Why Financial Training for Employees Makes a Difference

In many companies, the financials are locked safe away from the staff. But at Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen, management takes a different view.

When the company moved to an open-book system a few years ago, Sharisse Johnson, chief executive officer of the locally owned family business, observed how few people understood the most basic of financial reporting. She had studied Jack Stack and his Great Game of Business, an approach to open-book management that engages staff.

“We were going into the downturn, and we were looking for a way to formalize the financial metrics so everyone could be on the same page,” Johnson says.

Macayo’s, which has 14 locations in Arizona and four in Las Vegas, began training staff — managers, servers, bartenders, dishwashers — about the costs associated with the business. The staff learned how much chips and salsa cost and the profit netted from an entrée.

“Everyone in our company was learning,” Johnson says. “People got really interested in the numbers.”

And this meant everyone could help the company thrive. The different restaurants hold contests based on a particular focus area. There might be a competition to lower spending on chips and salsa, to reduce the spend on paper products or to improve service.

What she’s seen is the whole staff working to improve the bottom line. In one store, silverware was accidentally getting thrown away until a staff member moved the trashcan away from the dish return area.

“These little innovations they’re creating on their own make a difference,” Johnson says. “I love that by learning, people really got empowered. They’re being more proactive.”

New hires participate in a Finance 101 seminar during their orientation, and the company plans to develop a series of classes based on the company’s objectives. But for now, informal training and contests are working.

“We’re a family company, so we wanted to put some of those formal systems in place without doing it in a formal way. This is a fun, empowering system that fits with our culture,” she says. “It’s a process we started three years ago, and we keep improving it and keep learning.”

The important thing, she says, is that everyone in the organization knows — and is working toward — the same goals.

“It’s a great thing in our organization,” Johnson says.

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Macayo’s Mexican Restaurants
www.macayo.com

This story, written by Stephanie Conner, is part of the Chamber's monthly Businesswise for Women email. To sign up for any or all of the GPCC's email communications, click here.