By Tracy Morin

Many independent pizzerias pride themselves on being the opposite of corporate. In fact, they’ll often insist, it’s their personal touch and family feel that sets them apart from the big-name competitors down the street. 

But don’t fall into the trap of believing that this approach exempts you from building and maintaining a strong corporate culture at your pizzeria—one that ensures both customer and employee satisfaction. If yours is lacking, and even if it isn’t, read on. We guarantee you’ll learn a new trick or two (or 10) from these operators who run a first-class corporate culture game.

Our Experts:
Alex Koons, pizza industry consultant, host of the podcast Pie.2.Pie, owner of Hot Tongue Pizza and co-owner of Purgatory Pizza, Los Angeles, CA

Eric Soller, founder, Old Scratch Pizza, Dayton, OH (four locations)

PMQ: What does a “thriving corporate culture” mean to you?

Alex Koons: Building a thriving culture has a lot to do with your personal belief system and is actually a very tough thing to establish. Anyone can write down a vision statement or some great inspirational dogma for the business culture, but you have to live it. You have to breathe it into the relationships that you make—inside and outside of the business. How you run your business is a reflection of yourself, so leading by example, constant accountability and empathy are the things that will help you truly build a culture where everyone feels safe and valued and enjoys coming to work, because they know it’s an authentic place with real people doing their best.

Related: Small but mighty: How two local independents differentiate themselves from the big chains

Soller: It means everyone in the company understands the core beliefs of the restaurant and company, and those are being reflected in all decisions we make and all actions we take. Everyone is walking the talk. If you don’t have a core belief structure around your company, you don’t have any consistent way to make decisions, and your people don’t understand why decisions are being made. We have a set of seven founding guidelines: kindness, customer service, personal accountability, higher standards, continuous improvement, simplicity and giving. We make sure managers and employees know and understand all of these.

PMQ: How does a strong corporate culture help attract and retain employees, ultimately translating to a better guest experience and more business success?

Koons: Having a cohesive culture and vibrant energy flowing through your restaurant makes the workday smoother. No one wants to feel bad at their job; you don’t want to hate where you work. That’s why it’s important to have clear policies, training and guidance, so people never feel lost or confused about what the expectations are. This can be overlooked when talking about culture, but it all blends together. A cohesive restaurant that communicates effectively and has policies set up for accountability will make it much easier for everyone to have a great time while doing their job.

Soller: We made the decision to make one of our store managers into education manager. We found a direct relationship between how much in-person orientation a person receives before starting a job and how long they stay and how successful they are in the job. So each employee gets nine hours of in-person, in-classroom orientation. It’s not just watching computer screens or reading manuals—they learn fundamental beliefs, like how the company is run and how it works, job positions, menu, flow. That commitment to starting people off on the right foot is unique in our industry. The more people busing tables are experts on the menu, the better experience they can give customers. We want all team members to be excited about their job, and nothing’s more exciting than being an expert at it. They love having that confidence.

Related: Hope for the hiring process: How Manizza’s Pizza finds the right team members

PMQ: How do you create a sense of community among staff?

Koons: I listen. I ask them how they’re doing, what they think, what they’re up to. You build relationships in the same way and try to make those relationships as real as possible. I want to be the same person I am at home as I am inside the walls of my restaurant.

Soller: Each of our individual restaurants has its own staff, but getting people together as a whole company is important. We have events like picnics and Halloween and Christmas parties. Our social media manager brings in staff all the time. We run contests for staff where they create social media posts; we have winners, but we end up posting most of them. 

The restaurant industry can be a notoriously crappy place to work—hostile, with transient workers—and we have 80% high school kids working here. So we make sure this is a place where people of all ages feel comfortable, and parents can trust their kids with us for long periods of time. 

The quality of kindness we emphasize makes such a difference in people’s behavior, and we have something for people to believe in. For example, we offer free soft serve for charitable donations, and we’ve raised $250,000 so far. Staff are part of that, and they want to be a part of it.

PMQ: What tips would you share about creating a great culture at the pizzeria—and then making sure everyone stays on the same page, without getting complacent over time?

Koons: Lead by example and create very specific expectations, checklists and guidelines for everyone at the shop. We make sure everyone stays on the same page through weekly check-ins, monthly touch-bases, employee meetings and a weekly newsletter.

Soller: We obviously want all of our managers to be good leaders, and that means leading by example. They have to not only be able to do their job but behave in a way that’s inspirational to employees. We have to create a healthy and positive environment. 

Our stores have employee information centers, with QR codes, for managers and other employees. We have 360 employees, and they can make an appointment with anyone—me, HR, the culture director—using preset times in our calendar, to talk about whatever they want. That’s valuable; people feel heard. The younger generation in particular can have a hard time directly confronting an issue, so having multiple avenues to talk is important. Other than meetings, we have ‘Say Something’ forms on our internal corporate website for comments, complaints and suggestions.

And we require all managers to do 15-minute check-ins with all employees each month, with a set of questions and talking points—not just about work, but: “How’s life? What are you interested in? Is there something you’d rather be doing at work? How can we help prepare you for the future?” Having one-on-one contact is key—we get such great feedback on that. Everyone wants to be heard and have people interested in them. We should be interested in our team members in ways other than just how they’re doing their job.

PMQ: Is there any other advice you would share with other pizzeria owners?

Koons: Don’t say one thing and do the opposite; be accountable yourself. You’re part of the team, too, so all rules should apply to you as well—even the smallest things.

Soller: There are so many things we do that contribute to culture. In order to make manager roles more appealing and show this can be a career, we limit managers to no more than 40 to 45 hours a week, with consistent days off and consistent schedules.

Every third month, each check-in is an evaluation with ongoing training initiatives to make sure people know how to progress. We use the Opus training platform so employees can install an app on their phone for courses, and we have a big vision for that. We’re building Old Scratch University—where the operations manager gives a course on leadership or I give a course on how the company works. It’s an extension of Old Scratch Fundamentals, with a series of customer service and position-specific training modules. For a company with four locations, we’ve made a pretty significant investment, but it’s paying off in terms of employee satisfaction and retention. People want to know what they’re doing right and what the measurements are for being successful.

Sidebar
The Pizza Power Forum: Power Players
Alex Koons, owner of Hot Tongue Pizza and co-owner of Purgatory Pizza in Los Angeles, will be a featured speaker at PMQ’s Pizza Power Forum, taking place September 4 and 5 in Atlanta. Here’s a look at the topics he’ll address:

Culture Is King: Attracting/Retaining Employees by Being Cooler Than the Competition (fireside chat)
Pizza & Beyond: Developing a Menu That Really Performs (panel session)
Marketing Masters: Making Your Brand Stand Out in a Crowded Field (panel session)