Wisconsin Hospitality Group's Story

The Wisconsin Hospitality Group, LLC, a restaurant-management company, owns and operates 118 restaurants across Wisconsin, including 40 Applebee’s Grill & Bar restaurants. 

According to the National Restaurant Association, turnover is higher in the restaurant industry than the overall private sector because restaurants are the largest employers of:  teenagers; students who don’t work a full-year schedule; and seasonal workers. This contributes to turnover rates that can exceed 100 percent.

Challenges

WHG, like the overall restaurant industry, is faced with constantly training new employees. On boarding approximately 5,000 new hires a year required a substantial amount of time and money. WHG wanted its restaurant LMS to integrate with its company portal, public website and the smaller websites the firm had built for conducting surveys and collecting data and analytics. 

Results

According to Paasch, since implementing the Accord restaurant LMS, employee satisfaction has increased. WHG has also seen turnover at its Applebee’s drop by approximately 11 percent, which is saving the company $68,000 per year in hourly training expenses. And the overall cost of onboarding and training each employee has dropped by 15 percent since implementing the Accord restaurant LMS.

And restaurant managers are spending more time on improving the guest experience, instead of grappling with the technical challenges of assigning training to staff and keeping track of course completions.

“When we rollout a new system in our restaurants, we’re no longer concerned about employees being frustrated by not having the training they need to confidently run the system and serve guests,” said Peter Paasch, director of information technology for WHG. “Accord LMS makes it possible to get the right training in front of our employees when they need to learn.”