Jill Waite: We were founded in 1963. We have over 80 restaurants across the United States with over close to 9,000 team members, which we're really excited about. We have many all American favorites, our Chicago style hot dogs, sausages, our famous roast beef. Some additional heroes, our hamburgers, chop salad, and our delicious and famous chocolate cake.
Felicia Shakiba: Mmm, chocolate cake.
Jill Waite: It is amazing. And you can also put it in a shake, which was developed by our team members. And it is a love by many of our guests.
Felicia Shakiba: Well, that will be the next thing I order for sure.
How did you identify that retention of managers was the key problem to address?
Jill Waite: So we identified that the retention of managers was a challenge most specifically with our external managers. And it was identified a few different ways. One, the organization had been tracking our retention of hourly team members as well as management and comparing it to industry. We also teased out the data to say of those that were losing who were they and when did they leave? So it helped us to dive deeper into root cause. Separately, we spent time in our restaurants and in the market, trying to understand who was leaving? Why? And so that way we could get direct in market feedback so we could fix the root cause of some of the challenges we were seeing in with our external leaders who were leaving.
And what were those particular differences that you found between external managers coming in versus the internal managers that you're promoting?
Jill Waite (03:06): We had kicked off our talent planning and succession process because we were a growing organization, we wanted to be able to predict and plan out our bench. And as we were doing that process, one of the things that we were learning is with our experiential brand, our expansive menu, we have some of the highest AUVs in the restaurant industry. And our average restaurant has about 87 team members, which is pretty significant in the quick service and fast casual restaurant environment.
And we had identified that leadership skills were truly critical in achieving success at Portillo's because you're leading 87 members. The guest experience is really important. Our guests have a very high standard of the experience that they're desiring. And so not all those skill sets we found that our leaders were coming with. And so when we put them in our restaurants leading our boxes, especially in newer markets, where it may not have as much support as Chicago did, they struggle to find success. And so in return they were leaving.
Felicia Shakiba: Got it.
And then when you're looking for internal managers to promote and creating this succession process, how did you identify the high potential employees for the program?
Jill Waite: Our internal leaders, many of them started as hourly team members. And so we hire and look for individuals who are passionate about our purpose and our values. Our values, our family, greatness, energy, and fun, and our purpose is about creating lifelong memories with our unrivaled experiences. One of the other things we had identified with our external leader, we weren't necessarily hiring for leadership skills, or a love for delivering our purpose and our values we were at the time looking for, "Have you worked in a restaurant? Have you been a leader in a restaurant?" And so when we were assessing and looking at our internal talent, our internal talent very much spend time on every single station.
So they had the understanding of what it feels and looks like to work at a Portillo's and delivering that guest experience. They also gain skills of teamwork, because to make a Portillo's run, you have to work as a team. And so they were gaining communication and leadership skills by the nature of the frontline position. So as they were growing with the organization, they were already able to try on these skills, and quickly adapt to each of the positions that they were being developed and grown in. So their ability to develop was faster and had a good foundation compared to individuals that were coming into the organization at the time.
Felicia Shakiba: So maybe learning on the fly was an important competency.
And what were the other core competencies that you were really looking for?
Jill Waite (05:51): As it relates to from a leadership standpoint, it is communication. Can you communicate with one another, whether it be what's going on, at any given point with the guests, with a team member, with the volume that's happening. Our lunchtime and dinners are bananas and in a good way, but it requires a sense of urgency and communication that's truly unmatched. The relationship building is critical. So 87 team members of all different generations to motivate, inspire, and to engage them in our team members being able to engage and inspire one another, we were looking for that because we knew and saw that they wouldn't be great leaders.
And then also can you hold people accountable? When you have that many guests that you're serving in or - all of our food is custom made to the guest and to the team member- individual and be held accountable to the expectations that we're setting. So it was really a combination of those soft skills that we saw where we would help our leaders achieve success?
That's awesome to just think about a lunch order timeframe, and how fast the restaurant has to be moving. And all of those competencies make a lot of sense and how you shared them. So thank you for that. What was the process of developing the Ignite program, which essentially was your HIPO program, your high potential program, and who were the stakeholders involved?
Jill Waite: So the Ignite program came from our growth plan. So growing 10 plus restaurants a year, and we have you know, aspirations for even more and our restaurants have at least seven leaders between our general manager and the positions that are supporting the general manager. When we looked at our pipeline, we know we needed a lot of talent both internally and being able to hire externally. And when we grow outside of Chicago, and even within Chicago, we want to make sure that we are delivering the best - the Portillo's experience that our guests want and that they deserve. And so we wanted to ensure that our experience was able to be replicated across the US regardless of where somebody was at. And we didn't have a formalized program that would allow our internal team members to grow their careers.
Essentially, what would happen is if someone wanted to be promoted, they were promoted. And then we trained him how to do the job on the job. And that doesn't set anyone up for success. So we said, why don't we identify the talent, them identify themselves so we have applications. People can apply if they have an interest for growing with our organization.
So we essentially worked with a third party, we hired a partner who we knew could help us develop the program. And we leverage our learning and development team, they were the spearhead of this whole thing, as well as our operations partners. So there were many individuals across the organization that really helped us developing Ignite in leveraging a company called experience counts that helped bring this to life across all of our positions in leadership.
Interesting, how was the program designed? So how much time did it take, and what were the various activities or learning modules that went into the program?
Jill Waite (08:55): So we wanted to ensure that it was a blended learning approach. And one of the other pieces that was really important is that it was built on the framework of a cohort that individuals would enter the program at the same time, and then they would graduate at the same time.
And the reason why that was important is we wanted our team members who are in the program to feel a sense of community and connection and support because they're learning new skills that are going to probably make them feel very uncomfortable because they're trying on things that they've never done before.
And when you have somebody that's doing this alongside you, you get a sense of confidence. Dick Portillo who founded Portillo's, he built the organization based on the military training principles. And so if you think about basic training, it's very similar. You go in together and you graduate together. Very similar to this. Our team members are in a cohort. The blended learning is a combination of webinars that they're all on together. They do practical application experiences in the restaurant because we really want it to be hands on, they're getting their hands dirty shoulder to shoulder with other leaders who are their mentors, and then they also do online and they come here to the Support Center for our leadership classes. And this is where they are bringing everything that they've been learning in the restaurant, and then continuing to elevate that skill set in a classroom setting, but it's very experiential at the same time.
Felicia Shakiba: I like that. It's very experiential. I think hands on learning is absolutely the way to go if you can do it that way, in any type of learning and development program.
Jill Waite: It is and it's worked well for us. It's been a combination of the leadership skills that individuals need, because sometimes you can see programs that they're very focused on the job skill. Do I know how to make a schedule? Do I know how to read this report? And that's still very important that is very much so a part of the program. But we also know that you need the leadership skills in order to be able to have the right business acumen to read their report. Do they have the right developing talent? Because it's not the company's job to develop the talent, it's our leader's job to develop the talent. So do our leaders know how do you develop talent and create an engaged workforce?
We combine the skill sets together it's not one or the other, but it is a blend of both.
What were the outcomes that you've seen from this Ignite program thus far?
Jill Waite: Well, all of our new restaurants are opened with an experienced General Manager. And that is very important to us. Because we know when we open our new restaurants with an experienced general manager who has worked in a Portillo's has been developed within the organization, we see a higher success rate in those restaurants. And with our growth plans, that's something that's really important to us. We've also seen our retention improve. And we have some of the best retention from a leadership standpoint, but also an hourly turnover.
And we have a pipeline of talent that's ready for growth, which I think is really important, not only for the company, but for individuals as well. We are able to show our team members that they can have a career here, you started as hourly team member work in the restaurant Support Center, you can work in the restaurant all the way to be a market manager for us, really the career opportunities are endless. It's just up to the team member to raise their hand and us to also engage with them and have that conversation. So from a results standpoint, we're a results-based organization, we need to be able to deliver our results in that guest experience.
So I heard success rate, how do you measure success? What would be those metrics? I heard retention was maybe one of them?
Jill Waite (12:22): Yeah, so we have an 80% internal promotion, right? And so 80% of our leaders that are that are graduating- because we still believe in hiring externals as well. You need to have blend within an organization. And so 80% of our leaders are internally develop and our retention is double digits better than the top fast, casual, quick service in the industry. So we are really proud of those numbers. And same thing with our team members. Our team member retention consistently beats out the industry by generally double digit numbers.
And so we attribute that to the leadership skills that are being instilled in our leaders, and that they're seeing this as a place that they can grow their careers and leverage these skills both in Portillo's and without Portillo's, we understand that these skills are really transferable wherever.
Felicia Shakiba: Absolutely. When you think about the soft skills, they're very much transferable because they're part of the human not the job. And that's an incredible success rate. I mean, it's no wonder Portillo's is as successful as it is today.
Learning and Development I know is often a key factor in employee engagement. Did the program have any impact on engagement and motivation?
Jill Waite: Our engagement year over year has continued to improve and even in the year right after COVID, where Gallup have reflected data, that engagement had declined across the United States. Our engagement scores actually increased, we bucked the trend. So that was another metric that we consistently look at to see, 'Is our human capital strategy working?' And so our engagement scores continued to rise. We also have extremely high participation. And participation is important because if team members didn't care about the organization, or didn't feel like they had a voice, that they wouldn't participate in our surveys.
And so we have close to 90% participation across our restaurants, our restaurant's Support Center as well as our commissaries. So it's another way that is an indicator that the work between ignite the work between total rewards and providing the right culture to the organization is something that our team members are really passionate about.
How do you measure engagement? Do you use surveys? How often do those surveys collect qualitative data differently? How do you measure engagement?
Jill Waite: Yeah, feedback from our team members is really important. So we have several different ways of how we do that. We do use a annual engagement survey, we action plan off that to ensure that we are continuing to leverage our strengths that our team members have said, 'Hey, keep doing this. This is working for us.' And then there are areas that we could improve. And so those are areas that we action on. We do consistent roundtables, and it's not just the people team that conducts the roundtables. It's our market managers as well. Our team member engagement in how they feel about the organization, but also the business isn't just the responsibility of the people team, it's the responsibility of our operations partners.
And they very much believe that and so they conduct the roundtables because they get to hear directly from the teams on what's working in the restaurant and what's not. And we can immediately give that feedback to the General Manager. And additionally, we hold listen or lunch and learns quite regularly ranging from Michael, our CEO to myself, different individuals across the organization do it because we just know that being able to hear directly from our team members on what is working in the organization, and what is not allows us to quickly pivot and make changes whether that be to benefit or to something operational, we're able to do that based on the connections and the ways that we listen to their team members.
And by roundtable, do you mean focus groups?
Jill Waite (15:51): Many focus groups, so our restaurants, we look at it at our day shift, night shift, and weekend. So we want to make sure we have a sprinkle of team members. Some of them they volunteer, 'Hey I'd really wanted to some spend some time,' it's and it's generally no more than five to eight team members, sometimes even less than that. And it is just an open forum asking questions. So what's working today? What can we improve? What are you most proud of? And then learning a bit about the team members as well. So we don't just jump into business, because that's always easy.
You can jump into the things that can improve, but we spend some time getting to know our team members and learning their stories, because a lot of times their stories also help influence where we're going.
What's the environment that you collect this feedback? Do you go to every store to do this, or you do go to every store?
Jill Waite:
Every restaurant should have at least one roundtable a year and other restaurants have them once a quarter.
So it really just depends. And same thing with here, at the Support Center we'll hold lunch and learns in order to gain that insight. And so what happens is the individual that's facilitating it will take it qualitative. So there are some qualitative questions we asked them, then there's some quantitative so that way, we can see what type of scoring the restaurants receive. And then we look for trends across all of the different information that we receive, because it's all put into a system and we're able to report on that.
Felicia Shakiba: Got it. So you found the challenge, you filled the need with a program that clearly was highly successful.
What needs surfaced as next steps after the program was successful?
Jill Waite: The ongoing next steps is continuous learning. Learning doesn't stop. So Ignite has been intended to - because we have it at every level for general managers, AGMs, restaurant managers, and our crew chiefs. The program is intended to help our leaders have the basic foundations for those roles. However, the roles are expansive, and so the learning has to continue through position development plans. And it's not just, 'Hey, I graduated, I'm good to go. I've been promoted, and I'm done learning.' The learning has to continue because of our growth, but also as individuals as lifelong learners, it's important that we continue to sharpen that saw.
So that's our biggest challenge right now is helping to instill that learning is continuous and Ignite is just one part of the journey. But the journey continues as individuals, we have to own our own development, and we have a variety of different tools of how we do that. We partner with a company for coaching, we have LinkedIn learning, we have mentors. So there's a variety of different ways. It's continuing to build that continuous learning and development culture host of program.
What were the greatest challenges that you faced in implementing the Ignite program?
Jill Waite (18:25): The greatest challenges in implementing the Ignite program was getting the alignment of this is what individuals will learn in each of the programs and not expecting that they're going to learn everything. You know, we as humans, we can only take in so much information, and then being able to practice it in order to really master it. And I think as humans, we want them to learn everything at one time. We want them to have it all. We just can't. And so being able to align as leaders within the organization that this is the most important information and knowledge and experiences that they need to have while they're in Ignite. And then knowing that, yes, there's going to be skill gaps, there is. But we're going to address that skill gap after they graduate through these position development plans. That's been the biggest challenge of helping individuals realize that they're not going to come out knowing everything, and that's okay. But they will, over time continue to gain that additional knowledge.
You mean they're not going to have superpowers when they come out of the Ignite program to-
Jill Waite: Not generally they're not going to have the cake shake superpower. I have not yet seen that. But maybe someday, that could happen but not right now.
Felicia Shakiba: Superpower the cake shake.
Jill Waite: Yes, the superpower the cake shake.
Where do you see the leadership development program going in the future, because we talked about continuous learning, they're not going to learn everything. So what is that next step look like?
Jill Waite: It's continuing to expand it throughout the organization. So it is really formalizing that continuous learning path. So when we say you have a position development plan, what does that look like? What does that sound like? What does that feel like? And have, we modalized all the different curriculum that our leaders do need to know? Because some of it is still in people's minds, and we have to get it from people's minds into different courses or curriculum, so it continues to allow us to scale the business from the 35 restaurants we once were here in Chicago, to a nationwide chain in so many different states.
So that's a key piece. And then second, expanding it to our restaurant Support Center in our commissary. So we continue to have one language in one approach of how we grow and develop our leaders across the organization. The experiences may be a little different based on call it a corporate headquarter or a corporate office environment versus a restaurant. But communication is communication. And so that expansion to include more leaders into this is something that we are continuing to explore.
Taking a step back, and looking at Ignite, and how it fits into the philosophy of Portillo's learning and development strategy, how do you see it being a part of the bigger picture?
Jill Waite (21:11): Our strategy is really founded based on our purpose and our values. When we took a step back and said, 'What do we want our learning and development philosophy to look like?' It was grounded on creating lifelong memories with our unrivaled food and experiences founded on family, greatness, energy and fun. And part of our greatness values, continuous improvement and part of the purpose of unrivaled experiences. So as we were in do create our curriculum, we say does this create an unrivaled experience that our leaders are going through? Are we instilling continuous improvement, which is a core part of our values as an organization, and it also stems from at the highest levels of the company. So our CEO very much believes in development.
So each of us as a senior team member has our own individual development plan that we review every quarter to see how we're progressing against it. And it includes things like exposure, experience, and education. Many of us have executive coaches to help us continue to grow and develop and become the best leader that we can be and that permeates throughout the organization.
So it's the fabric of who we are back when Dick founded the organization, and it continues to thrive with our current leadership team and our learning and development philosophy.
Felicia Shakiba: Well I see a very, very bright future for Portillo's considering all things you've shared today. So Jill, thank you so much for being here. This was a pleasure.
Jill Waite: Thank you. It's a bright future because of our 9,000 team members and the experiences that they provide and care for with our guests. So thank you. It's an honor to be here and to connect with you about this.
Felicia Shakiba: That's Jill Waite, Chief People Officer at Portillo's.
