Appendix: understanding the employee of the future

Two US employees from each of the groups projected to be of greatest potential impact for the hospitality industry were asked the following questions:

The supervisors of these employees were then asked:

The variety of responses points up some of both the benefits and difficulties, for employees and management, in hiring members of these groups.

I started as a waitress, bartender, etc., and got into the management program about six years ago. As a manager, you have to go through all parts of the restaurant (bar manager, service manager, and kitchen manager) before you are promoted to general manager as Ron is. I've already been in all the positions, so kitchen manager is my last step.

I've been in the restaurant business all of my life. I started in this business when I was 16, and I enjoy the people side of it. It's a service I don't think is ever going to die away. People need to eat, they need to drink; they need to be pampered that way. It is not a phase that is going to go away. It was something I felt was very strong and stable for myself. I wanted to get into Bennigan's because it has an excellent training program to get i nto the restaurant business, so I know that if and when I decide to leave or go into business for myself, I have the background to back it up.

With Bennigan's, I feel that they treat me no differently, as they would any other manager. I don't feel that I'm discriminated against because I am a woman, but there is a very small percentage of women with Bennigan's. I've always felt that they could use more, but it takes someone who is real strong and is willing to work 60 to 70 hours a week. A lot of women can't handle this. I've seen a lot of women managers go through, and many leave for easier jobs. They're not looking for the long hours; it's not a job that's easily done.

I think that when they first meet me they don't quite know how to take me. Once they get to know me and I get to know them, they treat me just as well as any other manager.

I hold my own just as much as they can. If anything, I think they have more respect for me for being able to do the job that they can do. I'm not discriminated against at all.

I don't feel that I have any needs that are different from the other guys. I've seen a few women go through, and it really depends on your regional manager. Some might lean on women a little harder just to make them better managers. It's just a real tough job to get into. It's hard to explain, but I just don't feel that they do anything different for me. This company fills just about every need that I have. Every year we go to seminars where they stress quality of life and try to help us understand: this is what you need to do with your day; this is how you need to structure it. They are just really good about that here. If I was with another company I would probably have a few complaints, but not with Bennigan's. Still, they have about a 30 per cent turnover for management, so they try to do the best for the managers they keep.

Deb has been with the company for five and one-half years. She was a unit employee, waitress, and hostess for about three years. She got into the job not just because she was a unit employee for so long, but because she is a strong-personality person who can direct people.

I don't think that it makes a difference in my management style. I have had women managers before whom I did have to make adjustments for. Deb does not use her being a female as a crutch, or the opposite end where she uses it to bludgeon people with. She is a women and she is a manager; it really hasn't entered into things at all. If anything, she probably gets harder shifts than the guys do, because she is, at this point, one of my most capable managers. She is not favored or babied in any way, and I have had to do that with one assistant manager I had in the past who was not very strong willed and very emotional. That doesn't affect Deb at all.

I think when a new employee just comes into the store, and especially cooks, because Deb is my kitchen manager, cooks are not used to working with women kitchen managers. It is more of a rarity to work for a woman manager in the kitchen. When people first come in and start working, they are a little leery of what to expect. They're like: "A woman manager . . . Whoa! OK—" Once somebody has worked with her, though, I think they see her as hard but fair, so I don't think that she is treated differently at all. I've never seen any repercussions from the fact that she is a woman.

There is an advantage in the fact that she has a woman's point of view. When we sit down at our weekly meetings as a management team, having a woman's point of view is probably to our advantage, although I don't feel that there is a huge difference or anything, like we're the macho guys who say we've got to do things this way and she'd say, "No, I think we'll do it this way." If anything, she's probably more the macho female. I think there are advantages just because I think there is a good mix of personalities.

Disadvantages, in Deb's case anyway, are only very short term and that is, as I said, when people don't know her. There is some stigma attached to female managers. My mentor or first restaurant manager, who taught me everything I know, was female, so I'm very open to any point of view. So I don't have any preconceived thoughts, even though I've had woman managers who could not take the business and ended up quitting.

I think that nationally I would say it's pretty true that they do not have a large measure of success in our industry; whether it's because of the pressure or the long hours, I'm not qualified to say. But there is not a great number of females out there who are very successful in this business. I hate to think that it is just because they are females.

My experience is I've worked with six female managers now in my five and one-half years with Bennigan's, and they have all left the company except for Deb, and she will be a general manager. She will go all the way with the company because she has what it takes. She's been an assistant manager for two years now, and she's certainly not getting any special treatment. I don't see any advantages or disadvantages solely because she is female.

For every female manager I've had quit the company, I've had a male manager quit also because he couldn't handle it also. I would say that a greater percentage of females I've worked with have not made it for one reason or another, but maybe that's just because I've worked with fewer. For the six females I've worked with there's been thirty males. I don't see any real differences except in individual personalities.

I just applied for this job and I've had it for eleven months since yesterday. I do the laundry here. I was afraid when I first started because I don't speak English right. I couldn't understand everyone. But after that, everything was fine. Everyone was friends.

When I would talk, my boss would try to understand me and she would help me. She would say, "Talk slow and nice and everyone will understand you." That was good.

Nobody treats me differently here because I am from Mexico. Everybody is happy here so management doesn't need to do anything for me. I first started here on December 19th. In January, just two weeks later, my manager made me employee of the month. I was happy about that. We are a family here and I feel like an important person. I had to go back to Mexico for a wedding and they gave me time off with no problems. Everyone understands when you have problems here and that's nice. I'm here every day and I like it.

At first you don't feel comfortable because you work with black and white people. I was afraid they wouldn't like me because I am the only Mexican here, but everybody liked me. At first, there were four people in the laundry, then three, then two, and now I'm the only one. My manager knows I can handle it, and I like that.

When Solidad first came to this country, she couldn't speak any English and she was so ashamed. She didn't want to try to speak English because she was afraid people would laugh at her. Now she speaks pretty good English. It's a little broken, but you can understand every word she says. She's a beautiful person. All of the girls work together here, and that's nice. They don't resent me because I'm new. I'm nice with them and they're nice with me.

It doesn't make any difference in my management style that Solidad is Hispanic. Everyone is equal. Everyone is a person. I don't think the other employees treat her any differently either, not with her personality. I don't think you could.

She is a good worker. She's dedicated to her job, which is great. She's just a nice person to have around. I just met her and I like her so much. I think the majority of the problem with turnover of Hispanics is the language barrier. Filling out all that paperwork and communicating with people is difficult for them. I think that this holds back a lot of really good workers.

We need to let these workers know that we're here to help them and get them on the right road. Most of the bosses do this. When they hire a person, they're going to help them get ahead; I know they would. I've worked with a lot of Hispanics, and they really did get ahead, thanks to bosses and co-workers. Oh, yes, that means a lot! When you have the right people to work for it's good. This place is like a family place, but I can't say all places are like this.

I was referred to Fenway Park by one of the owners who was the partner to the gentleman who owns the place. I was the executive chef down at the Holiday Inn; now I am the kitchen manager here.

The main reason I chose to work here is because I got tired of the corporate hassles. I like it here because it's independently owned and it's a lot easier to work here.

I don't really feel that anyone treats me differently because I'm Hispanic. I've never really had that problem.

Management doesn't do anything special for me. Well, except that I do have a catering business on the side, and they do work with me on my hours, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm Hispanic.

I hired Al as kitchen manager on the basis of his qualifications, not on the basis of anything else. So the fact that he's Hispanic is not important. Al has good qualifications. He came through some of the local chain hotels like the Holiday Inn.

The fact that Al is Hispanic does not change my management style. It changes some of the conversation in that my management (style) is a personal one. Because I have some Hispanics working for me, I know some Spanish words so that I can go back in the kitchen and talk to them on a person-to-person or family-to-family basis. I'm Italian and they are Hispanics; therefore, I kid them a lot about my ethnic food, their ethnic food, and things like that. Hispanics are strong family-oriented people. They come from the basics of life and that's how I approach them. I don't treat them like they're automatons, because I think that when you get into such an impersonal management style, that's a completely different way than the way we do things here. We try to strive on a systematic basis here to achieve our goals, but on a person-to-person basis we're closer to the situation. So if they're Spanish or hillbilly American, when they come here we always try to relate to them and where they are from, what they've been doing, and what their life is about, as far as how they perceive life and work.

We do have problems when our kitchen balance is not right. We probably have a 50/50 ratio of Hispanics to Anglo-Americans. Then we get out of that balance and they don't work as a team; we've had problems with them saying: "Those Mexicans don't speak English, I can't get them to do any work, etc." This is when the white guys feel threatened in their jobs. They rile up, as a group, against the Mexicans because they are frustrated with their positions and they have to strike out at someone. The best way to handle this is to set them down and say: "You've got a problem; what is it?"

You only get that kind of discrimination when you group them. When you don't group them you can't discriminate against them because they're on an individual basis. We could group 18-to-21-year-olds and 21-to-24- year-olds, because I manage these two groups differently too. This is an independent operation, so on that basis, I have to manage on a personal basis. When you have high volume, you need to group people and apply strict management principles. We don't need to be highly regulated, but that's not to say I wouldn't like to be. The management style I have here puts me under a lot of pressure. I'm hopping around here so much I don't have much time to be creative. I'm not saying that's the right way to do things, because it's not.

If you have Hispanics working for you, you have to have all their papers in line for Immigration and that can be a problem. I have 20 employees and four of them are Hispanic. They have a better work ethic than most white Americans. They are filling the positions that most white Americans won't do. A white American looks at a dish- washing job as a temporary setback to something better. A Hispanic, on the other hand, may look at it as a step up from picking potatoes in the fields. Also, Hispanics are more stable. Where it might take a Hispanic two hours to wash ten trays of dishes, and it would take a white American one and a half hours, he will do it at a lower stress level, which means less chance of burnout.

The only disadvantage I find is the paperwork. As a small business owner, I have to keep up with every new law and regulation. Sometimes I can't do this and I get fined, and I can't afford that. This is the only deterrent I can find for hiring Hispanics.

I do the dining room, dishes, grill and salad bar. Dishes and grill are when I don't have dining room. I work four hours a day, six days a week. Actually, I work six hours a day on Saturdays. I saw an ad in the paper for this job. I answered the paper ad and got the job.

I've worked in fast foods of all kinds for the past forty years. This job was handy and close to home.

I definitely feel like a minority here. There is a real generation gap. The younger generation has a lot of different things that concern them than an older generation does, so I just plug on and do my work.

Oh, no, management doesn't treat me any differently. I work harder, though. That's because the younger ones really don't buckle down. The older people, I guess we're grinding the wheel a little more. I don't think I have any influence over them or anything; I just do my own thing and hope they help out.

Management hasn't really done anything special for me. I work like everybody else. I'm (also) handicapped, so that makes me a little different. I can't hear so I can't do cashier, I've got cataracts in both my eyes so I can't read the meters out there, and that's the main reason why I'm in dining room.

I'd like to see the younger ones pitch in and help a little more. They just walk by. There work is there, but I do a lot more work than I should. If there is a whole bunch of dishes stacked up, they don't put them away. Or if they are dirty, they don't think to wash any of them. That is not my main job. My main job is here on the floor, and when I see there isn't anything to do out here I help out in the back.

Basically, Charlotte came in and filled out an application and I hired her.

I don't think that the fact that Charlotte is older makes any difference as far as management goes. I manage each of my employees a little differently. They all have different personalities. Charlotte is old enough to be my grandmother, and I have to treat her with a certain amount of courtesy and respect. Sometimes, if she has a problem or needs help I treat her a little more gingerly, but basically I don't treat her any differently than any other employee. I try to find out what motivates my employees, what turns them on and what turns them off, what brings them up and what brings them down if they're too far up.

I think that some employees don't give her the courtesy and respect that she deserves. She hustles for any person. Nobody really gives her a hard time, but I think that some of them in their nonverbal communication won't give her quite as much. They don't go out of their way sometimes because they know that Charlotte will take care of things. I don't know if it's conscious, but I can see it. They don't have friendship or camaraderie because they don't have as much in common.

I try to treat everybody the same, but I try to adjust to the fact that she has different motivations; therefore, I try to work with those.

Charlotte works for about four hours and she hustles for four hours. Sometimes she gets tired and sits down for a couple of minutes, but that's very seldom. She's a very mature individual. If she calls in sick I know she is really sick. She knows the value of the job. She knows that if she calls in sick, then someone else is going to have to do her job.

I just came in and applied for the job, and they hired me.

It's right down the street from where I live. I need the extra money and it keeps me busy.

It's kind of hard working with all of these kids around here. Some of them work hard, but some of them don't pull their weight. I don't mind doing my job, but I don't like doing other people's work.

The kids all get along pretty well, but I don't talk with them much because we don't have much in common. So I guess they treat me kind of different.

I take the bus to work, and I have a hard time seeing at night. John understands, so he lets me work mornings so I get home before it gets dark.

I work hard, but sometimes I wonder if anybody cares. I know I'm not going to be moving up in the company at my age, but it would be nice if someone would tell me that I'm doing a good job.

We needed some people. Art came in and applied, and I hired him. He seemed like a pretty nice guy who wanted to work and would do a good job.

I treat Art just like everybody else. He does have some special scheduling problems, and he took longer to train because he moves a little slower, but now he's just like one of my other workers.

Art doesn't talk to the other workers much, but they seem to work together OK. He just goes about his work and does a good job.

As I said before, Art moves a little slower and his schedule isn't very flexible, but unlike some of my other workers, I think Art appreciates his job a little more. I can depend on Art to be here. He hardly ever calls in sick.

I was a resident at the (mental health) center and I wanted to get job placement, so I went to the student union and worked over there until they changed it. So then I had a guy named John I used to work for at the student union, until they moved me to Towers. At Towers I worked for Kurt, and then they moved me over here before they closed Towers.

I like to wash the dishes, the silverware, the pots and pans, and stuff. I'm pretty good at it. Nobody really treats me any different; I just go ahead and do my work.

Brent (the supervisor) doesn't ever go back to see what I'm doing. I put the pots and pans in with the dishes, and when I get caught up I do the silverware. I only get help in the afternoons. At breakfast I do it all by myself.

The only thing that I wish they would do better is to get someone to put away the groceries. I told him this on Monday. I said I would do the freezer in the morning and the next guy who comes in could do the walk-in storeroom. If I go do other things there would be nobody in the dish room. Sometimes all the people don't show up and I'm the only one who does so I do the work. I hold it all together here.

Frank has been a dishwasher here for eighteen years and seems reasonably content with it, which is pretty amazing in itself.

I have no idea how Frank got his job. ARA has only been here about six years, and before that the food-service was run by the university, and they hired him originally. I'm sure that the people who hired him are long gone by now. I believe that because of the targeted-jobs tax-credit program for hiring certain groups of people, the government will reimburse us and, depending on the cause, it can be a very large portion of their hourly wage. That helps us a lot.

Frank has got a couple of peculiar habits that I think require a little more patience than with other employees. He really enjoys rearranging things in the storeroom. We have a chemical storeroom where we keep all of our paper goods, soda tanks, those sort of things. Just about every day he will rearrange the whole thing, or he will rearrange the setup in the dish room. Fortunately, it's not the kind of thing that is going to throw the whole operation into confusion. He takes a peculiar sense of pride in doing this sort of thing, and he always wants me to come and look at what he's done and see if it's all right. I can't really put him off, because it's in my interest to just look at it right then and say: "It looks good, Frank." Otherwise he's after me the whole day. I just think he requires a little more patience, and that is no problem.

I don't think anyone really treats Frank any differently. He's got a couple of things that really work in his favor. Number one, he's been here so long. Second, he's our most regular employee. He takes the bus here, and he is always on time. He never misses one day. He does his job and he works really hard. I think he's got the respect of the people who work here, and he's treated like everybody else. I've been in a couple of situations before where I've worked with someone who is developmentally disabled and they haven't been treated as well. Generally, if you just treat them like human beings, they will perform.

I've found that as a rule, mentally handicapped people are my most reliable employees. It sounds kind of strange, but they almost don't know better to call in sick when they're not well enough to work. Frank is very reliable. He's always here, and I just can't say enough good about that, particularly in food-service, which is upset often by attendance and problems with turnover rate. It's really nice to have someone you know is going to be there and works really hard.

I think that with people who aren't mentally handicapped, it would be difficult to find someone who would be willing to work in that position for eighteen years. He's happy to work back there, and that's great. The only disadvantages I can think of are that I need to be a little more patient with him and explain things a little more carefully and thoroughly to him. But the small amount of time that that takes is not really a problem. The payoff is a lot better in the end, so I don't really consider that to be a disadvantage.

With Frank it's kind of a unique story. I don't really have to spend a lot of time with him, and I think that if and when I do, the people who work here know and appreciate what he does so much that there really isn't any resentment there at all.

I got hired by a manager named David. My friend Kathy is the one who suggested this place. I've been working here for six months and two years. I work in the lobby and I don't particularly like it. Nobody helps me when I need it. Mostly I'm by myself. I barely get any help when I ask. I talked to Theresa and the supervisor, Scott. They said Brandy would help me, but she hasn't helped me at all yet. I stay here because I need money and I'm afraid I won't get work anywhere else.

I just watched a tape for training and then I started working. I did not go through the McJobs program.

I feel like I'm just not part of their working team anymore. I mean, all they care about is themselves. When I ask them something, they just kind of ignore it like I'm not there. That makes me upset. My friend Laura says this place is a joke and managers don't care about anything but themselves.

The first few weeks that I started here was pretty nice. I got along. But since the corporation took over, things have been getting worse. Nobody helps me when I need it. I talk to managers about it, but they just seem to ignore it.

The days that my friend Kathy works I don't work, and the days that I work she doesn't. We're working together tomorrow and I'm glad about that. It's nice to have a friend around. When I'm by myself, things get difficult. Managers just don't care.

My mother drives me to work and I get off at two now. I have Sunday and Monday off, which I like, so at least they do that for me.

This location used to be a franchise, but the company bought it out. Nancy was here when we took over.

It takes two people to do the job when Nancy is working because she's a little slower than some people. We have another handicapped girl working in the lobby, and when they're working together it's OK, but when they work alone there is a problem because they are a little slower. Also, Nancy has a bad temper and you have to approach her a little differently.

I don't think other employees treat Nancy any differently because she's handicapped.

I think that hiring handicapped people looks good in the eyes of the public. We're an equal opportunity employer and when other people see that we hire handicapped people, they tend to visit the restaurant more often. It is a little more costly, though. You need highly productive people to work at McDonald's. It's a fast-paced place.

The Mcjobs program has a specific trainer who trains them and ships them out to other stores, and then we treat them just like any other employee. They get performance reviews, raises, they get reprimanded when they're late, like everybody else. I have a handicapped sister, and that helps me understand them better. Some managers just don't understand. They think they're a burden and not worth the trouble. It's really the personality of the individual managers that makes the difference.

Nancy is limited to just the lobby. It would take a lot of time and patience to train her on anything else. Maybe if she went through the McJobs program, she could broaden her horizons a little.

I met Bijan at the Harvest when I was working there, and he told me that he needed someone at Writer's Manor. I wasn't very happy at the Harvest so I figured I would try it out.

When I first started, I didn't like the job. I like it much better now that I feel like I know what I'm doing. I would like this job to lead into something else. This job is much better than the Harvest.

The fact that I'm part-time doesn't really affect my job. I believe that I do the best job that I can while I am there. I kind of feel inferior to people who have been there a while and work forty hours a week, but there is nothing I can do about that.

Other employees don't really treat me any differently. People who have been there a while sometimes don't know who I am and don't talk to me very much, but I know it will be a while before that happens.

Managers don't really treat me any differently either, because while I'm there I do my work. They expect me to do that.

I just asked management for one day off when I couldn't work because I am in school late. In that way they really accommodate my needs.

It really bothers me when Bijan watches me, because I just don't feel comfortable. Steven (the front-desk supervisor) just lets me be myself, but Bijan stands over my shoulder and he looks directly at me. He embarrasses me in front of the customers. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm new mostly.

I used to work with her at the Harvest restaurant, and she said she was looking for a job that was not that hard. If she wanted to go home early she could, and if it was real slow she could do homework. She came in and applied for the job, and she got it.

What I do with my part-time people is that they come in and tell me what hours they can work. Then I go to my schedule and if those hours will work, then I hire them. If they don't, then I won't hire them. Maria, for example, can't work Thursday nights.

I don't think that people treat Maria differently because she is part-time.

The advantages of Maria being part-time are that when things are slow you can usually cut part-time workers' hours. When things pick back up you can put them back on again. You can't do this with full-time people because that job is their life. They depend on that forty hours; that is their income. Cutting hours will not hurt a part-time person as much as it will a full-time one. The disadvantage to part-time people is you can't ask them to work extra days. They usually have other things they have to do. With full-time people, you can change their schedules around a little more. They don't usually have school or a second job or something like that.

In my experience, I have never had any special problems with my part-time people. I have heard that people have problems with loyalty of part-time people, but I have never had any problems with that.

Well, my sister worked here, and one day I just came in and Liz asked me if I wanted a job, and I took it.

I don't feel like anyone treats me differently because I'm part-time. There's not really any difference between part-time and full-time work, because when you're there you just do what you have to do.

Sometimes Liz has to fit in my schedule around school, but that's the only thing she really does. Management doesn't really need to do anything else, because everything is pretty easy here.

Audrey's sister worked here, and she came in with her mother, and I needed some dinner assistants. I thought it would be a good idea for Audrey to work a couple of hours a night, a few days a week, to make some extra money. It's hard to find part-time employees.

Originally, management had to make some changes for part-time employees. We work on a supervisory program here. I'm not required to be here all the time, but I would never leave Audrey here all by herself. There's really no point in teaching her how to open (the place) because she will never have to do that. She's come a lot further than I expected.

I think that part-time workers get jobs that others don't want to do. They get to do the bad jobs.

Audrey is restricted in her scheduling. I can work her weekends and nights. She has other pressures that restrict when she can work. It's very easy to get burned out here, but since she only works a couple of hours a day, that's not likely to happen. Also, since she is young, if she decides she wants to work more in the future, or in the summers, she already knows about the restaurant. 1