Viking Restaurants, a Burger King franchise group, was struggling to get applicants to staff its 26 restaurants. By customizing the hiring process, embracing mobile, and implementing self-scheduling with Workstream, they experienced a 10x increase in interview completion rates.
“For us to be as successful as possible, we need the best possible employees that we can get. Workstream allows us the ability to get better employees. That’s been a success for everyone.”
Director of Operations, Viking Restaurants
Founded in 1954, Burger King is the second-largest fast-food hamburger chain in the world. Home of the iconic flame-grilled Whopper, the brand is known for its commitment to premium ingredients, signature recipes, and family-friendly dining experiences.
Viking Restaurants is a growing franchise group with more than 26 Burger King restaurants in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. They’ve been serving high-quality food with outstanding guest service since 2006.
Locations: 26+
Industry: Restaurants
Employees: ~600
Today’s QSR industry continues to face a nationwide labor shortage, which makes it challenging to find and retain qualified employees. Steve Prow, a District Manager who oversees five of the 26 Burger King franchises for Viking Restaurants, understands this challenge better than most.
Our bottom line is the people, and we’re only as good as our people.
District Manager, Viking Restaurants
One of his Burger King locations hadn’t been fully staffed for almost two and a half years. In a 12-month period, that particular restaurant would only receive a total of 40 applications—not all of them qualified applicants.
Setting up interviews was another challenge. Al Martinson, Operations Support, was spending too much time reaching out to applicants for managerial roles. “Nobody answers their phones today, so I would wait for a callback. Sometimes we’d connect. I’d suggest the time, and they might come back and say ‘That won’t work.’“
As staffing struggled, so did customer service.
Sensing their existing applicant system might be part of the problem, Al and his team made the decision to try Workstream. Almost immediately, restaurant managers noticed a change for the better in every aspect of the hiring process—including the number of interviews completed.
“One of the things we use in our ad slogan is ‘live life your way’ tied in with the ‘have it your way’ message of Burger King. And this applicant system really allows the candidate to apply in a way they want to, set their own interview schedule, and it’s really allowing them to do it their way,” Al says. Workstream made it possible for his team to customize their applications to their needs. In this instance, making the form easy and simple enough to complete everything on their phones.
“It all starts with the first impression,” Steve notes. “Our managers know when the interviews are coming, and we schedule for that time. In the past, maybe somebody showed up for an interview, and we didn’t plan for it. Then it’s maybe, ‘I’ll get to you when I can.’ So we didn’t start off on the right foot. By having my managers set the times they know when interviews are going to be, we do a much better job of being organized and showing them we’re a good company to work for.”
Troy Hennen, Director of Operations says, “All that time not spent having to look at applications to call somebody, but letting our applicants set up their own interviews is a financial savings.”
more interviews on average
Since using Workstream, Burger King locations throughout their franchise group are completing 10X more interviews on average. With managers getting a text every time that somebody applies, response time is almost immediate—ensuring a great applicant experience at the start.
Once the franchise group switches to its new payroll system, Workstream will play a big role in collecting employee paperwork, sharing documents, and simplifying the onboarding process.