The &pizza experience is the best in class. We are the #1 pizza chain in the world.
As a matter of fact, if you’re interested in food service and making a living, check out our job section on our website.
If you have any questions or comments feel free to email us!
Our Tribe
Many a startup has its head in the sand over the hiring of people who can’t actually do the job that needs to be done. A lot of things may go wrong in a restaurant, but I don’t think it can be said that some people are just incapable of doing their job — or at least not necessarily so.
To be sure, there are people who cannot cook, clean or make the cashier stand up straight. But those aren’t restaurant jobs.
Working at an actual restaurant is a fairly demanding and stressful job, which means that there are people who aren’t good at it, and many others who are good at it but just not as good as ideal candidates. This doesn’t mean you should hire anyone who isn’t willing to work hard. It does, however, mean that you need to look for candidates with relevant skills and experience with them (in this case, expertise in food service jobs). And you should have a clear idea of what you want in your new employee before you start looking for them; otherwise you might end up hiring someone with knowledge of but no experience.
Our Values
I’ve long been a proponent of rewarding employees for their contributions. This can be done through cash, equity, or an internal union agreement. In the case of our food service industry, if you want to make your restaurant more attractive for new hires, you should offer one or more of the following:
- Free training on food preparation basics
- Equipment upgrades (e.g., ovens and grills)
- Bonus pay for on-the-job training
- Employee discounts at local businesses (e.g., restaurants)
These things don’t have to be huge to matter; one just needs to do the math and figure out how much you can give away for a team member. And in the worst case scenario, if you decide to raise prices because of all these offers, your employee retention rate should improve as people get used to the extra money they have at their disposal.
Our Kitchen
This is a great bit of advice to consider when thinking about your ideal job. If you are self-employed, you will probably want to take care of yourself first and foremost, but if you are working for someone else, it can be important that you make sure they are happy with the product they’re getting out of it.
Often there are tradeoffs between an employee’s benefits — including health insurance and retirement plans — and the earning potential. And while some people do take an excessively long time to retire, others may want to continue working at their full potential for several years more. A nice way to think about this is that your benefit packages will depend on how well you do in the workplace versus how long you stay in your role.
I think this is a good way to frame the idea of being self-employed: “I have no boss and choose when I work where I work” (or “I have a boss but choose where I work”) versus “I have a boss who decides what I do” (or “I have a boss who asks me when I work where I work”). It also helps in thinking about the kinds of jobs that might make sense for your family (since most people need help with household chores or child care once in a while).
Our Ingredients
A pie is just a slice of cake, right? What it really depends on is the ingredients. When you think about it, there are actually very few ingredients. There’s flour, sugar, eggs, butter, and some other things that help make up the base (and sometimes add flavor). But what kind of pie should we use?
What kinds of products do people buy? An obvious answer would be fruits and vegetables – it’s what’s in them that matters! But this isn’t always the case. If a lot of your guests are vegetarian or vegan (or even just don’t like meat), you might want to stick to dairy-free options for them (because dairy is often associated with cows). If there are lots of gluten-sensitive people in your market, you might want to offer artisanal options like gluten-free pie crust (or maybe hamburger buns instead).
You can also think about these things as “marketing objectives.” People are drawn towards things that fulfill certain marketing objectives: they buy because they want something convenience-wise; they buy because they want to feel good about themselves; they buy because they prefer quality over quantity; and so on. This is how you figure out which products will serve those objectives best for your customers.
For example, if your company sells pizza crust at a premium price but has an affordable selection of frozen pizza toppings, then using frozen pizza slices makes sense for your customers who don’t know better than to spend more on other products. On the other hand, if most of your sales come from lower price points (maybe with a high number of coupons), then using an inexpensive $5 deal doesn’t make much sense – especially if you only have one coupon available.
Our Process
We’ve been blogging about the process of hiring and training for years, and I can say that hiring is one of the most complex and difficult things we do on our blog. It’s not as much about finding a “right person for the job” as it is about finding the right people for a job at all.
We have to consider what kind of team you want to build: a team with a clear idea of its purpose, defines its mission, and knows how to communicate that mission effectively.
It’s quite hard to find people who have those skills if they don’t already have them. And even if they do, they may not be happy working in a specific role on your team because they don’t feel comfortable with the way it works.
But here’s what you need to do when you do:
- Hire great people who are passionate about their roles and are well-suited for it (the more well-rounded, versatile candidates).
- Make sure that their first day of work includes learning about their new role (they spend an entire day learning what to expect from the work environment). This is how you establish trust with your employees early on–and these are people used to learning on the job because they were doing it before they got hired–so when they get onto your team, they will already have a strong understanding of how your organization works and what makes it great.
- If possible, create a culture where everyone feels like this is their job (even if some don’t feel like this every day), so everyone will want to learn more and help out where needed–or rather, won’t mind helping out where needed because everyone will feel good about being there!
- Once you’ve found your ideal candidate(s), make sure you’re bringing them up-to-date with everything happening within your organization (including what’s going on in other organizations). As an example: email every week or two giving them updates on growth goals vs milestones (and any significant changes in strategy which impacts them), any news items from across your company–like acquisitions or new initiatives–and things like news from outside our company like celebrity endorsements or tech trends which impact us all; or some other form of communication which reinforces the sense that we’re all in this together!
Conclusion
In this post we have looked at what it takes to successfully build a product and then promote it. You should now be well aware of the importance of launching your product or idea, and what you need to do in order to convince customers they want it.
