Ex-Taco Bell, Portillo’s execs: Strength of unit-level staff to be greater determiner of success going forward

Lisa Jennings, Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality executive editor, moderated the discussion involving Jill Waite, chief human resources officer for Portillo’s, whose restaurants generate NRN-calculated sales per unit of more than $8 million, and Frank Tucker, a 27-year Taco Bell Corp. veteran, who, until his retirement in March, was that chain’s global chief people officer. With her brand having ultimately defined its values as treating employees and guests as “family,” aspiring to “greatness,” working with “energy” and having and creating “fun,” Waite said leadership leveraged those concepts and “spent a lot of time helping our team members understand why they may want to work for Portillo’s. Waite agreed with Tucker that there likely was “no silver bullet” for successful future recruitment and reported that among the insights Portillo’s has recently gleaned from desirable job candidates, were these: today’s candidates want to know that they are signing on with a stable company; they want assurances that “they will be safe and not exposed” to coronavirus out of concern for their own health or a family member’s; and that they believe corporate culture is important, as is “knowing that the leader they are working for and with, is also somebody who cares about them personally and professionally.”