How a financial wellbeing program has helped Honest Burgers recruit faster and fill more shifts in the UK

From struggles to recruit, mounting unfilled shifts and increases in staff stress, Covid-19 has created challenges for QSRs around the world.

Honest Burgers is a QSR with more than 45 restaurants that operates across the UK and has faced all these challenges over the last two years. Covid-19 hasn’t changed Honest Burger’s recruitment strategy, but has accelerated their focus in relevant areas. Focusing on what people want is key.

“Our vision has always been to understand what people want when it comes to a career,” says Oli Cavaliero, Head of Employer Brand at Honest Burgers. “For some it’s their first ever job. Others are single parents or in the middle of a career change… Recruiting for potential has always been the vision of Honest Burgers, it’s just been elevated because of Brexit and Covid-19 which has made it harder to recruit.”

How Honest Burgers set themselves apart from other QSRs

“What attracts people to your business is a whole bag of golden nuggets,” says Oli. “Wagestream is one of those golden nuggets.”

Wagestream has been Honest Burger’s way of implementing a holistic financial wellbeing program that supports their team members. Wagestream is a financial wellbeing app that provides QSR employees with the ability to track their pay in real-time, access 50% of earned wages when they need, talk to human money coaches and get personalised financial fitness plans.

“We know that employees coming into our workforce want to take ownership of their lifestyle and that also relates to pay. Wagestream allows our employees to take ownership and have the freedom to manage their pay themselves rather than through us,” says Oli.

The impact of an effective financial wellbeing program

Wagestream’s impact on Honest Burgers’ business has shown how impactful financial wellbeing programs can be. Six in 10 employees say that the app has improved their finances and nine in 10 employees have said that they feel better about working at Honest Burgers because of the app.

Employers using this financial wellbeing benefit are proven to see a 16% improvement in retention and 26% increase in shift fill rate. At a time when good staff are hard to find and keep, these improvements can prove invaluable.

For Oli, this isn’t rocket science – it’s just about doing what’s right. “There’s stuff we do really well and things we don’t do so well, and we talk about that. Transparency is key. Feedback is key. That’s how we improve. We focus on what matters and what we care about and that makes us Honest.”