2007 Overall winner:
Papa San Rice Bowl

Fun, outstanding family-owned and operated business where employees are treated like family
BY NANCY GILKEY, SUN STAFF WRITER

Bill Gresser admits fast-food jobs can be the butt of jokes, but he's not giving anyone a reason to laugh at the people who work for him at Papa-San Rice Bowl.

He tries to instill in them life and vocational skills that will help them thrive later on in careers in or outside the restaurant industry.

For that and other factors, Papa-San was chosen from among 39 finalists and an overall 74 nominees for the title of 2007 Workplace Excellence Award.

Papa-San is more than just a quick-service Japanese restaurant where fast-food restaurant skills are taught. It's an ethnically diverse workplace where employees learn life skills, get paid for doing homework and are encouraged to become successful, upstanding, community-minded citizens.

" ... We love our bosses and will do anything to make them look good and run a successful and clean restaurant," wrote Papa-San cook Robert McRae in his Workplace Excellence nomination form. The result is a restaurant that consistently serves quality food and consistently receives scores of excellence from the health department, he said.

Such employee devotion begins with Papa-San's employee recruitment and is nurtured by its owners.
HR strategy

"At Papa-San, we recruit employees who we would want to serve us, were we eating out," wrote Gresser in his nomination application.

But employees are hired for personality, not for fast-food restaurant skills, which the company teaches, he said. Even so, Gresser and his wife, Judy, realize that some personalities are well suited for direct customer contact, and others are better suited for other positions within the company.

The Gressers believe in giving a first as well as a second chance to enter the work force. So they not only hire honor students and Yuma WORC Center graduates, they also hire paroled felons. "And we are proud to have retained many of our staff for years," Gresser said.

They are also proud of some who have left the company.

"A young man, who had been with us for some time, gave notice," Gresser said. "He had worked every department and said he had 'nothing left to learn.' I told him that he had learned Papa-San's greatest lesson - that he didn't want to work in fast food for the rest of his life.

"He's now an engineer."

Compensation and rewards

Papa-San's customers don't mind paying for quality food and service, which enables the company to offer a starting wage rate that is substantially above minimum wage, Gresser said. The company also provides uniforms, free meals and discounts to employees who bring friends and family to eat at the restaurant.

"But the source of our greatest pride is our homework program," Gresser said. "We pay our student-employees to do their homework (and) ... we ask that the others respect the student's privacy."

Workplace Excellence judge Kathleen McComber took notice of this unusual workplace practice.

"Paying employees to do homework is exceptional," she wrote on her scoring sheet. "It sets the tone for the type of company they are, rewarding them for academic work. Their empowered staff really feel this and take it seriously."

Learning, training and development

Papa-San has retained many long-term employees, including the kitchen manager, who has been with the company since before the restaurant opened in 1992.

Because the company is small, it is important to cross-train new employees, Gresser said. And it's evidently fun to observe the training.

"Watch a new person, who has no idea what sushi is (it's rice, not fish) being trained to make it ... and then, enjoy eating it!"

But training goes beyond making sushi.

"Fast-food jobs are the butt of many jokes, but at Papa-San, we infuse pride," Gresser said. "We express to our staff that, rather than being at a dead end, they are at the start of their respective careers. And we teach skills that will benefit them in later life.

"We teach how to be on the job, every shift, on time, dressed and groomed appropriately. We teach how to work in a multi-ethnic environment with dignity for themselves and their co-workers, and to deal with the public as they would like to be treated."

Executive perspective

Drawing on several decades of personal work experience with national and multinational companies, the Gressers' human resources objective was to structure the company as a place where they would like going to work each day.

"Rather than having the luxury of a full human relations department, we began from scratch," Gresser said.

"Our objective was, and is, a softer, less formal approach to dealing with our staff, which translates into a friendlier atmosphere for our customers."

When the Gressers founded Papa-San in 1992, they engaged their staff in menu preparation and recipes.

The Gressers realized they cannot always be present at the restaurant, so they empower their staff to adjust a meal, if necessary, and to replace or refund any product that doesn't doesn't satisfy the customer.

Cultural diversity is as important to the Papa-San workplace as customer service is.

"Having as diverse a staff as we do at Papa-San, it is sometimes possible to hear three different languages spoken in private conversations," Gresser said. But when others who may not understand the foreign language are present, English is spoken as a courtesy.

Evidently, the staff appreciates the work environment at Papa-San. "Many of our staff joined us as a result of a recommendation of friends or family of current employees," Gresser said.

Training and cross training occur on the premises, and compensation is adjusted as proficiency in new skills is acquired, he said.

Beyond the workplace, the Gressers encourage their employees to participate in the community, particularly in their children's schools, he said. "Corporately, we participate in their extracurricular activities.

"Recognizing that Yuma is more than commerce, we hope we, the owners and the staff of Papa-San Rice Bowl, have become good citizens as well as good corporate citizens.

"We are especially honored that one of our employees has seen fit to nominate us for the award."