This Hardee's franchisee reduced their time to hire by 78%

Hardee's franchisee Restaurant Management Corporation struggled with interview scheduling. After implementing Workstream, they significantly reduced their time-to-hire and streamlined communication with applicants, ensuring a steady flow of applications and a fully staffed workforce.

“It’s all about ease of communication. Workstream aligns with our ‘employee first’ mentality. Our team members are the face of Hardee’s, and it lets us show them how valuable they are to us.”

Troy Willard

Training and Ops Services, Restaurant Management Corporation

The problem

Manual hiring processes keep restaurants short-staffed

About CKE Restaurant Holdings

Restaurant Management Corp is a 14-location Hardee’s franchisee based out of Shippensburg, PA. Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are owned and operated by CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc. CKE, which stands for Carl Karcher Enterprises, was founded by Carl Karcher in 1941 when he opened his first hot dog stand in Los Angeles, California. Over the years, the company expanded and evolved, ultimately becoming known for its iconic burger brands.

Like many other fast food restaurant general managers, Shay Silver was constantly faced with the challenge of keeping her Carlisle, PA Hardee’s location fully staffed. She wasted too much time sifting through unqualified applications, leaving her store hurting for quality new hires. Even using a common online marketplace for hourly job seekers didn’t seem to ever close the gap between the flow of incoming applications and their staffing needs.

When her hiring team did find applicants worth pursuing, they were often frustrated by the time-consuming back-and-forth of setting up interviews. Because much of the restaurant’s hiring process was still manual in nature, it meant job seekers often waited days to be contacted. By the time interviews were scheduled, it was too late for some applicants; they had moved on to another opportunity.

The solution

Streamlining HR processes accelerates hiring

In his Training and Ops Services role for Restaurant Management Corp., Troy Willard oversees new procedures and product integrations for 14 Hardee’s locations with over 300 employees. Seeing how his franchises lacked text-to-apply options, applicant QR codes, or recruitment signage, he realized they needed a new HR platform—which is when Troy found Workstream.

Automated self-scheduling

From the onset, Troy and his staff loved how applicants could set up their own interviews based on the availability of Hardee’s hiring managers at each location.

Team communications

Given how often people are on their phones, the texting capabilities of Workstream also proved immediately helpful in regard to all back-and-forth communication with prospective employees—simplifying the hiring process.

Onboarding

Before Worksteam, general managers like Shay were spending a minimum of 10+ hours a week on recruiting and onboarding alone. Now, those tasks take two to three hours a week at most. A lot of this improved efficiency resulted from their ability to save and access all their employment forms and documents in one place.

Manager mobile app

Time is of the essence for managers, who get an hour or two at most in the back office to complete operational tasks. Since Workstream’s functionality is accessible on mobile, Shay is now able to complete much of her office tasks during her commute. The status of completed or upcoming interviews can be viewed at the click of a button—rather than pulling things up on the computer.

Built for the hourly workforce

Staffing up is no longer stressful

Workstream has transformed how Troy helps recruit, hire, onboard, and retain hourly workers. “I see our competitors hosting hiring events, but since partnering with Workstream, we haven’t had to do that. We have a constant flow of applications. Without it, we’d definitely be at a huge loss”

Troy also likes the visibility and reporting that Workstream provides. “I’m a big fan of the weekly reports, the recaps of our applicant flow, as well as interviews and hires that I receive by email.”

With the average time to fill an open position down from two weeks to three days, Shay’s issues with keeping her Carlisle, PA Hardee’s fully staffed and running smoothly are a thing of the past.