How Honest Burgers use Wagestream to support value-based recruitment

Oli Cavaliero, Head of Employer Brand, Honest Burgers

"What attracts people to your business is a whole bag of golden nuggets. Wagestream is one of those golden nuggets."

The way that Honest Burgers wins the recruitment game is varied – but they start with recruiting for potential and finding a balance of rights and responsibilities.

"It's got to work for everybody," explains Oli Cavaliero, Head of Employer Brand. "We'll provide the tools for our teams to be successful, but it's up to the individual to how much they want to use them."

The company has very high standards when it comes to food and they pride themselves on their casual approach to hospitality. For Oli, this is obvious when anyone walks in and experiences dining in one of their restaurants. But Honest Burgers has equally high standards internally and creating a strong employer brand is about making this felt externally.

Oli is very clear that focusing on keeping up to date with what people expect is essential if you want to recruit successfully.

"Our vision has always been to understand what people want when it comes to a career," says Oli. "For some it’s their first ever job. Others are single parents or are in the middle of a career change. Some want to work for three or four companies. Recruiting for potential has always been the vision of Honest Burgers, it’s just been elevated because of Brexit and Covid-19 which has made it harder to recruit."

Implementing Wagestream and empowering employees with a flexible pay cycle has enabled Honest Burgers to evolve with the times and the expectations of job-seekers, which makes it easiest to attract talent in a competitive market.

"Wagestream is great because the partnership is so vital to the future – and to the now. We know that employees coming into our workforce want to take ownership of their lifestyle and that also relates to pay. Wagestream allows our employees to take ownership and have the freedom to manage their pay themselves rather than through us."

Wagestream is part of a wider focus on the latest technology to facilitate a culture of caring that permeates every part of the business. Like many hospitality businesses, Honest Burgers has a disparate workforce and technology has been critical for high engagement.

Chatbots are in their DNA which facilitate the family feel of Honest Burgers because they can reach every employee and talk to them directly. When furlough was announced, Honest Burgers sent every single employee a calculation of what they should expect in their bank account.

Oli is a firm believer that you can’t focus on the difficulties but need to get on the front foot.

Covid-19 didn’t really change the company’s recruitment strategy but simply accelerated the focus in all the relevant areas.

"We’ve always had an open talent pool," he explains. "We partner with different charities, we go into local prisons to do employability events, we do outreach. We find people who want to get into the workplace. There are so many great people in hospitality and there’s a real misunderstanding of what it takes to be in hospitality which stops people applying. That’s why we focus on showing people exactly what the job entails and what it’s like working for us, so they get a good feel for it."

Honest Burgers also focus heavily on referrals – underscored by the firm belief that great people tend to know other great people. They also have a strong retention strategy, because a higher retention rate means fewer gaps to fill – solving recruitment from the inside out. Wagestream helps in this regard: employers using Wagestream benefit from up to a 16% improvement in retention and a 26% improvement in shift fill rate.

For Oli, all this stuff isn’t rocket science – it’s just about doing what’s right.

"There’s stuff we do really well and things we don’t do so well, and we talk about that. Transparency is key. Feedback is key. That’s how we improve. We focus on what matters and what we care about and that makes us Honest."