Brand management | KRG Hospitality

Leadership Facepalm, Part Three

by David Klemt

We almost got to next year without another viral leadership facepalm moment but then an Olive Garden manager sent a memo.

In case you’re unaware of the now-infamous Olive Garden memo, here’s a recap:

Zero tolerance for calling off.
Sick team members must come in and prove they’re ill.
If someone’s dog dies, they must bring the dead animal in to prove its death.
Family emergencies are not private and must come with an explanation.

The manager who authored the memo also takes time to boast about their perfect attendance record.

For the curious, the first entry in our leadership facepalms is here. Part two is here.

The Letter

Below you’ll find the letter, addressed to “ALL Team Members.” To read it in its entirety, click here.

“Our call offs are occurring at a staggering rate. From now on, if you call off, you might as well go out and look for another job. We are no longer tolerating ANY excuse for calling off. If you’re sick, you need to come prove it to us. If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us.”

I highly doubt that’s Olive Garden or Darden policy.

“If its a ‘family emergency’ and you can’t say, too bad. Go work somewhere else. If you only want morning shifts, too bad go work at a bank. If anyone from here on out calls out more than ONCE in the next 30 days you will not have a job.”

It doesn’t get any better when the manager brings up their own track record:

“Do you know in my 11.5 years at Darden how many days I called off? Zero. I came in sick. I got in a wreck literally on my to work one time, airbags went off and my car was totaled, but you know what, I made it to work, ON TIME! There are no more excuses.”

Interestingly, the manager implies they’re speaking for all the leaders:

“Us, collectively as a management team have had enough.”

A Breaking Point

First, I’m not pretending a staggering amount of operators, leadership teams, and team members aren’t at their breaking points. The labor shortage and staffing struggles are a real crisis in our industry (and others, of course).

Second, I’m not suggesting that operators and their teams aren’t justified in their frustration and anger.

If we’re to accept just this year’s reporting alone, it appears many people are comfortable being rude to service workers. It’s a disturbing trend, and it’s motivating people to leave public-facing roles. As they’re leaving, many are swearing off the hospitality industry entirely.

Third, I think the memo above highlights our need to address mental health in this industry. Sure, it’s easy to write this manager off as a jerk and terrible leader. But what if we look at this through the lens of stress?

The memo could easily be the manifestation of a breaking point. It’s also possible the entire management team was behind this email.

Damage Done

Let’s look at this situation solely as an example of poor judgment and leadership. Imagine the damage it could do to any restaurant or bar, chain or independent.

What do you think a memo like this does to the ability to recruit? To retain? How does such an email do anything but exacerbate labor problems?

Darden, Olive Garden’s parent, went into crisis management mode when this memo went viral. It appeared on Reddit, was picked up by news outlets and other websites, and exploded.

Ultimately, Darden terminated the manager to whom the memo is attributed: “We strive to provide a caring and respectful work environment for our team members. This message is not aligned with our company’s values. We can confirm we have parted ways with this manager.”

The Olive Garden location in Kansas where this situation took place may recover. They’re a large chain, people tend to have short memories for news, and regulars will likely stay loyal.

But what if this occurred at an independent restaurant? The damage could be irreparable.

Work Culture

Now, it should be obvious that from a simply operational standpoint, this situation highlights an unhealthy work environment and culture. That should go without saying.

So, instead I want to say something else.

Operators need to check in with their team members. Leaders, front of house, back of house—everyone. Stress levels are reaching breaking points and every one of your team members needs to know they matter, they’re safe, and they’re supported.

Check in. Survey your team. Be empathetic. And if you’re an operator, you need a support system of your own.

Being a leader doesn’t mean being infallible. It’s not poor leadership or weakness to admit you need help.

Image: Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

How Not to Handle a PR Crisis: Boston Market

by David Klemt

So, you boasted about a significant boost in sales linked to one of America’s biggest holidays and then under-delivered to a catastrophic degree.

What do you do?

Certainly not what Boston Market did and is still doing: Proceed with your Thanksgiving-themed social media campaign and remain silent on your reported failures.

Last week, on Thanksgiving Eve, Randy Miller, president of Boston Market (which reportedly received a PPP loan of $5-10 million), told CNBC that Thanksgiving sales were up approximately 172 percent compared to 2019.

There are 346 Boston Market stores in the United States. Pop open Twitter, search “Boston Market,” and check out the tweets from about November 21 to today.

Twitter users, some of whom claimed to have spent $300 or more on preordered and prepaid Thanksgiving meals prepared by Boston Market, experienced a range of issues when they went to pick up their orders.

Tweets and reports abound of Boston Market customers experiencing one or more of the following:

Waits of up to three hours (if not longer). In a pandemic. On Thanksgiving Day.
Incomplete orders. Supposedly, this was due in some situations because walk-in guests were permitted to place orders they received before those waiting in line for preorders which, again, were paid for in advance.
Unprepared orders. Some Twitter users claimed they were given frozen or raw items to prepare themselves.
Missing orders. There are claims that some customers arrived to pick up their orders only to be told it wasn’t there.

Of course, that’s not the complete list of issues reported by Twitter users. Other tweets—and there are a lot—claim that people placed preorders, paid for them, and then received messages canceling their orders. Some of those cancellations allegedly occurred on Thanksgiving Day—and without refunds.

And what has Boston Market done so far? Continued to tweet on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the following Sunday. Those tweets are still up, with a November 29 tweet about the final day of their Black Friday deal being the most current.

At the time of publication, there’s no tweet addressing Boston Market’s apparent Thanksgiving debacle. But there are plenty of replies with messages like this from one user:

“It’s not a happy thanksgiving when you tell us to wait in a very long line our Thanksgiving order that WE PAID $140 – and we’re here during our window.”

And this one, from a user who shared an image that purported to be of their $175.30 order:

“I’d be thankful if I could have waited in line for 2 hours to pickup our family’s Thanksgiving day meal. Unfortunately, the food was paid for, but never delivered to us. We’ll be eating sides from the grocery. Thanks Boston Market.”

The situation is no better on Instagram, with one user there commenting, in part, “Boston Market has taken NO RESPONSABILITY for the Thanksgiving disaster.” (Emphasis theirs).

Perhaps Boston Market is addressing or has already addressed affected customers offline. Perhaps some of the tweets weren’t real and posted by trolls doing their troll thing. Not everything, it turns out, on the Internet is real.

Boston Market still needs to release an official statement addressing what happened to many of their guests on Thanksgiving. That statement needs to be accompanied by social media posts.

How negative an impact Boston Market’s silence will have on their bottom line moving forward remains to be seen. However, as most owners and operators of customer-facing businesses know, an apology and offer to make things right goes a long way. Simply acknowledging a problem occurred and vowing to look into it can keep a bad situation from devolving further.

Saying nothing? Not a winning strategy.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash