Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf finds fun is the key to retention
by Brooke Barrier
Reprinted with the permission of Nation's Restaurant News
Los Angeles- At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a quick-service coffeehouse chain based here, the phrase "Go fish!" has nothing to do with playing cards, but still connotes having fun.
The Fish! program, named after the fish throwers at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, is based on a management book by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen and incorporates the company's four core concepts: having fun, being present, playing and choosing an attitude. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, or CBTL, encourages its managers to create an entertaining work environment for employees and customers, including store-specific theme days and fun activities on Fridays, such as games like coffee craps.
"It helps [our employees] feel like individuals and have a great time at work," said Susan Allen, district manager of the north region. "It creates great teamwork, makes them think beyond the box and makes them feel like it's not just a job."
CBTL has nearly 400 stores worldwide, 190 of which are domestic. Hourly turnover currently hovers at about 94 percent, down from 200 percent in 1999, and management turnover is about 32 percent, according to Mike Serchia, the company's director of human resources.
"Turnover in this industry can kill you," he said. "We need to get a handle on it. We've found that if we can keep our people, productivity will be better, efficiency will increase and we'll keep our turnover down."
At CBTL, the focus on retention starts during the recruitment process, Serchia said. The company offers a "Day in the Life" program for prospective managers, encouraging them to spend up to four hours in a retail location to get a taste of the company's culture. CBTL also relies on interview questions based on a behavioral-based training program called FROTH, an acronym for friendly, respect, ownership, teamwork and honesty. The company uses these characteristics and the feedback it gets from the FROTH-based questions to determine whether applicants are a good fit for the company, Serchia said.
New employees are immediately shuttled into CBTL's comprehensive training program. "We take a lot of interest in people's development," Allen explained. "We place people, and then move them up based on their interests. We look to develop our people."
All team members complete about 40 hours of in-store barista training, which includes retail training, product knowledge, customer service tactics and becoming familiar with the store environment. New workers also complete a Fish class, which introduces them to the philosophy and encourages team building.
Managers go through a longer six-week training program. According to Serchia, during the past couple of years, CBTL has stepped up its management training, which now includes a shift supervisor-training program, a progressive management class and more one-on-one options. District managers currently are acting as coaches to help managers implement skills learned in situational leadership courses. And in 2003 the company debuted the Benny Buddy program, in which a member of senior management is auctioned off to provide guidance to a general manager.
"I think our training department has really identified what we need to do to provide a total quality experience to the customers and to keep getting them through the door," Serchia said. Currently, the training department is working on developing a customer service module.
In its training programs and throughout the company, CBTL encourages employees at all levels to speak out about their likes and dislikes.
"This company empowers people to give feedback on how we feel out there in the field and what needs to change," Allen said. "They ask for our opinion all the time and how can we do it."
Twice a year, upper management conducts roundtables with general managers to talk about store and company issues and brainstorm solutions. According to Serchia, CBTL also uses its FROTH survey to measure employee attitudes about communication, leadership, benefits and products. The company then calculates these scores and develops new programs to improve in these areas.
CBTL also offers a number of financial incentives to encourage its staff to stay with the company, including Team Bean, an employee referral program that gives workers the chance to make $150 to $500 in extra cash.
Brooke Barrier
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