CARES is an acronym for a teaching model on motivation and productivity. These are the “hot spots” that a supervisor must push to get an employee to serve the customer and produce a profit for the employer. This model was built by me in 1972 and has been tested with many companies since that date and has proven to be successful. The model appears as a static page on my blog.

Now here is the rest of the story.

Like I said, the model was built in 1972 by me and it came about because I was the Vice President of Human Resources for Burger King Corporation at the time and as such was responsible for the training and development programs at the company. Our marketing department was ready to launch a new commercial called “Have It Your Way” and we needed something to motivate employees to perform at a high level.

At that time, I was familiar with most of the motivation and productivity theories and the one that appealed to me the most was Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the same time, Disney had opened Disney World and I was impressed with the work they had done to develop the attitudes of their employees at that theme park.

I visited Disney’s training facilities and found that they go beyond traditional recruiting and training methods. They pre-conditioned their employees not only to apply for a job, but also to try out for a role in a play. His recruiting office was called the “Casting Office.” They were taught to treat customers as they would treat “guests” visiting their homes. After being hired or chosen for the play, the employee went through a special orientation that included a room where the entire history of Disney was displayed in collages on the wall. The employee entrance, which was a separate tunnel into the park, had pictures of various Disney characters and helped employees get into character and feel good about themselves. Everything was designed to make employees feel special when welcoming guests to the park.

Inspired by what I saw at Disney and with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in hand, I began brainstorming with my staff about what we had and what we could do to meet the challenge of maximizing our human resources.

We knew that Maslow’s Hierarchy had 5 levels of needs. The question was how to apply Maslow’s theory to what the customer wants and the company expects from its employees. We first looked for a clue in the commercial and discovered that the promise spoke of affordable fast food delivered the way you like it. We divided it into 5 parts to link with the theory and we obtained: product, quality, personalized service, timely delivery and real value. We knew what the company wanted from its employees and that was “obvious” to divide it into 5 parts: work, efficiency, loyalty, production and profit. Well, we put all these “good things” on the board and found that we were missing the links to connect the company’s wants with the customer’s wants. Not really, we recognize that the link was the employee, and thanks to Maslow we knew that the employee had needs. The trick was how to press the “hot buttons” of the employee to activate the links.

We find the answer by going beyond Maslow and incorporating the theories of other behavioral scientists such as Herzberg, Gellerman, Kay, McClennan, and Vince Lombardi. And that gave us the following: Take time to know and recognize the basic needs of the employee, Educate the employee to build trust, Show Respect for the work that is being done, Show and give Appreciation for a job well done, and Communicate goals and objectives.

Well great, we already had the model. However, before we could implement it, we had to modify the current organizational structure at the restaurant. This meant adding two positions, one for a Crew Specialist who would be responsible for implementing and monitoring the new program’s orientation and training. The second position was Lead Hostess to coordinate and oversee the customer relations function at restaurants. We decided to test the concept in one of our Districts in Detroit. We took 12 restaurants and divided them into two groups of 6. One acted as a control group where the entire CARES model was applied, the other group operated as usual.

The employee meeting room became the CARES environmental room and now contained images of how the restaurant’s façade had evolved over time, as well as a history of the company. A tall mirror was placed on the back of the door so employees could check themselves on the way to the kitchen, we had a makeup professional teach the kids, and some of the grandmothers who worked in the restaurant, how to apply makeup. until. (When this activity became known, we began to receive a flood of applications for restaurant positions. A benefit we did not count on). Special courses on customer service and hospitality were launched. We sponsored a dance party for employees in the control group only. We ran cameras around the restaurant to capture some lunch periods and then replayed them so the manager and team could critique their own performance and improve it during team meetings. Storyboards were installed at the various booths in the restaurant so that a new employee could easily refer to the operational steps of the booth. It was Halloween and the children came to work in costumes which aroused a lot of enthusiasm and excitement among the guests. These are just some of the things that were applied according to the model.

When we compared the operating states of the two groups after 6 weeks, the CARES group outperformed the other group in all areas. Our controllable labor and food costs were reduced, and customer numbers and sales increased. An incredible difference in motivation and productivity, not to mention profit.

From that point on, I went ahead and started my own consulting firm and took the CARES model with me and taught it to various business clients in a variety of industries. And I’m proud to report that after 30 years, the app is still successful. It’s a powerful model once you understand it and should be applied to any business that wants to recognize and maximize its human resources.

Keep in mind that employee recognition is key and at the top of the charts when creating a motivational and productive environment.

So that’s the story, you have the model as a static page on my blog. Check it out and see if it can help you maximize your human resources.

Good luck!