ladder, spend time in this store to learn high volume/best practice procedures. It is typically an eight-week course from start to finish--starting with daily operations, to building and working with their own team of employees, and daily and period administration duties. At the end of the eight weeks, they should be able to fully manage their own restaurant as if it was their own. For hourly employees, we utilize a 30-day training/coaching program. If we have done our selection process properly, then the individual should have no problem becoming effective with in the 30-day process.