It is often said that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. In the United States, the unemployment rate is currently seeing record lows, making retention more important now than it’s ever been. And even when unemployment is high, finding, hiring, and training new talent is an expensive and time consuming effort.
There are few places the pain of constant hiring is felt more acutely than in the high-stakes quick service restaurant (QSR) industry, where average turnover recently topped 150%. And with the labor market tightening, brands with lower employee satisfaction rates are facing particularly strong headwinds.
While raising pay can help, it isn’t the entire story. In an analysis of Glassdoor data conducted by UBS Evidence Lab, some QSR brands saw employee satisfaction rates drop by as much as 3% despite increasing average wages.
As it turns out, recognition is an essential method to motivate and ultimately retain your most valuable employees. A study conducted by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, 50% of respondents reported “feeling appreciated” was a critical driver of their job satisfaction.
Recognition has always been core to the Crew product experience. Gold Stars allow for managers and peers to recognize one another for the great work in a highly visible and authentic way. 73% of Crew users say that the Crew app makes them feel more motivated at work, and Gold Star recognition is an integral part of that.
That’s why today, we’re excited to expand this powerful recognition platform to the Command Center, enabling large enterprise organizations to manage employee recognition across dozens or even hundreds of store locations.
Recognizing Employees via Command Center
Recognition is especially valuable to frontline employees when it comes from above-store leadership. In the past, the process for distributing Gold Stars to employees has been onerous at best, requiring district, area, and corporate leaders to log into each store’s organization from the mobile app to distribute Gold Stars to employees.
Now, Command Center gives above-store leaders the ability to dig into the employee list and distribute Gold Stars directly from the Manage Orgs tab.
Providing Context for Recognition
Another top request from clients is the ability to provide a brief explanation as to what the employee being recognized did to receive the Gold Star. Now, this is possible using command center. Simply type in a brief description of the great work your employee did, and it will appear directly in the app experience connected to the Gold Star, inspiring other members with an example of this great work.
Viewing Store-Level Leaderboards
Finally, Command Center now allows above-store leaders to see the individual leaderboards for each of their stores, giving you the tools you need to identify and elevate top performers in your stores. You can choose to see the leaderboard for this month, last month, and all time, providing a more longitudinal view of your best employees as you consider promotions and identifying possible mentors for newer team members.
All of these features are live today in Crew’s Command Center. Contact us here if you’re interested in learning more about what our enterprise capabilities can do for you.