Chain Choices:
- Outback Steakhouse
- Houston’s Restaurants (Hillstone Restaurant Group)
- Cheesecake Factory
- Chili’s Restaurants (Brinker)
- Olive Garden or Red Lobster (Darden Restaurants)
- Mimi’s Cafe
- McDonald’s
- In-N-Out Burger
- BJ’s Restaurants
- Islands Restaurants
- Buffalo Wild Wings
- Panda Restaurant Group
- Chipotle
- Chick-Fil-A
- Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Restaurant
- Your choice
When trying to determine whether one particular company would be a better fit for you than another, benefits can be overlooked in the excitement of getting your first management job.
The objective of this assignment is to become aware of the incredible range of management benefits with their relative importance to you. Often, management and employee benefits play a large part in the retention of both management and employees. Unfortunately, many companies only give the minimum benefits, but you might not realize this until you have other experiences with other companies that you can tell one company from another.
You’re going to look at employee benefits too since when employees have excellent benefits, this makes your job as managers that much easier.
The Benefits Assignment
IMPORTANT: Look at your company from the perspective of an about-to-graduate applicant for MANAGEMENT.
Choose two restaurant chains and research their benefits by talking with managers, searching their website, Yahoo.com/finance, Glassdoor.com, analyzing annual reports, etc.
PowerPoint slides Maximum of 20 minutes (max team TBD)
- First slide – members of team and name of companies
- Second slide – a little about each company – where is HQ, how many restaurants does each have now, how many did each open last year, how many does it plan to open next year, what were for its last 3 years and salary of CEO
- Make 1 or 2 PowerPoint slides to discuss with class with your grade for each point below.
- Promotion possibilities – if chain is opening more restaurants, then definitely has promotion possibility. How many restaurants did it open last year and how many projected to open next year? How many units are there currently?
- Salary range
- Bonus possibilities
- Prestige
- Location/transfer
- Culture/Environment/Pride
- From information that you can get, discuss why you think eac company believes (or doesn’t believe) in work-life balance. (State where evidence come from. Website, discussions with managers, Glassdoor.com, etc.)
- What is the most exceptional benefit (if any) that each company offers for management?
- What are the top 5 (or more) benefits that each company offers management
- Discuss the benefits offered to its employees and give a grade with reasons.
- Last slide. Give overall grade of A, B, C, D, or F with 3 biggest reasons for each company based on why your team thinks it would (or wouldn’t) like to work there after graduation.
A I want to work here! It’s perfect!
B Good job. Checks most of the boxes
C OK job. Probably only for short term.
D Beats nothing. Pays for my car. As soon as I find something even a little better, I’m gone.
F No way. I’d rather stay in my parent’s basement eating ramen and playing
Fortnight.
Use below as a rough guide of the range of benefits available.
At a minimum, you would expect the following management benefits:
- 2 weeks vacation
- 401 (k) — company does not contribute
- Some kind of medical coverage (possibly with high deductible or with high monthly costs.
- Bonus of some kind
- Management training
Employee benefits:
- Meal discount
Some examples of Better would be:
- Stock options
- Medical coverage with low deductible
- Dental and vision coverage
- 401 (k) –company contributes
- Good bonus
- Personal days off/sick days
- 2 days off in a row per week
- Some weekends off per month
- Rapid merit promotion
- Pride in the company (great culture)
- Great employee benefits
- Extensive management training
- Meal discount when off duty
- Clear career path
- Transfer or stay in location-your choice
Employee benefits:
- 30 day schedule
- Part time stays part time
- Potential for management
- Fully paid meals while working
- Paid vacation
- Health care (employee and employer paid)
- 401 (k) (just available)
Some examples of Exceptional:
- Culture (exceptional culture)
- Paid fitness club membership
- Paid child day care
- Very significant bonus
- Car
- 401 (k) company matches or better
- Lifestyle that is unusual for restaurants – great work/life balance
- Sabbatical
- Potential for ownership
- Exceptional management training and management development
Employee benefits:
- Profit sharing
- Paid college tuition
0 comments