Lettuce Entertain You is an independent restaurant group that owns, manages, and licenses more than 130 restaurants and employs over 7,000 people across a dozen U.S. states.
“We had a vision to dramatically improve our culture with open and honest communication, from our managers to restaurant staff and among frontline staff. UKG Talk not only fulfilled that vision but is a key driver of our culture and a vital component of our technology infrastructure to help us become a great place to work.”
Executive vice president and deputy general counsel at Lettuce Entertain You
Challenges
Recognizing that clear communication and a sense of belonging are fundamental to a successful workplace culture, the longtime UKG customer recently deployed UKG Talk across its locations as the best way to connect with its hourly workers and share information with them in real time, while also allowing them to engage with management and each other.
Solutions
“We had a vision to dramatically improve our culture with open and honest communication, from our managers to restaurant staff and among frontline staff. UKG Talk not only fulfilled that vision but is a key driver of our culture and a vital component of our technology infrastructure to help us become a great place to work,” said Ethan Samson, executive vice president and deputy general counsel at Lettuce Entertain You. “UKG Talk is fundamentally about peer-to-peer communication, so employees can communicate with each other inside or outside of work right from the app and feel a greater sense of belonging and community.”
Designed specifically to encourage collaboration amongst frontline workers and remote employees by giving them a voice, associates leverage UKG Talk as a place to discuss shifts and schedules as well as what is new in the restaurants. The mobile-first solution doubles as a communications hub for the restaurant group, allowing it to push important announcements to managers and employees within the flow of work, including open enrollment reminders or messages specific to their location or role.
Results
While UKG Talk is central to its employee engagement, Lettuce Entertain You is leveraging the power of its UKG Pro suite to further empower employees by giving them real-time access to schedules and easy-to-understand benefits information. Pro also allows the organization to be transparent around pay, which is especially important to the restaurant industry.
“Employees want to get paid, understand how they’re being paid, and know what their schedule is, and UKG has simplified all of that for our frontline staff,” said Samson. “In the restaurant industry, pay transparency is especially important because of the complexity of pay rules. Tipped employees need to understand their pay, including seeing tips reflected on their pay statements and viewing their pay breakdown from working different jobs. Giving employees easy access to pay and scheduling information in one place gives us a competitive advantage when it comes to retention and engagement.”
With restaurants in states where there are strict labor and Fair Workweek laws in place, Lettuce Entertain You says UKG provides peace of mind for managers as it gives them guidance to help build fair and equitable schedules in support of their people, while mitigating compliance risk. Employees can also be confident they’re being scheduled appropriately and paid accurately for the work they do.
“Having a solution as flexible as UKG is essential for us to meet the requirements of each state and locality where we operate,” said Samson. “When scheduling employees, UKG lets us know how far in advance schedules need to be posted, and we are prepared with a backup plan in the event our original plans change.”
