It turns out that The Saxton Group's CPO is pretty positive on AI.
No, no — not the chief product officer. That wouldn't really be all that surprising. The chief people officer. Now that's worth digging into. Fortunately, I was able to chat recently with The Saxton Group CPO Matt Heston about how he views using AI in talent acquisition, strategies to empower managers to hire the right candidates, and why speed remains the ultimate advantage in restaurant hiring.
Erik Schmidt: What are the qualities that you look for in an ideal candidate for one of your restaurants?
Matt Heston: The Saxton Group’s mission is to put people at the heart of everything that we do. That starts with our employees, because if we put our people first, we believe they'll put our guests first. So when we’re searching for talent to bring into our restaurants, we want to have people on our team that will live out that mission. And we’re also looking for people with personality, those that will serve our guests daily in our restaurants with high energy and a smile. We want to give our guests more than what they expect. Not just service — but hospitality.
ES: And can you talk to some of the nuances of finding these ideal candidates?
MH: To get any applicant to apply, you have to make the application process seamless, quick, and efficient. If it’s a cumbersome, long process, it can lead to candidates falling off. So at a minimum you have to be fast. Now, to ensure you’re attracting and hiring quality applicants on top of that, you also need to gather a baseline amount of information about them. There’s a balance there: You need to keep the application process quick without sacrificing the necessary steps that help you determine which people might be better fits.
This obviously isn’t easy. In the past we’ve had a ton of issues with getting not just ideal candidates, but any candidates, through the process at all. We found that a lot of people were applying to multiple jobs at one time, and we weren’t proactively bringing them in before they went to a different job.
ES: How can you do that at scale? Do you use any tools to empower your managers to hire quality candidates?
MH: Over the years we’ve learned that our best restaurant operators may not be the best administrators, so we don’t want them buried in the office sorting through applications. We’ve tried to take a lot of the hiring burden off of their plates so they can spend time with their current team and guests.
You need to keep the application process quick without sacrificing the necessary steps that help you determine which people might be better fits.
Our previous ATS was just a feature of our human capital management system. And it was fine. I remember a lot of clicking for our restaurant managers, which ended up being a pretty cumbersome process at a time where we needed people on the floor of our restaurants. So we figured we needed a new solution, and actually found out about Paradox through a referral from a Wendy’s franchisee, and we went from there. We quickly realized that we could be on the cutting edge of something special, and it would be better to get on board early. It’s really helped us get through those challenging times — building up our staffing levels and saving our managers time.
ES: You’ve been quick to adopt a lot of technology into your hiring process. Where are you seeing the value in what you’ve added?
MH: Yeah, the playbook from years past is not the best strategy. The traditional post on a job board that takes candidates to an ATS where you have to create a username and password before a long application; if you choose to go that route, you’re behind the curve and behind your competition. You have to be innovative. You have to stay ahead of the curve. With the Conversational ATS, the automated scheduling, the assessments, the integration we have with our HR and payroll system, it's saved our restaurant managers time. I think it's paid for itself, essentially, because of the time savings that our restaurant managers have now. It's a win for the candidate and a win for our company too.
I mean, it’s just much more conversational and personable. The applicant feels as though they’re speaking to a person versus typing the information into a field on their computer. There’s more of a connection there. Our application process went from roughly 15 minutes to complete to about two to three. And for our managers applying, those applications used to take about 20 or even 30 minutes. That’s been cut to just 10 minutes, which has been really advantageous for us as well.
ES: What about from a cost perspective — are you seeing savings in your bottom line?
MH: Before Paradox we were spending a significant amount of money on job board advertising. You know, we just needed people, so we were throwing $25,000 a month at job boards because we didn't know what else to do. It was really a firefighting mentality, and it wasn’t working. Since implementing Paradox, we’re down to $2,500 a month. It varies, and it's seasonal, but because our staffing levels have improved, we've significantly reduced our advertising spend.
