Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/414972
think sometimes people don't realize the investment that requires. In addition to those 520 web employees, we share a lot of the administrative staff (which would include buyers, accoun- tants, benefits and help desk staff) with the other Clark com- panies because that is centralized for us. N&V: So to be clear, the staff of 520 is not an amalgamation of Clark company employees? Groff: No, they're all WEBstaurant employees. N&V: How many are fulltime? Groff: 95 percent. N&V: It's really mind blowing to think about the scale of your operation, considering when I started at FEDA in 1995, email was just becoming popular. A few years later, there were whispers about dealers starting to dabble in ecommerce—one being Restaurant Equipment World. Let's turn to the issue of attracting talent. As you know, this is one of the industry's Achilles' heels. Why is your company so good at it? Groff: The industry does have an issue with perception. We might even say it is more of an issue with awareness. I don't think our industry does a great job of letting outsiders know how great it is. One thing that we've done to try and address this is to lean on our people. For example, we have groups of people within our company that we call college ambassadors. Basically, they are recent hires that may have just graduated or been out of school for one to three years. Every year we challenge them to return to campus (through- out the school year) and come up with campaigns that will increase the awareness of our company at each of their alma maters. They regularly meet with students and professors, speak at classes, participate in club events, and go to job fairs. We've even hosted field trips and invited busloads of college students to tour our facilities. Our chef caters a networking lunch for them and they get to mingle with people who have graduated from their school as well as other current employ- ees. And I think that when perspective employees see other smart, ambitious people having great careers in this industry, it becomes a much easier sell for us. We have also tried to invest heavily into our internship program. This year we have about 40 interns throughout the company we hope will come back for future internships, or even fulltime positions when they graduate, and we use incentives to encourage them to spread the word about our company on campus. N&V: Do you offer incentives for the college ambassadors? Groff: Actually, we have several. In our video and photogra- phy department we have around 25 people. Some are involved in taking photos, some in cropping them, others uploading to the site and some of those people are video staff. N&V: Did everyone come with those skill sets or did you allow them to explore their areas of interest? Groff: It's a mix. Most people have come to us with experi- ence in photography or videography. We also have a mix of fulltime staff and interns who are currently in graphic design or photography-type programs. We have lots of internship opportunities for people who are interested in learning more about careers in those areas. N&V: Shifting the focus a bit, I'd like to try and wrap my arms around WEBstaurant's infrastructure. It seems pretty complex. Can you give me a sense of what it takes to run something like WEBstaurant in terms of staff? Groff: This is one of the common misconceptions about ecommerce, that it requires very little overhead. The truth is, to do it well, there's actually a tremendous amount of infra- structure and people involved. The WEBstaurant Store has about 520 employees, and that includes developers, designers, database administrators, content writers, site maintenance staff, search engine optimization and pay-per-click marketers. Of course, there are customer service reps, logistics coordina- tors, photographers, videographers, product experts and our corporate chef. That number also includes our warehouse staff in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Nevada. That brings me to another common misunderstanding about ecommerce companies: We actually ship 85 percent of our orders using our own inventory from one of those three buildings, and I N&V: So to be clear, the staff of 520 is not an amalgamation of Clark company employees? Groff: No, they're all WEBstaurant employees. N&V: How many are fulltime? Groff: 95 percent. N&V: It's really mind blowing to think about the scale of your operation, considering when I started at FEDA in 1995, email was just becoming popular. A few years later, there were whispers about dealers starting to dabble in ecommerce—one being Restaurant Equipment World. Let's turn to the issue of attracting talent. As you know, this is one of the industry's Achilles' heels. Why is your company so good at it? Groff: The industry does have an issue with perception. We might even say it is more of an issue with awareness. I don't think our industry does a great job of letting outsiders know how great it is. One thing that we've done to try and address this is to lean on our people. For example, we have groups of people within our company that we call college ambassadors. Basically, they are recent hires that may have just graduated or been out of school for one to three years. Every year we challenge them to return to campus (through- out the school year) and come up with campaigns that will increase the awareness of our company at each of their alma maters. They regularly meet with students and professors, speak at classes, participate in club events, and go to job fairs. We've even hosted field trips and invited busloads of college students to tour our facilities. Our chef caters a networking lunch for them and they get to mingle with people who have graduated from their school as well as other current employ- graduated from their school as well as other current employ- graduated from their school as well as other current employ ees. And I think that when perspective employees see other smart, ambitious people having great careers in this industry, it becomes a much easier sell for us. We have also tried to invest heavily into our internship program. This year we have about 40 interns throughout the company we hope will come back for future internships, or even fulltime positions when they graduate, and we use incentives to encourage them to spread the word about our company on campus. N&V: Do you offer incentives for the college ambassadors? allow them to explore their areas of interest? Groff: It's a mix. Most people have come to us with experi- ence in photography or videography. We also have a mix of fulltime staff and interns who are currently in graphic design or photography-type programs. We have lots of internship opportunities for people who are interested in learning more about careers in those areas. N&V: Shifting the focus a bit, I'd like to try and wrap my arms around WEBstaurant's infrastructure. It seems pretty complex. Can you give me a sense of what it takes to run something like WEBstaurant in terms of staff? Groff: This is one of the common misconceptions about ecommerce, that it requires very little overhead. The truth is, to do it well, there's actually a tremendous amount of infra- structure and people involved. The WEBstaurant Store has about 520 employees, and that includes developers, designers, database administrators, content writers, site maintenance staff, search engine optimization and pay-per-click marketers. Of course, there are customer service reps, logistics coordina- tors, photographers, videographers, product experts and our corporate chef. That number also includes our warehouse staff in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Nevada. That brings me to another common misunderstanding about ecommerce companies: We actually ship 85 percent of our orders using our own inventory from one of those three buildings, and I 32 FEDA News & Views continued on page 36 Gustafson, Groff & Burkett continued APPS: Uber, Nike Running, and the new WEBstaurant scanner app of course! LATEST TECH OBSESSION: GoPro BOOK: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain TECHNOLOGY TOY: Sonos ORGANIZATIONAL MUST-HAVE: Dropbox, LogMeIn for productivity.