[Background Music] Human resources is one of the most important things we do in our business. You can't train people to be enthusiastic, nice, fun, great people. You have to hire that and this is a transient business so people are constantly moving. So the minute you stop looking you're actually sliding backwards so we're always hiring. And we're always firing. My name is Scott, I'm the COO for Barcelona Restaurant Group. I think in the three years that I've worked here only one or two managers out of quite a few have quit; however, we've turned over probably 60 to 70% of management in the past three years. We demand a certain level of quality and we're continuously raising the bar on what our expectations are and the other thing is this is a high burnout business. People burn out. Somebody who was great a year ago may not be great this year. You guys are famous for friendly service. I mean, this is how you built the business. This is how you guys went from a losing restaurant to a restaurant that's making money that's in the game with everybody else. And I'm getting some signs. They did not feel welcomed by DJ. They love Barcelona but they said it just didn't feel like Barcelona to them. >> That's what they perceived it to be. That is what it was. I'm not denying that from any standpoint, I just some him hustling and doing a really good job. >> Well, let's put it another way. DJ can be good, right now he's not. So [inaudible] yeah, so have somebody else there or make him real good real fast. If you think it's somebody who's got, you now, who's got the ability, happy in the kitchen, then you owe it to them to spend a night, two nights, three nights glued to them. Figure it out. >> So, we got to just double our efforts. Does everybody have a Craig's List ad in right now for servers? >> I need a busser. I just hired servers, I need bussers. >> Okay. >> Yeah [inaudible]. >> We're always hiring. We're always, keep the ads running. That's our philosophy. We're always bringing in, we're always culling out the bottom 20%. There's always somebody better out there than our worst servers. You don't have to have the greatest resume in the world to make it into the interview. I'll have as many as four to six interviews a day. They last 20 minutes. I don't take a long interview. I don't take a long interview because I don't believe I get anything out of the actual conversation. I've hired too many people that I thought were amazing in an interview and they ended up being a dud and vice versa. I do more talking than they do, quite often, in the interview because I'm trying to just kind of get across the philosophy, who we are, what we're going to do and I've got the spiel pretty well nailed now. But, my process is a three-stage process, interview them and I give them $100 allowance and tell them to go out to the restaurants, one or two of the restaurants if possible and eat a few tapas, sit down, have a couple drinks, and write me an essay. I also get a sense of their level of education, of their intelligence, of their ability to complete a task. There's a lot of other ancillary things that come out of that process. How long it takes them to do it, whether it's two weeks later, whether it's the next day, how excited they are and I think they get something out of it too, because sometimes these candidates come in blind. They don't know our restaurant group or, you know, they might be from New York. They might be from somewhere else and they're driving in for the interview. So this introduces them to the brand. So they're learning about us at the same time. If it's a good shop, it doesn't have to be a great shop but if it's a good shop I'll go to the stage three, which is I want you to pretend like you've worked for us for six months and I want to see who you are. I want to see you commanding the floor, making friends with the guests, talking to the staff. I want to see who you would be for me. 1. When Scott says, “Human resources is one of the most important things we do in our business,” what is he referring to? A. Writing HR policies that assume all employees value the same aspects of employment B. Obeying employment laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 C. Managing employees as a source of competitive advantage D. Saving money on compensation and benefits costs 2. Imagine that Scott has asked your opinion about whether Barcelona should try to reduce involuntary turnover. What is an advantage of the current practice of firing a large percentage of employees? A. Barcelona can replace less effective performers with better performers. B. Barcelona saves money on training costs. C. Barcelona can develop a monoculture in which all employees behave similarly. D. Barcelona can gain valuable feedback about deficiencies in the company by conducting exit interviews.