[2009-06-11] There's no question that the struggling economy has wreaked havoc on the restaurant industry. It has also, however, created an invaluable silver lining: nearly unprecedented abundance in the labor pool.

According to Joni Thomas Doolin, Founder and CEO of the HR tracking firm People Report, operators shouldn't expect this boon to last long. But it will give restaurant operators the chance to "get that service-profit chain right"-and build a sustainable competitive advantage in the months and years to come, she told QSR Symposium attendees during her session entitled "Shifting Gears in a Downturn-Best Practices for Today and Tomorrow", held yesterday in Las Colinas, Texas.

"We cannot afford to miss this market," Doolin says. "Unless you were opening restaurants in the '70s and '80s, you've never seen this much talent available." And in the service industry, she says, human talent is an extremely reliable predictor of overall success.

The expanded labor pool has already driven positive trends for many People Report client companies. "For the first time in more than a decade, we've seen an increase in termination for the reason of performance, rather than voluntary separation," Doolin says "Managers are taking the time to evaluate performance and drop those employees who simply aren't getting the job done." The results speak for themselves: Companies in which 20 percent of terminations were based on poor performance saw negative comp sales in 2008, while companies with performance-based terminations of 32 percent were able to increase comp sales.

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