Operators adopt corporate cultures to prevent racial tensions and foster inclusion

Racial conflicts rarely occur at the Red Lobster restaurant on the south side of Dallas, despite the diverse mix of employees, says general manager Vanessa Zachary.

Diversity programs tap the potential of a multicultural staff

The kitchen staff is almost entirely Hispanic, and the front-of-the-house is roughly 60 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic and 20 percent white. But seldom does Zachary have to reprimand anyone for prejudicial comments or behavior, she says.

Degrading epithets might be considered normal slips of the tongue outside of the restaurant but are not tolerated at work, says Zachary, a 23-year veteran of Red Lobster, the 650-plus-unit casual-dining chain owned by Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants.

“When you come in here, you have to be professional and act your part, which is to provide great customer service and be good to the team members you work with,” she says.

Diversity in the workforce long has been a hallmark of the industry, and it’s only going to increase, given current trends in population growth. Minorities accounted for nearly 40 percent of the U.S. workforce last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, foreign-born workers made up 15.3 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force aged 16 and older in 2006, up from 14.3 percent in 2005, according to the BLS.

The National Restaurant Association estimates that one in five foodservice workers was born in a foreign country. Given the industry’s projected growth in positions in the coming years, the employment ranks are expected to become even more diverse as more immigrants and women enter the workforce, the NRA says.

But while racial and ethnic diversity in the workforce usually is considered advantageous because it helps the industry better serve diverse customers, it also can prove contentious given the fast-paced, high-stress nature of the business. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and related state agencies handle on average more than 1,500 charges of race discrimination a year involving restaurants, and about 450 charges on average a year claiming discrimination on the basis of national origin. The numbers of cases has remained steady for the past seven years, even as the industry has become more diverse.

Some restaurant operators and managers, however, have found that the best way to keep the workforce melting pot from boiling over is to maintain an even-tempered workplace where inclusion instead of exclusion is the standard method of operation. Diversity workshops and training sessions, corporate philosophies and values statements, and caring attitudes toward employees can go a long way toward creating positive work environments.

“I think a lot of companies aspire to be in a situation [where they] know how to manage differences in a way that is culturally aware and culturally competent, but between the intent of doing that and the reality, the gap is wider than companies will admit,” says Eddie Pate, director of diversity and inclusion for Starbucks USA, the domestic division of the 13,000-plus-unit Starbucks Coffee Co., based in Seattle.

The workforce continues to change, and companies struggle with change, Pate says, noting that the latest projections are that by 2011, women, minorities and immigrants will make up 70 percent of America’s workforce.

At Starbucks, which has 130,000 employees in the United States alone, diversity education components are integrated into the regular employee and management training, Pate says. Behavioral testing for job applicants also helps managers avoid unintentional bias.

“We are slowly but surely creating knowledge and awareness about differences and the value different personalities and working styles and people of different cultural backgrounds bring to the table in terms of bottom-line success,” Pate says.

The restaurant industry has a better understanding today of the importance of a well-managed, diverse workforce, says Rogercarole Rogers, owner of RC Rogers and Associates, a diversity consulting firm.

Rogers is among the consultants that the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance recommends to help companies that want to improve or develop diversity training and programs. MFHA is a 10-year-old, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving diversity within the industry.

“We may not be where we might like to be, but we have become more enlightened as an industry, not only to the cost of turnover but to the hidden cost of turnover,” Rogers says. “The industry is trying to be responsive to retain individuals. So what are the things that help employees feel empowered in the workplace and valued and want to bring the best they have to it?”

Darden Restaurants puts its general managers through a two-day workshop in Orlando. The classes discuss the business case for having a racially and ethnically diverse workforce, such as the fact that a staff that reflects the demographics of a community can increase customer visits and help recruit more employees, says Cheryl Fowlkes, director of workplace diversity for Darden, which also operates the Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52 casual-dining chains.

The managers also spend time role-playing and doing exercises that are designed to heighten their empathetic connections with people, Fowlkes says.

“Darden has figured out the guest experience will never exceed the employee experience,” Fowlkes says. “How can you ask an employee to go out and treat customers with respect and a high level of service if he has just been yelled at in the kitchen, disrespected and told his opinion does not matter?”

In the workshops, general managers are encouraged to consider how they treat their employees, she says. Do they say hello to everyone? Do they try to get to know all their employees, and not just those they are more comfortable around? Do they make an effort to communicate better with employees who do not speak English well?

“The GM sets the tone from day one,” Fowlkes says. “The management team upholds the standards. They are by no means diversity experts, but we are going to ask them about their actions and how they role model and support diversity as a core value of Darden. We are going to ask them to uphold the standard around respect and caring.”

Clearly communicating company values that call for respect can help defuse tensions at the restaurant level, whether conflicts are racial or simple personality clashes, says Christopher Shand, director of human resources for Silver Diner Enterprises Inc., a 15-unit chain of diners based in Rockville, Va.

Based near Washington, D.C., the Silver Diner’s restaurants draw employees from more than 68 countries, Shand says.

“Our culture is our brand—contagiously friendly service, loving the guest and caring relationships,” he says. “We believe in valuing everyone’s cultural diversity. When you walk into a diner and you see every breath of nationality and ethnicity, it’s a really good feeling.”

To encourage acceptance among employees, individual Silver Diners hold international days for their staffs in which employees are invited to bring dishes from their countries or cultures to share with one another, Shand says. The company also hosts an annual managers’ dinner and encourages employees to come dressed in their native garb.

The Silver Diner chain offers courses in English as a second language to employees through an instructor who comes to the restaurants. The course is geared toward workplace English, and if employees want to pursue more English classes, Silver Diner will subsidize the cost so they can continue their education at an outside program.

“We’re very clear on our mission, values and brand,” Shand says. “If that piece is missing, it’s difficult for everything you do.”

Rosemead, Calif.-based Panda Express has 1,000 restaurants in 37 states, and Cyrus DeVere, vice president of field human resources, estimates that 80 percent of Panda’s employees can recite the fast-casual chain’s mission statement and the rest could summarize the gist of it, which is bettering people’s lives.

“It’s, ‘Deliver an exceptional Asian dining experience by building an organization where people are inspired to better their lives,’ ” DeVere says, rattling off the mission statement. “I’ve been here three years, and I’ve heard dozens and dozens of transformational testimonies of personal lives changed because somebody is taking care and time to develop them.”

Beyond the regular leadership and management training, Panda Express offers employees life skills classes for such activities as how to balance a checkbook, buy a home, or buy or lease a car.

Panda, founded by Chinese immigrants Andrew and Peggy Cherng in 1983, has become a racially diverse restaurant chain. DeVere estimates the workforce is roughly 40 percent Asian and 40 percent Hispanic, with blacks and whites making up the remaining 20 percent.

“Cultural diversity training or learning is really part of a bigger issue—developing one’s character and personal leadership,” DeVere says. “Discrimination, prejudice, favoritism—all the negative attributes associated with cultural diversity—are not acceptable behavior.”

Panda’s diversity was part of the draw for Kellen Allen, a general manager of the Panda Express in the racially diverse Stapleton neighborhood in northeast Denver.

His customers are Hispanic, black and white, and his staff is mainly Hispanic. Allen is black and speaks little Spanish.

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“It can seem challenging from the outside, but really once you work with a group of people, you get comfortable with them, even if there is a language barrier,” says Allen, who joined the chain a year ago, leaving a retail job for a shot at management. “You start to learn their style, their groove and they start to learn your managing style as well.”

Chefs, managers and owners must set the example for their employees, says Eduardo Perez, executive chef of Trattoria Del Lupa, an Italian restaurant owned by the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group and situated in the Mandalay Bay Resort Casino in Las Vegas.

Perez has worked for Wolfgang Puck’s company for 21 years. As a new immigrant from Guatemala, Perez landed a job as a gardener at Puck’s Spago in West Hollywood, Calif. His break into the restaurant business came when Spago’s dishwasher went on vacation.

Times have changed since he began working in restaurants, Perez notes. He was the first Hispanic to work all the stations at Spago except for the grill. That came at another Puck restaurant. Now he works mostly with Hispanics in the kitchen and a few whites, but everyone works well together, Perez notes. He trains and develops his employees just as he was trained, moving people up from dishwasher to line cooks to sous chefs.

“You have to be part of the team in running a restaurant like this,” he explains. “I tell these guys, ‘If you go down, I go down, and I don’t want to go down, so nobody is going down.’ We all help to make it happen.”

Ultimately, managing a diverse workforce comes down to treating people as people, says Dan Locke, a 23-year veteran with Red Lobster in the Long Island and Brooklyn areas of New York.

Locke is general manager of a Red Lobster in Brooklyn where 90 percent of the staff is black, 5 percent is Hispanic and another 5 percent is white, including Locke. Some employees are from Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and South Africa.

But as at Zachary’s Red Lobster in Dallas, Locke rarely sees racial conflicts in his store.

“When you see people as people, not as Asian or black or Hispanic, and you judge people on the job they do, people know that and feel that in their heart,” Locke says. “When they know they are not being judged because of the way they look or their sexual orientation or religion—that you respect them—they will work harder for you. They’ll give it their all even when you are not there. It makes all the difference in how you run your business.”