5 Moves Matt Klug Uses to Build a People Pipeline at Culver's (And what a two-location operator can copy)

Matt Klug is Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Culver's Franchising System, where he has spent 12 years. Culver's runs about 1,070 restaurants across 26 states. Nearly all of them are owned by franchisees. He puts the brand at more than 66,000 team members and over 600 franchisees.

I built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations, then sold it. I hosted the speaker interviews at Workstream's On the Clock 2026 in Atlanta, and Matt's episode was recorded with one of the Workstream hosts. What struck me listening back is that Culver's does not treat hiring, training and ownership as three separate problems. It is one pipeline, and every piece of it can be shrunk to fit two locations.

1. Check the candidate harder than the bank balance

Most brands sell a franchise to whoever clears the financial bar. Culver's asks for far more than that, and the money is close to the last thing it looks at.

A new franchisee trains for a long time before the doors open. In Matt's words, they "go through a 16 week training program where they're away from their family for three months."

Sixteen weeks. Away from home. That is the price of entry. Culver's states it publicly too: a full time 16 week development program at a company owned restaurant in Wisconsin.

There is a step before that too. To get approved, a candidate has to work a week inside one of the restaurants, covering every position. Matt puts it at around 60 hours. Culver's calls it Discovery Week and describes it as five days in uniform on every shift and station.

The interesting part is who scores it.

"One of the leading considerations is actually the feedback from the team members."

Matt Klug

The crew gets a say in whether this person gets a restaurant. As Matt puts it, a candidate can have "all the money in the world". If they turn up and show they will not be a hands on leader, or will not fit the culture, the team members say so. They do not get approved.

He names two red flags. The first is any sign the person wants to be "an office dweller" rather than present in the restaurant. The second is a buyer who is in it for the investment, because the brand wants someone who will serve guests, team members and the wider town.

What you can copy: put the person on the line for a full week before you hand over keys or a partnership. Then ask your crew what they saw. The week costs you nothing, and it tells you what a reference check never will.

2. You are hiring their family and friends too

This is the line from Matt's interview I have quoted most since.

"The majority of our team members were a guest at Culver's before they became a team member."

Matt Klug

Read that again from a hiring point of view. Your applicant pool is already sitting in your dining room, and they picked you before you picked them.

Matt takes it one step further. "You're not just hiring the team member, you're hiring their family and their friend network," he says. A good experience spreads through that network. So does a bad one.

That cuts both ways, and it is the cheapest recruiting channel in the business. A team member who enjoys the job brings a sibling, a neighbor and two classmates. A team member who is treated badly takes the same people with them on the way out.

Workstream's guide to employee referral programs has the mechanics if you want to make this formal rather than accidental.

What you can copy: before you pay for job ads, ask your regulars and your current crew. Put a line on the receipt or the table tent, and pay a referral bonus big enough to be worth mentioning.

3. Treat a first job as the first step on a career path

Matt's own reason for doing this work is opportunity. Most people talk about restaurant work as a job you pass through on the way to something else. He does not.

"It's really an industry that anyone could enter into and really be successful."

Matt Klug

No degree required. Hard work, dedication and commitment instead. At Culver's that starts early. "We start hiring as young as age 14," he says. For many of those team members it is the first job they have ever had.

So a first job has to do more than cover the shift. He talks about helping a young team member see what a good workplace looks like, and about wanting to "help them be a better human".

It came up in his own family. His youngest son, about to turn 15, said he wanted to work at Culver's. Matt runs HR for the brand. His answer was "School's got to continue to come first, and you have to go get that job on your own." His son got hired at a franchise location and stayed three years, until he left for college.

There is a practical side to this too. High school students have crowded schedules and may only be free for three to five hours a week, which many employers will not bother with. Culver's does.

He says they honor that schedule and availability, and that the three hours often grow once the person is part of the team. The industry's reputation for dead end jobs is exactly what he is working against, and the answer is a visible path: crew member, trainer, leadership, then running a restaurant.

What you can copy: take the five hour a week teenager your competitor turns down. Write the path on one page, so every new hire can see the next step on day one.

4. Sponsor your best manager into ownership

This is the move Matt says he is proudest of at Culver's.

The company runs a mentoring program. A strong manager is mentored and sponsored by an existing franchisee and, in Matt's words, can "become a partial owner themselves". Culver's says more than 200 owner operators have come into the system this way.

Think about what that does to a general manager's thinking. The best they can hope for is no longer a raise. It is a share of a restaurant.

It also solves the franchisor's hardest problem, which is finding owners who already fit.

"They know the cultural expectations and norms, they know how to effectively run a great restaurant."

Matt Klug

A manager who becomes a franchisee starts out already knowing the job. Nobody has to teach them the standard, because they have been running it for years. Matt's favorite part is what happens next: those owners go on to mentor the next group of managers, so the next set of owners comes from inside too.

What you can copy: you cannot run a 200 owner program with two locations. You can name the person who will run store three and give them a share of it. Someone with a share of the business behaves differently from someone with a bonus.

5. Fix engagement first, then let the manager bring the fun

Asked where a multi unit operator should start if they only have time to fix one thing in people operations this year, Matt does not pick a system.

"I consider engagement not to be satisfaction."

Matt Klug

That distinction is the whole answer. A satisfied team member has no complaints. An engaged one feels connected to the business and believes their work moves it forward. You can have a restaurant full of satisfied people and still feel the room go flat.

His fix is smaller than most people expect. Bring fun to work. "You can be productive, but you can have fun at the same time," he says. His example is as ordinary as it gets. While the restaurant is being set up for the day, "Why not throw a little music in there, have the crew start singing along."

The catch is that the manager has to start it. Nobody below them will. A team with energy passes it on to guests, and that is where it shows up in sales. If you want a fuller version, Workstream has a practical breakdown of how to improve employee engagement.

Managers only bring energy when they are not buried in paperwork. That is the honest reason to look at how much admin your team is carrying. It is also worth noting how the change happened at Culver's. The move to Workstream did not come down from the support center. A franchisee tried it and, as Matt puts it, "planted that seed with us." His advice to an operator still deciding is to "be open minded and at least consider the solution". He would count the administrative hours the team is losing first.

Count the admin hours before you buy anything. That number tells you whether your manager has any room left to lead. Workstream's all-in-one hiring, payroll, and HR platform replaces the separate logins for hiring, onboarding, HR and payroll, and the hours it hands back are the ones you just counted. Request a demo →

What you can copy: pick one shift this week, ask the crew what would make the job better, and act on one answer. Then let your manager play music during setup and see what the pre open hour feels like.

The short version

• Put the candidate on the line for a week. Then let your crew score them. Money is the easiest part of the application to verify and the least useful.
• Hire from your dining room. Most of your best applicants are already guests, and each one brings family and friends with them.
• Take the teenager with five hours. Write the path down so the next step is visible from the first day.
• Give your best manager a share, not a plaque. Ownership is the only promotion that keeps an operator.
• Fix engagement before you fix anything else. Start with connection and fun, which cost nothing and show up in the guest experience within a week.

Culver's has 66,000 team members and a 16 week training program. You may have 30 people and no training program at all. The order is the same either way, and so is the reason it works. Every step of this pipeline is somebody deciding that the person in front of them is worth the time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to train a new restaurant franchisee?

At Culver's it is a 16 week training program, and the new franchisee is away from their family for about three months. Matt Klug says it runs at the support center and inside restaurants, so the owner learns from people already doing it. Culver's states publicly that the program sits at a company owned restaurant in Wisconsin.

What would stop someone being approved as a franchisee?

Two things, and neither is the balance sheet: wanting to be an office dweller, and being in it only for the money. Matt Klug says a candidate can have all the money in the world and still be turned down. A buyer who will not be a hands on leader, or who does not fit the culture, does not get approved. Team member feedback from the candidate's week in a restaurant is one of the leading considerations.

Why do employee referrals matter so much in restaurant hiring?

Because most restaurant hires are already customers, which Matt Klug says is true of the majority of Culver's team members. He argues that you are hiring the person's family and friend network along with them, so one good experience recruits several more people. That makes the dining room the cheapest place an operator has to find new people.

Can a restaurant crew member become an owner?

Yes, and at Culver's more than 200 owner operators have done it through the company's mentoring program. A strong manager is mentored and sponsored by an existing franchisee and becomes a partial owner of a restaurant. Matt Klug says those owners start well grounded because they already know the cultural expectations and how to run a restaurant.

What should a multi unit operator fix first in people operations?

Team member engagement, which Matt Klug names as the one thing to start with this year. He draws a line between engagement and satisfaction: engagement is a person feeling connected to the business and believing they contribute to its success. His first step is asking managers to bring fun into the restaurant, starting with music during setup.

Request a demo of Workstream →

About the author. Wilson K Lee built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations and sold it. He now runs wilsonklee.com, where he publishes real numbers and playbooks for food and beverage owners, and he hosted the speaker interviews at Workstream's On the Clock 2026.