Friday, November 10, 2006
The Chick-fil-A Way: Invest in Your Employees
Lisa Fairfax had an interesting post on Conglomerate yesterday discussing the fast-food chicken restuarant, Chick-fil-A, and its focus on developing its employees. Here is some of what Lisa had to say about that corporation's pro-employee management philosophy:
[Founder, S. Truett] Cathy focuses on investing in people early. Hence, the company provides college scholarships to employees--something many other companies do. However, the company also seeks to give all of its employees the ability to have some ownership-type interest in the company. Not through stock options, but through operating franchises. To that end, the company invites any employee interested in operating a franchise to its corporate headquarters to learn about the company. Chick-fil-A also seeks to make franchises affordable in a variety of ways. And according to the article, franchises are typically only $5,000. Apparently as a result of these efforts, 65% of Chick-fil-A franchisees worked for Chick-fil-A in high school or college. Also, employee turnover at Chick-fil-A is only 3.5%. In Cathy's view these extra efforts with employees translates into more satisfied employees, customers and ultimately a higher profit.
PS
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2006/11/the_chick_fila_.html