Dominos the Pizza Chain of the Year, according to a recent accolade from Pizza Today magazine is planning a rapid expansion in the UK and Ireland. Founded in 1960, the pizza-delivery group operates a network of both company-owned and franchised stores in more than 50 countries. The UK operation has just over 100 franchisees and 270 stores, but believes there is still considerable potential for growth up to 1,500 jobs are to be created over the next year.
The north of England will be targeted as it seeks to increase its stores by approximately 50 to secure a larger slice of the 400 million UK pizza market. In the 12 months to 29 December 2002, Dominos recorded a 48.1% increase in pre-tax profits to 4.2 million.
HR director Jane Roberts is confident that the expansion will not over-stretch resources. In the 1980s, Dominos was the fastest-growing company in the US, and the policy was growth at any cost, she says. But we ended up having to close a number of stores. So we know we need to open stores in a sensible and controlled way.
Recruitment drive at salsa and line-dancing classes
Each store requires 25 to 30 employees and, at franchised stores, their recruitment is handled by the franchisees. However, the HR department at the Milton Keynes head office acts as a coaching function to help them. The company also has a number of non-franchised stores, as otherwise its only profits would come from new franchises and the sale of ingredients to stores.
Dominos does use web recruitment and headhunters, but Roberts reveals that its managers in the South West have been displaying their initiative in recruitment by targeting salsa and line-dancing classes for new staff. Our managers go to classes and offer people store visits. Its the sort of thing we used to do with schools now we find were attracting older workers, which has even helped us with our retention rates, explains Roberts. The HR department produces marketing and recruitment material to be used by those managers So theres no need for people to reinvent the wheel, she adds.
Intensive training from 8am to 1am
Roberts also explains that a franchise four-week training course gives people a good grounding. The training is pretty intensive. Its from 8am to 1am and a mix of academic study and running a store. Even head-office based staff members have to do a week of this training its important that we know not to call people too early, say at 9 oclock in the morning. When you work in HR, its a real eye-opener. All our staff have been on the course, even our two payroll ladies, she says.
The company visits stores on a quarterly basis. If people need a passion injection they are sent to headquarters for a weeks training. You hear them running around the room and banging on the walls, Roberts jokes. So is she thinking of taking on a franchise? Not after I did the weeks training at a store. It took me a week to recover.
