Mad Mex: focusing on wellbeing to boost recruitment

It’s perhaps never been more competitive to recruit new team members in the QSR industry. Staff shortages are well reported and in the face of such challenging conditions, some QSRs like Mad Mex are doubling down on their wellbeing offering to set themselves apart to potential candidates.

Wagestream sat down with Emily Van Wessem, People & Culture Manager, to talk about Mad Mex’s current initiatives, as well as what’s coming up and how to build a dynamic wellbeing strategy.

How has Mad Mex’s approach to managing staff wellbeing evolved over the last few years?

The last two years have been a whirlwind as an employer, especially in the QSR industry. Lockdowns, restaurants closing and borders closing meant that trying to retain a team while going through all these challenges, especially with such a heavy casual workforce, has been really difficult.

We’ve continued to focus on our values, it’s something we really pride ourselves on. We’ve recently added two new values - one of which is healthy. It’s really important that our team members are committed to their wellbeing, one of the ways is ensuring that they have work/life balance. 

We’ve got awesome initiatives like Peakon which is a platform we use across the organisation to track how happy people are in their restaurants. We can see their engagement score, if they’re likely to recommend people to work for Mad Mex and if they’d refer us to a friend. So similar to how people gauge customer satisfaction, we do that with our employees as well.

Finally we have a focus on maintaining a great culture, and being a familia - we are a family. It’s something we strive for, because a family cares for each other, is authentic with each other and looks out for each other’s wellbeing.

What challenges are employees facing at the moment?

There are staff shortages everywhere and we’re definitely not immune to that. In turn, when there are staff shortages your team becomes burnt out. They’re putting in extra hours because they’re committed to the brand and they want to see it succeed. This means they’re potentially working more than they should while juggling things like study and family which they have outside of the workplace.

We have to be strategic in how we recruit and the offerings we have available to the team so we stay front of mind when there are so many competitors out there.

What kind of initiatives does Mad Mex offer to set itself apart?

We’re really excited to have just launched a Paid Parental Leave Policy for our Corporate employees, where primary carers will be able to access up to six weeks of paid parental leave at their full pay or 12 weeks at half pay, plus super. Secondary carers will still get one week of full pay carers leave as well. 

We want to continue to make sure our familia is supported and one of those ways is through supporting financial wellbeing or financial health. 

Having access to our employee Discounts Benefit portal also helps the impact by reducing their weekly shop or discounting a new item they want to purchase. 

When you talk about being healthy, yes it’s about mindfulness and yes it’s about eating well, but it’s also about understanding those basic needs when it comes to Maslow’s hierarchy and having that financial security is fundamental to that.

Are there any specific things you’re looking to do in terms of recruitment challenges?

Gone are the days you can just expect a number of candidates to apply. It really is about selling yourself and why you’re the best place to work. And doing that continuously – building our employer brand is an always on, everyday thing!

Generations are changing and what young people want from an employer is different so trying to adapt is really important.

We have also seen a bit of a shift in how we are advertising, we’re not necessarily using social media like Facebook and Instagram. We’re contacting influencers and speaking to them about being brand ambassadors so they can speak about why Mad Mex is the best place to work.

We’re also going back to traditional methods like contacting local schools and building that engagement through your local community. This is just as important as thinking big picture from a brand point of view. Our local franchisees and business managers also need to make those connections to the communities they’re in. And our course we have an extensive network with our amazing ‘luchdores’ / frontline staff so we try to tap into them and their networks, and reward them accordingly, with our employee referral program.

It’s also about having happy and engaged employees in the restaurants so that when customers go there they may be tempted to pick up a Come work for us card.

Are there any programs you’re looking to implement in the near future?

There are a lot of things we’re looking into and the door is always open for new initiatives and ideas. We just want to make sure anything we implement is actually utilised, so whenever we’re exploring a potential platform or program, like Wagestream for example, we ask what are take up rates like. We need to make sure people want the service and that it works for our business.

We’re about to relaunch our reward and recognition program and that will impact everyone. Wagestream is another initiative that we’re considering, making sure people have access when they need access to money - this is important at a time when people are struggling with inflation. 

What advice would you give to others as they implement wellbeing programs?

I would say that it’s important to understand take-up rates and how effective a program is from that point of view. If you’re launching a new initiative and you can see that only 5% is engaging in that particular platform then perhaps it’s not working. This could be because the program wasn’t communicated about effectively, there’s a gap in the functionality of the platform or it’s not needed. Making sure any wellbeing programs are launched in the right way are just as important as finding the right programs.

For example, with our Paid Parental Leave program for our Corporate network, our CEO shares why we’re launching it, why it’s so important, and how it ties back to our culture of La Familia, and how we endeavour to support our people.

The other advice is to be proactive in engaging the team and asking what they want to see before talking to potential providers so you can implement what people want to see.