Project Overview
Introduction
Border Foods Companies (Border Foods), one of the largest Taco Bell franchisees in the country with hundreds of restaurants across the Midwest, recently achieved 25 years in business. This significant milestone and aggressive trajectory for growth caused new leadership at Border Foods to pause and package the winning company culture that ultimately brought the business to this successful point.
Border Foods aimed to evaluate, define, operationalize, and sustain the “secret sauce” behind its thriving company culture to be replicated in restaurants across the U.S.
What Border Foods wanted to achieve:
- Scale the organization’s thriving culture across all locations to increase performance through quality,
delivery, and direct labor improvements - Identify opportunities to improve operations while simultaneously improving talent attraction and retention
- Provide leaders tools for engaging and interacting with employees around performance and culture
- Define a clear understanding for leaders standard work for leaders in the organization
- Continuously improve and sustain the employee experience and create a winning organization
“We are so thankful to POWERS for helping Border Foods get to the root of our success to standardize and systemize key ingredients of our company culture and performance for the next generation of Border Leaders. We are confident that through the systems and frameworks we developed with POWERS that our company will continue to be reinforced and replicated across the U.S., contributing to more healthy workplaces, opportunities, and jobs for our incredible team members.”
Aaron Engler
President of Border Foods
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Situation
Company culture and performance has been a top priority for Border Foods since its founding 25 years ago and continues to be a primary driver behind the company’s growth and success.
When Border Foods underwent a significant leadership transition this year, the new President saw an opportunity to evaluate, crystallize, and package assets of the existing company culture and performance that have led to its success. More specifically, Border Foods sought expert facilitation and organizational constructs for:
- Establishing greater depth and definition around its core values and connect that to the performance of store locations
- Effectively communicating and instilling these core values and KPI’s in the company
- Integrating the core values into operational practices for new and acquired leaders
- Assimilating new leaders into the desired workplace culture and performance measurements
- Strategically fostering alignment and understanding of the performance across locations
In seeking a solution for this organization-wide undertaking, Border Foods was referred to POWERS. Border Foods was specifically drawn to our systematic approach and expertise in helping organizations intentionally formalize and reinforce the practices that lead to a winning company performance culture. Border Foods saw that we could help them articulate the core values, leader standard work and behaviors that led to their success to scale and sustain the leadership and staff performance that has brought them to this point.
POWERS provided just what Border Foods needed.
We offered an empirically-driven methodology and approach to scaling and operationalizing the Border Foods’ company culture, called Management Operating Systems.
With an imminent vision for growth and acquisitions, the timing was right for Border Foods to develop a framework that would equip existing and future senior restaurant staff with the tools necessary to replicate Border Foods’ winning culture and performance and become a “Border Leader.”
Border Foods selected our operational solution. We spent two weeks touring Border Foods’ high-performing and opportunity restaurants across the country to view the company performance through the lens of employees, leaders, and customers. Together we collaborated on individualized performance development plans, succession plans, and executive coaching to ultimately instill ownership and accountability and foster alignment and understanding around the current and future state of Border Foods. This year-long engagement established Border Foods’ performance foundation, enabling the senior leadership team to successfully:
Solution
- Select a culture value system for the organization
- Define behavioral standards (leader standard work) aligned to core values
- Connect behavioral expectations to leaders’ daily practices
- Equip leaders with learning practices and tools to drive cultural and performance competence
- Practice and sustain the learneds system, process, and behavioral standards
Border Foods and POWERS mobilized 400+ restaurant leaders with the tools and strategies needed to replicate Border Foods’ winning company performance and become a “Border Leader.” This work supported the successful acquisition and performance integration of 10 new restaurants, all of which were staffed and scaled quickly.
POWERS worked with Border Foods’ c-suite, director-level employees, and area leadership to instill ownership and accountability and foster alignment and understanding around the current and future state of the Company. Leaders at Border Foods participated in hands-on workshops, leadership development sessions, and strategic discussions to learn, practice, and embody the leadership behaviors that underpin the core company values and performance indicators that define the Border Foods.
Outcomes
Border Foods has achieved its objectives with POWERS by:
- Scaling the organization’s thriving culture across all locations
Border Foods refined its purpose, mission, vision, and core values by correlating leadership behaviors and expectations that were built into the daily operations model of the company. Area coaches and general managers received evaluations, development tools, and resources to reinforce how to engage and interact with performance as a Border Leader.
- Identifying opportunities to improve talent attraction and retention
Border Foods enhanced its candidate recruitment tools to include a clear and concise articulation of the company culture and employee experience. New hire onboarding, interview protocols, and job descriptions were overhauled to convey and align with “The Border Experience” properly.
- Providing leaders tools for engaging and interacting with employees
Border Foods deployed core value posters to all area coaches and general managers and set up “Border Culture and Performance Centers” in each restaurant to reinforce the values, behaviors, and performance metrics expected from each leader.
- Defining a clear development path for leaders in the organization
Border Foods developed a succession planning model to align all levels with their track for progression in the organization and ensure development resources were available for each group. Executive-level behavioral-based coaching was implemented, and modularized training programs were developed and deployed for trainers and Border Leaders.
- Continuously improving and sustaining the employee experience
Border Foods received complete curriculums, systems, and processes to continuously foster their leadership behaviors, including “train-the-trainer” programs and leadership development programs to drive reinforcement and sustainability of the company performance in existing and future restaurants.
Company Culture Launch Rally:
To solidify Border Foods’ official company culture and performance, POWERS helped coordinate, execute, and host a company rally for all leaders within the organization. POWERS keynoted the event to generate excitement, momentum, and understanding of Border Foods’ core values, systems, processes, and behaviors that have and will continue to contribute to the company’s success.
