Thread: Fast-food order accuracy rises with English-fluent hiring

Fast-food order accuracy rises with English-fluent hiring pool

By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY

If your next fast-food order at the drive-through has the right food in the right bag, you may have something surprising to thank: the bad economy.

Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants (CKR), which owns the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast-food chains, says that in the past six months, Carl's Jr.'s 478 locations in Southern California in particular have been able to recruit crewmembers more fluent in English, and thus able to process drive-through orders more accurately.

"It's a no-brainer," Puzder says. "Hiring people who are fluent in English has always been something we've wanted to do. Now we can."

That's because, with layoffs on the rise — particularly in hard-hit Southern California — the chain can be more selective in hiring. The unemployment rate in California hit 7.7% in August vs. the national rate of 6.1% — the most recent month from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Bob Sandelman, a fast-food researcher, is not surprised order accuracy is up and puts the reason bluntly: "When times are tough, people are willing to take jobs for which they're over-qualified."

For the fast-food world overall, order accuracy is a nagging problem. At drive-throughs, botched orders are the No. 1 problem, says, Sherri Daye Scott, editor at QSR Magazine, which does an annual ranking on order accuracy. "Speed is less important to consumers than getting orders right."

QSR's statistics show Carl's accuracy clearly is improving — up to 93.6% in the QSR study conducted this spring vs. 89.3% in the accuracy study it conducted in spring of 2007. When QSR did its research in 2007, "language barrier" was an issue for 3.8% of its drive-through purchases at Carl's vs. 1.2% this spring.

Carl's is not hiring fewer Latinos or other minorities — those numbers are the same, Puzder says. But it is hiring more crewmembers with more skills. "I can't believe this is unique to Carl's," he adds. "We're all hiring from the same labor pool."

Also, he notes, employee turnover is down as folks hang onto jobs.

Denny Lynch, a Wendy's (WEN) spokesman, says the chain "intuitively" sees what Puzder means. Wendy's turnover is down, and it is seeing "an improved quantity and quality" of job seekers.

"With a larger labor pool of applicants to choose from, we are able to more efficiently fill positions with qualified candidates," says Deborah Martin, a rep for Burger King.

Executives at the League of United Latin American Citizens say they want to be sure Hispanics have fair opportunities, but they see the effects of the economy. "The importance of language skills varies job to job," says Darryl Morin, a LULAC director. "With the expanding labor pool, you're able to find candidates with better training."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... ders_N.htm

I am very happy to go to McDonald's these days as the drive-thru order taker knows the difference between sweetened and unsweetened iced tea.

Aren't these the very jobs that the illegal alien advocates say Americans won't do?

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Aren't these the very jobs that the illegal alien advocates say Americans won't do?

Indeed they are!

Great point, JD2. Bush started the jobs Americans won't do crap and under his wise administration, so many Americans have lost their jobs, many replaced by cheap illegals or insourcing of workers, outsourcing of jobs, etc. So who did all those jobs before? Mowing lawns, sweeping the parking lot, slicing meat? Most likely it was young Americans looking to earn a little pocket change, and they didn't have to speak Spanish.

My sons were in high school and college from the mid 90s through the mid 2000s and every year it was harder and harder to find part time, after school, and summer jobs. Guess who they were hiring instead?

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Aren't these the very jobs that the illegal alien advocates say Americans won't do?

Yep, those would be the same jobs.

It must be one big knot in their collective knickers to not only find out that their precious illegal aliens are NOT indispensable, but also that even their own former employers think they suck:

Denny Lynch, a Wendy's (WEN) spokesman, says the chain "intuitively" sees what Puzder means. Wendy's turnover is down, and it is seeing "an improved quantity and quality" of job seekers



Now THAT is hilarious

Originally Posted by BetsyRoss

My sons were in high school and college from the mid 90s through the mid 2000s and every year it was harder and harder to find part time, after school, and summer jobs. Guess who they were hiring instead?

I agree. Just drive up to a fast food place and the young Americans have been replaced by people speaking foreign languages and see that they are adults.

Dixie

My cousin has a girlfriend who is 20 years old and last year she briefly worked at Wendy's. She quit after 5 months. She didn't mind doing the duties there she couldn't take the constant racism she encountered with Mexicans there. That is another reason why many Americans don't take certain jobs because they end working with racists who make their work lives hell. Later she got a job at a cafe where the owner told her that he didn't like the attitudes of many foreigners and that once in the past he had hired a Mexican woman as a waitress and that often she got orders wrong and called a white coworker a "puta. Illegal immigration has brought racism to workplaces where Americans are victimized.

One of my kids, in Boulder Colorado, got a job waiting tables at a luxuious specialty ethnic restaurant (it's famous, I can't name it here). The wait staff was all local, but the kitchen staff was all Spanish speaking and the kitchen staff routinely insulted the white staff with racist terminology. Nobody in managment did anything to stop it.