Buffalo Wild Wings Tackles Turnover with a Simplified Recipe for Engagement

The Company

Buffalo Wild Wings, an international sports bar and grill, manages to create the ultimate experience for sports fans in each one of its locations.

The company opened its first restaurant in 1982 and has rapidly grown to more than 1,200 restaurants today. As a company that not only values integrity and excellence, but also camaraderie and fun, every BWW location strives to “unleash the buffalos” – an encouragement to tailor each restaurant to reflect the unique personalities and wants of their team members and guests, because they believe that when team members feel comfortable, they are set up for success and guests have the best possible experience. 

The Challenge

The restaurant industry is notorious for high employee turnover — with the average hourly turnover rate at 121% — and Buffalo Wild Wings is no exception.

At the beginning of their engagement journey, BWW had entire restaurant teams turning over every year. The cost associated with this rapid turnover, as well as the impact it had on their teams and guests, showed them that something had to change. Their original engagement strategy wasn’t working; it was too time-consuming, not frequent enough, and had complicated static reporting that left managers unsure of how to take action. The restaurant chain needed a simplified survey partner that would offer the flexibility to customize their engagement program to fit the personalized needs of their brand.

The Solution

Quantum Workplace provided a simplified and customized engagement platform, offering:

• Customized survey items and open-ended comments for each position level
• Adjustable survey frequency to fit the needs of their fast-paced environment
• A quick rollout of organization and team-level results
• Personalized reports for team leaders with suggestions on how to improve the employee experience
• Ability to integrate the online survey and results with their own HR portal