Question

Barcelona Restaurant Group is always trying to attract and retain only those employees who reinforce its service-oriented culture and provide top-quality customer service. The manager being interviewed in the video is constantly recruiting and hiring new employees and letting low performers and poor fits go. He also tries to provide job candidates with a realistic description of the company’s expectations to ensure that they know what they would be getting into if they took a job with the company.

Task: Read the “Barcelona” case below and then consider the following questions.

>> It's funny, when I got hired I had to define the philosophy. I figured the more I say it and the more I preach it and the more people I hire and tell that to, eventually that would happen. And I think we're getting there three years later. Human resources is one of the most important things we do in our business. You can't train people to be enthusiastic, nice, fun, great people. We have to hire that. And this is a transient business. So, people are constantly moving. So, the minute you stop looking you're actually sliding backwards. So, we're always hiring. And we're always firing. My name is Scott. I'm the COO for Barcelona Restaurant Group. I think in the three years I've worked here only one or two managers out of quite a few have quit. However, we've turned over probably 60 to 70% of management in the past three years. And that is because we were not afraid to let people go. We demand a certain level of quality. And we're continuously raising the bar on what our expectations are. And the other thing is this is a high burnout business. People burn out. Somebody who was great a year ago may not be great this year. You guys are famous for friendly service. I mean this is how you built the business. This is how you guys went from a losing restaurant to a restaurant that is making money that's in the game with everybody else. And I'm getting some signs. They did not feel welcome by D.J. They love Barcelona, but they said it just didn't feel like Barcelona to them.

>> That's what they perceived it to be. That is what it was. I'm not, I'm not denying that from any standpoint. I just saw him hustling and doing a really good --

>> Well, let's put it another way. D.J. can be good. Right now he's not. So, Yeah, so have somebody else there or make him real good, real fast.

>> If you think it's somebody who's got, you know, who has got the ability, happy in the kitchen, then you owe it to them to spend a night, two nights, three nights glued to them. Figure it out.

>> So, we got to just double our efforts. Does everybody have a Craigslist ad in right now for servers?

>> I need bussers. I just hired servers. I need bussers.

>> OK. We're always hiring. We're always, keep the ads running. That's our philosophy. We're always bringing in. We're always calling out the bottom 20%. There's always somebody better out there than our worst servers. I have an interview every day. I interview people every single day. You guys should be too. That's how you get better. You hire your way out of your problems because we can train people all day, but we can't find happy people with good attitudes. We can't train that into people. Either they are or they aren't. Human resources is the biggest thing we do. And I really think for any company that is involved in customer service it is the most important thing you can do is have the right people in front of your customers. You don't have to have the greatest resume in the world to make it into the interview. I'll have as many as four to six interviews a day. They last 20 minutes. I don't take a long interview. I don't take a long interview because I don't believe I get anything out of the actual conversation. I've hired too many people that I thought were amazing in an interview, and they ended up being a dud and vice versa. I do more talking than they do quite often in the interview because I am trying to just kind of get across the philosophy, who we are, what we're going to do, and I've got the spiel pretty well nailed now. But my process is a three-stage process. Interview them. Send them out on a shop. I send prospective management, whether I like them or not, even if I know I'm not going to hire them I still send them on the shop. And I give them $100 allowance and tell them to go out to the restaurants, one or two of the restaurants if possible and eat a few tapas, sit down, have a couple drinks, and write me an essay. It lets me see what is important to them within the restaurant because I think we, as professionals, in this industry cannot just go to a restaurant and not pay attention to what's going on whether, it drives my wife crazy, but I see everything. And I have to make a conscious choice not to get annoyed by it. So, I try to tap into that with our candidates. I also get a sense of their level of education, of their intelligence, of their ability to complete a task. There's a lot of other ancillary things that come out of that process, how long it takes them to do it, whether it's two weeks later, whether it's the next day, how excited they are. And I think they get something out of it too because sometimes these candidates come in blind. They don't know our restaurant group or, you know, they might be from New York. They might be from somewhere else, and they're driving in for the interview. So, this introduces them to the brand. So, they're learning about us at the same time. If it's a good shop, it doesn't have to be a great shop, if it's a good shop I'll go to the Stage 3, which is I want you to pretend like you've worked for us for six months, and I want to see who you are. I want to see you commanding the floor, making friends with the guests, talking to the staff. I want to see who you would be for me. If they do a good job on that, at that point we start talking about a job.

>> Would you pass your own test? Would you hire you?

>> That's a good question. I think I would. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I would have the floor presence that I demand out of my managers. I am not sure that I would be a great floor manager for Barcelona.

1. (a) How does the Barcelona Restaurant Group focus on fit?

     (b) What types of fit does Barcelona try to optimize when hiring?

    

2. (a) How does sending managerial candidates on a $100 “Shop” serve as an RJP?

     (b) Explain why you think this would or would not be effective in helping job candidates assess their fit with the Barcelona Restaurant Group.

3. (a) Besides the “Shop,” how else does Barcelona try to maximize employee fit?

     (b) What other suggestions do you have for the company to improve new hires’ fit with the job and organization?

Answer 1

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1. (a) How does the Barcelona Restaurant Group focus on fit?
    (b) What types of fit does Barcelona try to optimize when hiring?

Barcelona focuses on fit by attempting to hire employees who already possess the right qualities rather than attempting to train those qualities into their existing employees. Barcelona seeks employees who are happy and exude a positive attitude to customers. Prospective employees who have these qualities exhibit person-organization fit: the fit between an employee and the philosophies of the organization. At the same time, person-job fit – the fit between an employee and her position within the organization – is also crucial, as Barcelona managers aren’t shy about firing underperforming employees.

2. (a) How does sending managerial candidates on a $100 “Shop” serve as an RJP?
    (b) Explain why you think this would or would not be effective in helping job candidates assess their fit with the Barcelona Restaurant Group.

The “Shop” is an assignment in which prospective employees must spend $100 at a Barcelona restaurant or two and write an essay about the experience. The purpose of a realistic job preview is to present both positive and potentially negative information to job candidates in order to provide accurate information, build trust, and (perhaps most crucially) reduce turnover from employees who quit the job because it wasn’t what they expected. The “Shop” experience demonstrates to the prospective employee the level of customer service that will be expected of them should they accept a job with Barcelona. There can be no better way of conveying the nature of a job than to allow the prospective employee to witness it first hand, so the “Shop” appears to be an effective method.

3. (a) Besides the “Shop,” how else does Barcelona try to maximize employee fit?
    (b) What other suggestions do you have for the company to improve new hires’ fit with the job and organization?

After the “Shop,” Barcelona attempts to maximize employee fit by asking prospective employees to pretend that they have been working for the restaurant for six months and take a tour of duty as a floor manager. This exercise gives the employer a clear picture of who they’re going to get if they close the deal on the hire.

In this author’s humble opinion, one way to promote employee fit at Barcelona would be to have all prospective new hires watch this video. Not many people would want to work for an employer who appears to be proud of having 60 to 70 percent turnover in the elusive pursuit of ever-better employees, but the kind of person who would relish the challenge would probably be a great fit for Barcelona.

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