Taco Bell to Test a Cutting Edge Employee Retention Strategy: Paying More Money

As fast food and QSR brands continue to face issues involving hiring and retaining quality employees and come up with ways to find and retain quality employees and continuously moan and complain about how quality employees are so hard to find and retain, Taco Bell is testing a novel concept: paying employees more money. 

According to a Nation’s Restaurant News report, the fast food giant will test paying an annual salary of $100,000 to select store leaders of company-owned restaurants. The test will take place later this year, and the store leaders being selected are still TBD. According to the report, annual salaries for restaurant general managers at Taco Bell corporate stores presently range from $50,000 to $80,000.  

The brand also announced changes to its sick leave policies, among other initiatives, Nation’s Restaurant News reported.  

“Through these initiatives, Taco Bell aims to enhance restaurant performance, employee satisfaction and support recruitment and retention,” the company said in a statement, according to the article.

You’d think companies eager to retain top performers would be willing to shell out the proverbial dough, but it’s just not the case. We’re more likely to read a story about creative hiring methods, such as hiring parties, than about salary hikes. Some brands will even try letting workers access a portion of their paychecks before payday, but they don’t seem to want to actually pay more money that might possibly eliminate the need for that kind of service.  

There’s no telling how this pilot program will pan out, but still, major kudos to Taco Bell for its willingness to try an employee retention method that some of its peers probably wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Either way, Taco Bell might want to prepare for a surge in job applications.