How Sizzling Platter is Investing in Brand Culture to Create a Happy Workplace

A business is nothing without its employees.

The executives at Sizzling Platter, the restaurant group that includes brands like Wing Stop, Little Caesars, Dunkin’ and Jersey Mikes, understand this and have made significant strides to ensure that employee satisfaction remains high amidst a gloomy labor market in the service industry.

While other businesses struggle to find quality talent and retain their employees, Sizzling Platter ensures its brands are safe from the “quiet quitting” phenomenon, explained Jim Balis, managing director of CapitalSpring Strategic Operations Group, a partner of Sizzling Platter.

The company has restructured its focus to put its people first and improve employee satisfaction. The result? The company has seen success in other areas as well.

“We have launched this project investing in our people. Over time, they are more engaged, and you retain more people, and they then deliver a better guest experience, which creates better business. And then we take that success received from more frequent guests and invest in our people again,” Balis said.

Sizzling Platter hired over 21,000 people in the last 13 months and wants to ensure that they stay and are happy and fulfilled in their positions. To help foster that environment, the company has initiated several ways to gauge the happiness of its employees.

The brand conducts quarterly surveys and asks employees for feedback upon clock-out to continually assess the restaurant culture and identify areas for improvement. It is offering paid educational and training modules on topics like personal development, launching educational subsidy programs and looking into creating customizable insurance benefit offerings.

“We need to understand if we're treating our people correctly and showing that we care about them,” Balis explained. “This feedback will offer a way to see how we can improve their work environments.”

Sizzling Platter is also adding culture-building efforts like casual days where employees can opt for jeans and a t-shirt instead of their uniform, and doing small group bonding events for each location, like pizza parties or bowling.

The company is also launching several incentive programs based on sales building, cleanliness and workers' safety. There will be healthy competition between restaurants in each district, and monetary compensation for employees will be paid out every four weeks.

Balis said that the brand already sees a positive impact from these changes implemented.

“We've already seen an improvement based on the survey results. We definitely see a reduction in turnover,” Balis said. “We hear from the field that everybody feels good about what we're doing. It's been fulfilling for the managers, and they say it's noticeable among team members.”