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Established in 1954, BURGER KING® is a global brand. With recent shifts in ownership and business management, its vision is clear: to be the most profitable Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) business. It needs to bring new, highly talented and strong leaders who not only can learn how to run its restaurants well and work with its franchisees, but will also take a strategic long-term view. Its accelerated Leadership Development Program (LDP) in EMEA for recent graduates delivers this talent and cut-e assessments form part of their identification.

The challenge: selecting leaders ready to take the bold decisions of the future

Burger King Corporation has undergone great changes in the management of its business and has achieved significant growth. It has made bold and committed choices and the people it seeks to take the business forward need to reflect this boldness. Ms Lauri Hulsbergen, Director of People, Communications & IT for EMEA, comments, “We need to have the right people who fit our culture, who will continue to take our business forward. This means that we want people with the right skills, talent and energy ready to serve our customers the best burgers in the world. We’re meritocratic – and we want our people to enjoy work. We have a great brand and we’re going to make it better and better every year by bringing great people into the business. We have long-term goals and want people with a passion and the motivation and ability to achieve these. Our Leadership Development Program for EMEA offers highly talented recent graduates the opportunity to get inside our business and make things happen.” The Program builds on the model of leadership development designed by Burger King Corporation and blends in-restaurant, in-region and headquarter-based training and experience to gain an understanding of the critical role skills needed for a successful business from cashier through to corporate manager. “We’re not looking for these program graduates to become restaurant managers, but they need to have credibility and insight for the time when they talk with franchisees in the future.” As one would expect, applications for the Program are high. “With a strong brand name and great development program, attracting applicants to the Program was not an issue. But how to manage the volume and identify the talented applicants was,” adds Ms Hulsbergen.

Selecting future leaders to realise strategy

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E-mail: info@cut-e.com www.cut-e.com

The solution: finely tuned assessment process focussing on skills and cultural fit

With a recruitment campaign running across Europe and with over 13,000 applicants in the past two years, Burger King EMEA knew that it needed to be able to focus on those with the real talent for its organisation. The result was to redefine and redesign its process and introduce online assessment working with cut-e. Initial qualifying questions help to ensure that only those meeting the requirements of the Program progress through to further assessment. In the past two years over 6,000 online tests have been completed by these candidates. The online testing includes a numerical reasoning test and the shapes personality assessment to check the candidate’s cultural alignment to Burger King EMEA – in terms of, for example, openness to change, ability to prioritise and ambition. Ms Hulsbergen comments, “One of the hardest parts in the design of the process was to determine the weighting we should give to the results of these tools. But, together with cut-e, we looked closely at the cut-offs and where candidates would progress to the next stage or be rejected, and we fine-tuned the weightings until the funnel felt right to us all. In the end the balance is slightly more about cultural fit than analytical ability.” Those candidates progressing after the online tests are invited to an assessment centre at which an observed simulated business game takes place – and 1,200 candidates over the two-year period have progressed to this stage. Those that perform well at this are then invited to further interviews and around 20 vacancies of the accelerated Program are offered.

The outcome: increased retention and fast promotion – the results of right recruitment choices.

Burger King EMEA tracks its LDP graduates and their progression through the business. Since introducing online testing into the selection process, retention has increased considerably: retention of the class of 2014 is more than twice that of the retention of the 2012 intake. Most of the LDP graduates are promoted to the role of Senior Analyst within the first 18 months and more than a third of current manager-level positions are now occupied by former LDPs having been promoted between 1 and 3 years after the Program has ended. Ms Hulsbergen concludes, “The value of introducing the cut-e assessments into our LDP selection process within EMEA is clear. We are able to focus our attention on selecting only those with the best fit to our quite specific and defined characteristics. We can see the rapid progress of these people, their commitment to the business and the value that they bring. The process is such that we know we are able to adjust it should we need new skills or characteristics.” Burger King APAC has also now started to work with the cut-e tests as part of their LDP selection.

For any further information please don’t hesitate to contact us! E-mail: info@cut-e.com www.cut-e.com