4 lessons for cooking up a great employee experience from Eurest

Chances are if you’ve dined in a corporate café across the U.S., Eurest has served you! 

The company, which is part of Compass Group, has built a reputation of service excellence in the hospitality and foodservice industry by cooking up an award-winning recipe for aligning franchises, channel teams and contracted locations under common goals. How? By prioritizing the employee experience. 

Check out the highlights from JD Dillon’s recent ITK conversation with Alison Lambert, Director of Engagement & Insights at Eurest, to learn from her organization’s employee experience strategy and how it’s demystified frontline work to delight guests across 48 states and multiple brands.

1. Focus on the needs of frontline employees and WITY (What’s Important to You)

In an industry notorious for high burnout and constant disruption, leaders need to be attuned to the realities of frontline work in foodservice and hospitality and thoughtful about the demands placed on their teams.

“Whether we’re doing training for our team members or going into a client presentation, we’re always asking: What’s important to you? What do they need versus what do we want to share?” says Lambert.

Frontline associates are the ones interacting with clients and customers day in and day out. As the backbone of the business, they likely know firsthand where pain points and essential opportunities lie. 

By giving them a voice, actively seeking their feedback and truly understanding their needs by considering ‘What’s Important to You’ (WITY), Eurest ensures that only the training and communications that matter most are being delivered. This empowers employees to excel in their roles and get the job done and shields them from being inundated with irrelevant information and tasks, allowing them to concentrate on core responsibilities and what will make the biggest impact.

2. Give managers space and support to lead

Picture this: you’re a foodservice associate juggling multiple tables, side duties and a ringing phone. Then your manager steps in and calmly lends you a hand to get you out of the weeds. That’s the power of effective frontline management!

A supportive manager can make all the difference in turning a stressful shift into a rewarding one, and a disengaged employee into a brand advocate. Recent Gallup research supports the idea that manager engagement and business success are highly intertwined: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.

Eurest recognizes this critical connection and enables its managers to actively support their teams. By providing managers with the necessary resources, change management training and autonomy, it empowers managers to lead effectively and calmly and create a positive ripple effect on their teams. 

“I often say, especially in frontline roles, employees don’t work for the company, they work for the manager. How often do they see the executive team, corporate team or the folks sending messages, establishing priorities and making decisions elsewhere? You see the person who hired you, the person who schedules you, the person who makes sure you get paid, the person who assigns your workflow, every day.”

JD Dillon, Chief Learning Architect, Axonify

3. Leverage tech for connection and two-way communication

Technology alone can’t fix a broken employee experience, but it is an important part of Eurest’s ability to reach its large and primarily deskless workforce. The organization uses Axonify to foster connection and collaboration. 

“It’s really become part of our culture, where they know that they have this place they can go to connect with team members that they otherwise would have zero access to or wouldn’t even know exist,” explains Lambert. 

“There could be a Eurest account right down the street, but because they’re confined to that individual marketplace unless they go to support, they’re really not going to leave those four walls of their own location because of just the nature of serving that particular client. In a lot of cases, they’re running the exact same promotions, working toward the same initiatives and are able to share best practices in a way that they otherwise would have no opportunity to do.”

However, Eurest is also mindful of information overload and prioritizes relevance and segmentation to ensure that communication remains effective and doesn’t cause overwhelm.

“If every single message that goes out is a critical announcement, that can get overwhelming for our frontline team members. Shaking it up and having some fun—having less of a corporate-y tone—is helpful in relating to the frontline team members so they can see what it is you want them to do, but in a manner that is relevant and relatable for them.”

The organization also opens channels for two-way communications to gain valuable insights directly from the frontline workforce about what they’re noticing on the job. 

4. Build a culture of recognition and authentic appreciation

At Eurest, recognition isn’t just a yearly pat on the back. A culture of recognition is woven into the teams’ daily interactions, making sure every associate feels seen, valued and appreciated. 

“Encouraging our managers and team members to have that mindset of recognition all the time in the back of their head means they’re on the lookout for something that they can appreciate their team members for. This way, they see the great things that their associates are doing that really contribute to the overall team and then share those stories,” shares Lambert. 

Regularly acknowledging associates’ contributions by encouraging peer-to-peer recognition fosters a sense of community and camaraderie across the business and reminds the team that they’re all in this together, working towards shared goals.

“When we treat our people well, they’re going to treat our guests well.”

Alison Lambert, Director of Engagement & Insights, Eurest

This award-winning approach to EX serves as a reminder that prioritizing your frontline workers is a recipe for success—even in industries known for high turnover. 

By getting associates on the same page, listening to what matters to them and their managers and intentionally leveraging appropriate technology, Eurest has not only improved employee satisfaction but also elevated the guest experience.

Want to learn more about Eurest’s strategy for engaging and empowering its teams? Watch the full ITK interview below!

Maliyah Bernard

Maliyah Bernard is an academic writer turned content writer. As a former frontline worker, she loves writing about all the ways organizations can support these essential workers smarter.

Read More by Maliyah Bernard