Employee Experience at Besk
Project took Place in July & August 2019
Background
Hospitality is a business venture for the brave. Being successful in hospitality requires deep knowledge in food and beverage, business fundamentals, customer service, and building a team.
In 2019, Besk’s owners took on the challenge of gutting and rebuilding a 1920’s heritage building to create a new local. It would be a bustling neighbourhood bar, bottle shop, and kitchen – inviting, comfortable, and capable of hosting upwards of 300 patrons. At the time, West Leederville was a sleepy suburb and the community was longing for a collective space.
The completion of the major construction work dictated the opening date. On opening night, all eyes would be on Besk and the team would have a fleeting opportunity to make a good first impression. Shelves need to be stocked, menus tested, playlists complied, and a brand new high-performing team onboarded.
Recruiting, onboarding, and training 60 employees in an 8-week timeframe required well-designed processes which leveraged technology at every turn. Besk’s offering is brave, approachable, minimal, fun, and all about good design - the employee experience would be no different.
In mid-2019, we lived ignorant of COVID-19. Zoom wine-tastings hadn’t been invented yet and video interviews were foreign to most job-seekers. There was available talent in the market and plenty of thirsty customers. The key challenges were time, budget, and the naturally high staff turnover in the hospitality industry.
The Approach
Excellent customer service in hospitality is about the one-percenters. It's the subtle body language of the bartender. It's the insightful answer to an obscure question about the building. It’s being able to explain exactly which region in France that Chablis is from.
The brief for this project was to design a recruitment, onboarding, and induction experience which built a quality team and paved the way for amazing customer service. Weaved into the employee experience were nuggets of information which would, down the line, delight a customer (i.e. did you know this venue used to be a printing shop?)
The aim was to give candidates a unique, unconventional, personal, and professional experience (which is not exactly commonplace for hospitality). Being the first foray into hospitality for the two owners, we had the opportunity to design the experience from scratch. We could throw out the playbook and make our own rules; this became our strategic advantage.
“How can we design an employee experience which forms the foundation of an amazing customer experience?”
The recruitment, onboarding, and induction process needed to be informative, engaging, practical, fun, scalable, and sustainable. The management team at Besk were extremely stretched leading up to the opening. Good use of everyone’s time and money was a non-negotiable.
Snapshot of project
60 new team members required
20 full time positions and 40 casual positions
Build teams in the font of house, bottle shop and kitchen
8-week timeframe between advertising roles and opening night
The Design
The design of this employee experience used storyboarding, empathy mapping, personas, and human-centered design principles.
Technology will do the heavy lifting
We toggled on and off specialised online tools throughout the process. These online tools help managed the tsunami of 1000 applications then aided quick decision making and communication. The applicants were tech-savvy and comfortable with intuitive online platforms. The online interviews alone saved over 50 hours of the team’s time.
Inject human
Although technology played a big part in the design, a human-centred approach created moments that matter. When we anticipated that the candidates would be feeling nervous, a phone call or face-to-face meeting was strategically planned to keep nerves at bay. In training, the new staff walked through a customer journey to build empathy and understanding.
Candidates to self-select
A tight deadline and a volume of applicants meant that we needed candidates to help. Intentional barriers were created so that the less serious candidates dropped away. Parts of the process were very detailed (application form) or unenjoyable (video interview). Our ideal candidates are confident and passionate about working at Besk and they jumped through the hoops.
Location agnostic
In a construction timeline, almost nothing goes to plan. Factored into the design was the very likely fact that the physical venue would not be accessible until opening day. Where possible, information was shared online. Each applicant got a sneak peek at the construction site and copies of the floorplans.
Ramp up then maintain
This project was a once off. Yet a version of recruitment and onboarding was going to be needed long after opening day to keep a steady flow of new team members coming through the door. This requirement for longevity shaped decisions on which tools were core, and which were for the opening period only. Down the track, an administrator would be overseeing the execution of these steps.
Design for the personas
The personas in this project have one thing in common. They are passionate about hospitality. The experience was designed with the following personas in mind:
SAM: The Casual
19-25 years old
Works 2-4 evening shifts
Completing studies
No workplace expectations
Tech-savvy
New to beer & wine
Rory: The Full Timer
25 – 35 years old
Works 45 hours/week, days & nights
Career hospo
Has worked in numerous venues before
Tech-savvy
Loves natty wine and craft beer
Mariana: The Chef
25 – 45 years old
Works 45 hours/week
Works nights and weekends
Been in the industry a long time
Move jobs frequently
Passionate about food
Moderate tech-savvyness
Overview of Timeline
Advertise
We met our target personas on Instagram and Facebook. Venue photography and short captions aimed to captivate attention with a simple call to action.Apply
To apply for a role, candidates completed an online application form which was embedded into the website. Candidates self-sorted through multiple-choice questions on the application form. We were able to use the data by sorting according to availability, skills, certifications, and more. This approach saved time but also asked candidates to put in time and effort.See current online application form here. https://www.besk.com.au/work-at-besk
Phone Screen
Successful applicants were then called on the phone. The intention was to meet them, get to know them (briefly), and talk them through the upcoming video interview process. This adds a human element to a tech-heavy process.Video
HireVue is digital interview technology which records videos of candidates responding to interview questions. It’s a one-way process, requiring no interviewer time aside from system set-up. Digital interviews could be watched, re-watched, paused, and played at any speed.It’s a daunting process to have an interview with your laptop, but our ideal candidates were outgoing and confident – qualities that would make them successful in the role.
Interview
In 1 week, we used Calendly to schedule 70 face-to-face meetings. These meetings allowed us to understand motivations, presentation, inter-personal skills, personality types, and interests.Hire
E-signature platform PleaseSign distributed 60 employment contracts simultaneously. The candidates felt comfortable with this approach, and they received a PDF copy as soon as they signed on the dotted line.Handbook
To foster great customer experiences, our team needed to learn about their new workplace. The employee handbook explains the Besk story, but it also gave them practical information about where to park, what the food & wine offering is, OH&S info, staff discounts, uniforms and much more. This PDF is sent to new team members before their first shift. This is when they are primed for learning and keen to impress on day one.Digital Paperwork
Tanda is a core system for Besk. This platform gathers all new starter information and is the source of truth for rostering and timesheets. Gone are the days of printed rosters on pin up boards. This was important in creating a sustainable system that could be used by all managers and admin staff going forward.
Walking Tour
We mapped out key points on a venue floor plan, to ensure that new team members were shown where everything is. The detail in this process means that anyone can be the tour guide for a new team member (lessening reliance on future managers). It was essential that customers saw the new team walking around the venue with confidence. This experience could one day be a self-guided tour.Welcome Pack
The Welcome pack was a branded tote bag full of goodies and essentials such as uniform, a copy of the menu to study, bottles of the house wines and a wine glass to keep.We also included a laminated screenshot of the Point of Sales system so that staff weren’t searching for buttons in front of customers.
Training
Training was multi-faceted, engaging, and impactful. The customers experience was at the heart of all opening-day training. Training involved wine tastings, a menu item pop quiz, role playing, and walking through the customer journey.
Conclusion
It was a big push to get those doors open. By investing in design and experience early on, the Besk owners can sleep at night knowing they have a solid team behind them. Those small changes made up front still save money, time, and stress everyday in the venue.
The tools and technology will come and go, but the human-centred approach at Besk will always prevail. We learnt that good employee experience equals good customer experience. And having happy customers is a rewarding feeling which, in turn, makes work enjoyable.
Thank you for reading.
