2016 HRM Impact Award Winner

Message from Leonard A. Comma
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

Our restaurants serve great-tasting burgers, fries and shakes, but our greatest asset is our employees. With all of the organizational changes we’ve experienced in recent years, along with economic pressures and challenges inherent to the restaurant industry, ACE has helped us optimize our talent investments to help ensure that we’re not only properly sup-porting our employees and maximizing their job satisfaction, but that we’re also maximizing our profit potential.

PROJECT TITLE

Talent Analytics in service of organizational purpose: Nourishing the Pursuit of Dreams

PROJECT SUMMARY

Jack in the Box Inc. transformed its business model over the past decade, largely through a refranchising strategy which resulted in the sale of hundreds of company-operated restaurants to franchisees. This transformation necessitated changes to the structure of the organization to reflect its current and future business needs. During this time, employees experienced considerable change that impacted all aspects of their jobs – from learning new processes and procedures to stakeholder interaction. Still, it was critical for the company to not only support both the growth and development of staff during this time but also to drive improved performance throughout all levels of the enterprise, especially at its restaurants which were prone to high turnover rates inherent in the foodservice industry.

To do so, management partnered with the Metrus Group to better understand the drivers of how well employees at all levels were aligned with the business strategy and customer value proposition, whether employees had the proper tools, training and information to facilitate their performance, and how engaged and committed employees were to the business. This people-equity assessment process, called ACE (Alignment, Capabilities and Engagement) helped management understand how human capital measurements can, and do, predict critical drivers of business outcomes. Equally important, the process identified where the biggest returns on people investment lay: For example, should the company put more effort into improving skills, communications, compensation, leadership … or improve access to training?

ACE results have consistently revealed that restaurants with higher scores outperform those with lower scores on virtually every operational and financial measure, including higher sales and lower turnover. The people equity model influenced where the company should focus its efforts and resources to improve bottom-line results, benefitting all shareholders.

Video Message from Jack in the Box: