History of the Restaurant industry:

The term “restaurant” was first associated in the 18th century in Paris, when MathurinRoze de
Chantoiseau founded a “restaurant” on the Rue des Poulies. Chantoiseau himself said it was
founded in 1766, but the first mentions are from 1767. In the seventeen-eighties, as the
Revolution approached, elite cooks from grand households began to open grander versions of
these places which, even if they were officially “traiteurs” became known simply as
“restaurateurs”. Use of the term “restaurant” for the establishment itself only became common in
the nineteenth century. During the 19th century, the number of restaurants in Paris continued to
rise.

However, the biggest change in the restaurant industry during the 20 th century is credited to
McDonald’s. Originally a hot dog stand owned by two brothers from Illinois, they switched to
hamburgers in 1948. Taking a cue from Henry Ford’s assembly line concept, the McDonald
brothers began offering the fastest, cheapest food possible by employing low skill workers to
assemble it. By this way America also started their restaurant business.

American Restaurant Industry:

In the America, it was not until the late 18th century that establishments that provided meals
without also providing lodging began to appear in major metropolitan areas in the form of
coffee and oyster houses. The actual term "restaurant" did not enter into the common phrase until
the following century.

The American restaurant business started off emulating the French restaurant business, seeing it
as the epitome of taste and class. Prior to being referred to as "restaurants" these eating
establishments assumed regional names such as "eating house" in New York City, "restorator" in
Boston or in other areas. Restaurants were typically located in populous urban areas during the
19th century and grew in number. The highest concentration of these restaurants were in the
West. But American restaurants always focused on ingredients that were in abundance in the
United States, such as the oysters of the Northeast. As was fitting for a nation of immigrants,
American food quickly began to diversify, with Chinese, Italian, Greek and other immigrants
offering and adapting their food for a mainstream clientele. In the latter half of the twentieth

1
century, the United States led the way in the consolidation of industrialization of restaurant and
food service offerings with fast food chains and family dining franchises. After coming the
restaurant business in America, Denny’s as a restaurant was established there which is now
known as a renowned restaurant in America.

Present Situation of restaurant industry:

Many families headed by two working parents, shifting consumer patterns brought an increase in
the number of people eating out. Restaurant chains like Olive Garden, Applebee’s, and 99
catered to the ever growing middle class, offering moderately priced meals and children’s
menus. Another modern trend is local foods, with special emphasis on sustainability. People are
more aware than ever of the link between health and nutrition and are more cognizant of what
foods they are eating when they dine at restaurants. The restaurant market is constantly changing.
The number of total restaurants in the United States in spring 2018, there
were 660,755restaurants. There were 190,649 quick service restaurant franchises and 31,480 full
service restaurants franchises in the U.S. in 2017.
More broadly, a relatively positive economic environment overall has made turnover an
increasingly difficult issue for restaurateurs to manage. In the post-summer 2017 has seen
climbing numbers again:

LIMITED SERVICE FULL SERVICE

Hourly 146.2% 102.8%

Management 49.7% 38.5%

In 2017, there are approximately 14 million people working within the restaurant industry and
among them the waiting staff number are 4,438,100. The restaurant industry in the United
States is generally comprised of independent or chain full-service and limited-service restaurants.

According to survey, in 2017, restaurant industry’s market share of the food dollar is 48 percent
in USA. But there have some segments in the restaurant business and they have also various
market share.

2
 Estimated Market Share in 2017
1%

48% 51%

Limited Service Full Service Bars and Tavems

In the above chart, limited-service restaurants have the largest market share, at 51%. Full-service
restaurants have a market share of 48%. Bars and taverns have a market share of 1%. 

History of Denny’s:

Harold Butler and Richard Jezak first introduced Danny's Donuts in 1953. Initially it was located
in in Lakewood, California. Later it became Danny's Coffee Shops instead of Danny's Donuts
and started operating 24 hours service.

In 1967, they went international by opening their chain in Mexico. In 1968, on NYSE Denny’s
stock begun to trade under ‘DEN’. Denny’s absorbed many other restaurant and introduced
grand slam breakfast later in 1977 which is still popular in their menu. Denny’s expanded so fast
that by 1981, Denny’s reached the milestone of around 1000 restaurants all over the U.S. In
1987, Trans World Corporation (TW Corporation) acquired Denny’s and the main office of
Denny’s moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Later this parent company’s 47% interests were acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TW
Corporation became The Flagstar Companies and Denny’s became to Denny's Corporation. A
policy to offer free meal on customers’ birthdays was started from 1990, later it restricted the
rules as many people started going to Denny’s more than once on their birthday to get free meal

3
offer. From 1997, some of the Denny’s restaurant started following Dinar concept in 1950’s style
classic buildings. Now many of the Denny’s restaurants follow the Diners concept and welcome
everyone to America’s Diner.

A great expansion was seen of Denny’s in 2010 all over the U.S, when the popular North
American chain of truck stops Pilot Flying J introduced Denny in their location, made them more
available and handy. The expansion was so big that by the end of 2011, Denny’s became a big
chain restaurant of 1685 branches. Major of its restaurant are franchises of the chain except some
few which are directly operated.

Started Journey 1953 Renamed 1956 Further renamed 1961

Present situation of Denny’s:

Denny's Corporation is the franchisor and operator of one of America's largest franchised full-
service restaurant chains, based on the number of restaurants. As of March 29, 2017, Denny’s
had 1,731 franchised, licensed, and company restaurants around the world with combined sales
of $2.8 billion including 126 restaurants in Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, New Zealand,
Honduras, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Guam, the Philippines,
Curacao, El Salvador, and Trinidad and Tobago. Total Operating Revenue grew 21.4% to $155.3
million, primarily due to revenue recognition changes. Net Income was $9.8 million.

4
 Chart Title
1800
1524 1537 1541 1546 1564 1557
1600 1479
1426
1400 1318
1226
No of Restaurants

1200 1152
1000
800
600
394
400 315
233 232 206 178
164 163 161 164 169
200
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Year

Chart: No. of Denny’s restaurant from 2007 to 2017

A tech revolution happened in 2017, when they launches their 24/7 online platform to make
customer life easier and more comfortable. After that, anyone can order food for home delivery
form the nearest Denny’s restaurant simply by some clicks in their website. This step made
Denny’s more reachable to its customer and definitely bigger in the market.

In this June ’18, this family dining chain announced about partnering with Amazon restaurant
besides Grubhub, Postmates and some other third party delivery provides. Addition of Amazon
will help Denny’s to increase its customer base by reaching prime customer.

“As our guests continue to seek convenient ways to enjoy their Denny’s favorites, delivery has
become increasingly important and the addition of Amazon Restaurants brings another delivery
option to our platform,” John Dillon, CMO of Denny’s, said in a release. “We look forward to
growing our delivery network with Amazon Restaurants as they continue
to expand their reach.”

At current date, Denny’s is in 108 international locations, having up of

9,315 employees and unlimited customer, what made Denny’s a popular
name of food place and one of the biggest & iconic restaurant chain.

5
Products & Services:

Denny's has more than 1,600 locations both at home and abroad. This chain opens 24 hours a day
and seven days a week and provides various foods like burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, salads,
soups and desserts for every guest. Its hearty-cooked food and sweet service will certainly let the
customers enjoy their meal to the largest extent.

Denny’s have a wide range categories of foods in their menu. Their popular foods are Pancakes,
Slams, Breakfasts, Omelets, 100% beef burgers, Steak and sea food and so on.

The Fit Fare menu offered by Denny’s helps its guests to choose items those are according to
their alimentary needs. Varieties of items that Denny’s offered include:

 Breakfast
 Lunch
 Dinner
 Late night dining.

Denny's restaurants offer special items for

children and seniors at reduced prices. It
offers a selection of lunch and dinner
items, including burgers, sandwiches,
soups & salads and skillet entrees, along
with beverages, appetizers and desserts.

Online Service: From May 2017 Denny’s had launched their 24/7 food delivery service
which is called Denny’s on Demand. The customers can choose their pickup or delivery time,
track their order, and look back at their ordering history by using their mobile app or
desktop.

6
Competitors and Market Share:

• Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

• Texas Roadhouse Inc.
• The Cheesecake Factory
• Buffalo Wild Wings
• Brinker International
• BJ's Restaurants
• Chipotle Mexican Grill
• Dine Equity
• Dunkin's Donut
• Domino’s Pizza
• Jack In the Box
• Frisch’s Restaurant

7
Workforce (Denny’s Corporate/Company Restaurants):
Denny’s company workforce is made up of 9,315 employees: As of July 2018, minorities make
up 68% of Denny’s total workforce and 52% of the restaurant management level. The board of
Denny’s Corporation consists of 10 directors, 50% of which are minorities and 30% women.
They believe a diverse workplace is a strong workplace and should reflect the communities
served.

Denny's Workforce
11%

32%
16%

41%

White Hispanic African american Others

Chart: Denny’s workforce

Franchises: Denny’s has 108 international locations. As of July 2018: 49% of the total
restaurants are minority owned; 5% of the total restaurants are owned by members of the LGBT
community; 22% of the total restaurants are owned by women actively participating in the
business. Moreover, 90% of the total restaurants are franchise owned

Denny’s Recruitment Policy

8
To achieve the best organizational performance Denny’s followed Human Resource
Management practices. They started focusing in this method after settling the lawsuit of $54
million.

Introduction to HR and Job Analysis &

Recruiting Selection
HR Planning Design of work

Employee
Relations
Training & Performance Compensation
And
Development Management Management
Work Life
Balance

9
With other changes Denny’s introduced a holistic approach to diversity where they focused on
cultural and structural change. Denny’s provides a guide to acting ethically. Denny’s requires
every employee and officer to be familiar with and follow their guiding principles. Creating the
best work environment starts with the employee. The employee must act ethically in everything
they do. Building trust and respect requires reporting unethical behavior so that the issue can be
addressed. ‘Guests First’ is the main part of their job description. In the recruitment process they
are now more focusing on college and university students and emphasizes on recruiting diverse
employees. Screening diverse applications & résumés, interviewing and checking background of
them are the major parts of their selection process. Denny’s provide diversity training from
bottom to top of the organization. The company instituted a process that evaluated 10 core
competencies, one of which was valuing and managing diversity. In addition, the company tied
25 percent of senior management's bonuses to the number of women and minorities in their
divisions. Denny’s have a diverse workforce though working place and employees are supported
by top management, a great working place. Denny’s is committed to embracing the unique
qualities of each employee and valuing differences in thought, culture, and experiences.

Objectives of the case:

1. To determine the key points of Denny’s Turnaround Regarding Its Diversity
2. To figure out the lessons learned from Denny’s experience as business corporation
3. To assess the influence of workforce diversity on the performance of the organization

OBJECTIVE 1:

To Determine the Key Points of Denny’s Turnaround Regarding Its Diversity

The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each
individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the
dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical

10
abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration of these
differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other
and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of
diversity contained within each individual.
Diversity is reality created by individuals and groups from a broad spectrum of demographic and
philosophical differences. It is extremely important to support and protect diversity because by
valuing individuals and groups free from prejudice, and by fostering a climate where equity and
mutual respect are intrinsic.
"Diversity" means more than just acknowledging and/or tolerating difference. Diversity is a set
of conscious practices that involve:
 Understanding and appreciating interdependence of humanity, cultures, and the natural
environment.
 Practicing mutual respect for qualities and experiences that are different from our own.
 Understanding that diversity includes not only ways of being but also ways of knowing.
 Recognizing that personal, cultural and institutionalized discrimination creates and
sustains privileges for some while creating and sustaining disadvantages for others.
 Building alliances across differences so that we can work together to eradicate all forms
of discrimination.
Denny’s turn around with regard to diversity was due to the change make cultural and structural.
Denny’s decide to implement a diverse board of directors to get different point of view reference
to the company. The company also decides to implement intensive education and training from
the board of directors to cooks, servers and hosts. The training covers diversity awareness and
diversity skills. The company also decides to eliminate all structures that impede inclusion and
start the recognition and rewards of their employees. In this way employees start felling more
motivate at work. The company also establishes a new way to eliminate discrimination polices
by providing incentive to managers who hire diverse employees. All of this was possible due to
the dedicated leader Ray Hood Phillips, Chief Diversity Officer, who saw diversity as the way to
bring back the company. Therefore, Denny’s performed several steps to achieve the turnaround
given below-

11
 i. Eliminating All Structures Impeding Inclusion: After analyzing their policies,
Denny’s realized they had unwittingly created a system wide diversity vacuum. The
company eliminated management and human resources structures (i.e., how it hires, fires,
develops and promotes people) that obstructed inclusion and build back structures that
foster diversity.
Now Denny’s company workforce is made up of 9,315 employees where White: 32.4% Hispanic
41.2% African American 15.8% other: 10.6% and Male: 45.5% Female: 54.4%.
ii. Training: Training is painful and rigorous process in order to achieve skills. It means
giving new or current employees the skills, knowledge, attitude and others (SKAOs) they
need to perform their jobs. It is a hallmark of good management. There is no way to
inculcate a vision and an understanding of a new corporate culture among many
employees without training. Denny’s restaurant sought to change the culture of the
company through intensive diversity training. It introduced it at the very top of the
organization, and cascade through the rest of the organization, tailored to address the
issues facing each key level of the organization and it is on-going. Servers and cooks
were required to watch a video on diversity, while the board of directors received a full
day of training. Restaurant managers received the most extensive training ranging two
nonconsecutive days of training lasting seven to nine hours each. The training covers
diversity awareness and diversity skills.
iii. Performance Appraisal: Performance Appraisal means evaluating an employee’s
current and/or past performance relative to his or her performance standards.
Performance appraisal always involves:

a. Setting work standards

b. Assessing the employee’s actual work performance relative those standards

c. Providing feedback to eliminate performance deficiencies or to continue to perform above par.

Previously, there was no value placed on diversity and no incentive for managers and no
incentive for managers to hire diverse candidates. Therefore, the company instituted a process
that evaluated 10 core competencies, one of which was valuing and managing diversity. In

12
addition, the company tied 25 percent of senior management's bonuses to the number of women
and minorities in their divisions.
iv. Recruitment: Recruitment is the process of exploring and searching prospective
employees and providing them stimulus to apply for specific positions (jobs) in an
organization through varied internal and external sources. Denny’s hired firms owned by
African Americans, Hispanics and women to take advantage of their inherently diverse
networks. The goal is to recognize the limitations of their surroundings and to find out
ways to reach out to people with entirely different cultural surroundings.
v. Leadership Approach: The CEO of an organization must set the tone, values,
expectations, and operating philosophy for the company. He or she should be one of the
company’s greatest champions of diversity. The tale of Denny’s diversity turnaround is a
textbook example of how fast and far a company can progress with an aggressive strategy
and strong leadership. Under Hood’s direction, the company spent millions on diversity
initiatives that brought legions of new minority managers, franchisees and suppliers into
a company run almost exclusively by white males. An irrepressible optimist, Hood has
used her position of authority to guide Denny’s through a remarkable turnaround.
vi. Diverse Board of Directors: A diverse board - as opposed to one lacking racial and
gender diversity - is more likely to examine the larger issues confronting the company,
both short and long term, with diversity issues in mind. Women and minorities today
make up half of Denny’s eight-member board of directors, and 45 percent of the 11-
member senior management team. Minority Owners hold 45 percent of Denny’s
franchised restaurants. Fortuna magazine has named the company the “Best Company in
America for Minorities” two years in a row.
vii. Change in Organization: Someone of title and rank must be accountable and
responsible for driving change throughout the organization. The new age of opportunity
initiative taken by Denny’s restaurant provides the framework for turning goodwill into
good business by focusing on four areas:
a) expanding franchise ownership opportunities for minorities and women
b) cultivating new supplier relationships for minorities and women
c) attracting and developing outstanding employees
d) enhancing the quality of life for people through meaningful community service

13
Denny’s achieved the world class supplier diversity status by the National Minority Supplier
Development Council. Similar strategies were employed to boost minority representation in
franchises, supply contractors and management.

14
Objective 2
Lessons from Denny’s experience that we can learn as business corporation

Culture work in novel ways and it accompanies certain impediments to the degree to which a
specific culture can contact individual of various social foundations.

“Organization Culture is the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by
members of an organization, that operate unconsciously and define a basic ‘taken for granted’
fashion an organization’s view of its self and its environment.” (Edger Schein, Former MIT
Professor). It permits low assurance, representative turnover, provocation, segregation, non-
attendance and disturbance to bring about lost profitability.

Denny’s restaurant business that failed to successfully manage diversity would suffer
economically and socially. But Denny’s overcome the situation and become the best company
within two years. Other companies may follow some strategies which were responsible for the
miraculous turnaround of Denny’s.

Concerned Top Management

A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team. How
management chooses to place and treats its people that have major impact on the organization
decisions. Denny’s and its parent company Advantica first sought to change the culture of the
company through intensive diversity training. Ray Hood-Phillips, chief diversity officer come up
with the idea of “holistic approach to diversity”. From the board of director to every top level
employee have gone through training on diversity. They always prioritized what they should do
to balance diversity. As we can see, Denny’s took a very deliberate approach to changing the
face of the company, putting system and incentives in place that keep diversity top of mind at all
times. This approach could not have succeeded without the complete support of upper
management.

Stringent Control

For implementing diversity top of mind at all times, much of the credit goes to Advantica’s
former, CEO Jim Adamson who refuse to allow the company to explain away its discriminatory
practice with excuses. In addition, Denny’s did not relegate diversity issues to the realm of
15
human resources. Everyone gone through training within the organization, it was not a matter of
fact whether he is board of director or cook. Denny’s even change their existing recruiting firm
and hired new firms which are owned by African Americans, Hispanics and Woman to balance
diversity.

Openness to Embrace Change

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the
future. After the class-action lawsuit settlement, it was not that much easy for Denny’s to recover
it within a short period of time. But Denny’s was brave enough to change their policy
immediately after this settlement. They introduce two types of changes in their business.

 Cultural Changes: Culture makes people understand each other better. Rebuilding a
culture is more difficult than developing a new product or services. But stronger cultured
company needs less corporate process. For the cultural changes they trained their existing
employee to work with diverse group of people.
 Structural Changes: To survive in modern times, a company must have an
organizational structure that accepts change as its basic premise. Hood Phillips named
that structured “people system”: the way Denny’s hired, fired, developed and promoted
people. To balance the diversity she change their recruiter and hired firmed owned by
African Americans, Hispanic and Women to reach out to people with entirely different
cultural surroundings. Moreover, Advantica also made huge strides in supplier and
franchaise diversity.

Endow with Employee Training and Development

There is no shortcut to any place worth going. “Job training empowers people to realize their
dreams and improve their lives.” (Sylvia Mathews Burwel).Great diversity training gives
employee the abilities that they can use to manage work within a highly diverse workplace. As
Denny’s wants to balance diversity, they change the whole picture of their company through
intensive diversity training. From the board of director to every cook, hostess and server was
required to participate in varying levels of training. Servers and cook watched videos and board
of directors received full day training on diversity. Restaurant managers received for two

16
nonconsecutive days of training lasting seven to nine hours each. The training covered diversity
awareness and diversity skill.

Locating Diversity as Business Objective

Workforce and entire economy are strongest when we embrace diversity to its fullest and that’s
means opening doors of opportunity to everyone. Accomplishing diversity expects management
to set particular, quantifiable, achievable and reasonable objectives in light of business needs and
by choosing key ranges where diversity can help advance the business. Denny’s set diversity as
their objective. To achieved the objective Denny’s evaluate its performance appraisal system and
add incentives for managers to hire diverse candidates. The impact of new objective touched
suppliers, recruiters and franchise drastically. Now, Denny’s is popular for its openness to the
diverse community.

Social Involvement

Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between
commerce and social responsibility. The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the
companies that make more money. Denny’s is committed to increasing the quality of life in the
communities that they serve. Denny’s regularly contributes money to the non- profit
organization. For instance, Advantica donated $1 million a year to human rights organizations. In
1995, Denny’s donated $1 to the Reignite the Dream Fund for every Denny’s Grand Slam
breakfast sold to contribute National Civil Rights Museum.

Denny’s entered in a new era of success through changing company culture, training and
development, corporate social responsibility and what not. Denny’s not only achieved social
image but also perceived financial outcomes to the business. From Denny’s organizations can
likewise take in the significance to have a right execution evaluation framework where
representatives they are not been separate for been the minority rather compensate it on the off
chance that they have decent execution. Now they are always open to the community at both
corporate level and local level.

17
OBJECTIVE 3 :
To assess the influence of workforce diversity on the performance of the
organization

The term workforce diversity refers to a workforce that consists of a broad mix of workers from
different racial and ethnic background of different ages and genders, and of different domestic
and national culture. Therefore it can be deduced that workforce diversity means that the
organizations are becoming more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of gender, age, ethnicity
and sexual orientation. Diversity in workplace is not only important for the organization but also
for its employees. Ensuring diversity helps building a great reputation for the company as well as
leading to increased profitability and opportunity for the employees. Hence, diversity is
important within the company as well as outside. At the same time managing diversity in any
organization is challenging.
Though diversity management is a challenging task for any organization, it also brings some
drastic changes on the performance of the organization. An organization may turnaround from a
disconcerting situation to a balanced one by utilizing diverse workforce properly.

Denny’s success story can be one of the most appropriate examples of how the performance of
the organization is influenced by workforce diversity. After settling a highly public class action
lawsuit of $54 million, the organization made a miraculous turnaround and managed to achieve
one of the top positions in restaurant chain industry by introducing and maintaining workforce
diversity. The organization experienced and is still experiencing some significant benefits due to
the fact that they embraced workforce diversity. Besides multiple benefits when an organization
assesses its handling of workforce diversity issues, development and implementation of diversity
plans it might have to face some challenges as well.

18
Benefits and challenges of embracing workforce diversity in the organization:

Benefits of embracing workforce diversity: Positive influences of workforce diversity on the

performance of Denny’s are the following:

 Increase in Productivity: Employers can offer more solutions to customers because of

new ideas and processes brought into the organization. Workplace diversity increases
employee morale and causes employees to desire to work more effectively and
efficiently.

By embracing diversity Denny’s reached sales amount reached to a record $2.23 billion.

 Increase in Creativity: “Creativity thrives on diversity” (Morgan, 1998). Specializing in

workforce diversity, employees from different backgrounds bring in a variety of solutions
on how to achieve a common goal. (Ethno Connect, A Consulting Company)

Denny’s attempt to pay attention to diversity helps the organization to achieve 10 million more
African-American traffics in 2000 than that of 1998 (from 51 million to 61 million).

 Positive Reputation: A company embracing diversity in the organization means that

they treat their employees equally regardless of race, ethnicity and gender. This
phenomenon encourages potential employees to apply for jobs in the company. Not only
the organization, practicing diversity, encourages new potential employees but also the
existing employees tend to continue their jobs in the same organization, hence, turnover
rate becomes moderate.

“Top talent is no longer represented by a homogenous group, but one representing people from
many different backgrounds and life experiences” (Rob McInnes, Diversity World).

By ensuring multicultural environment Denny’s has successfully solved the complex problem
regarding its brand image and made a miraculous turnaround. Moreover within the tenure of 10

19
years (from 1993 to 2002) Denny’s managed to achieve 63 African-American franchises by
embracing diversity in the organization.

There have been some other significant impacts on the performance of the organization because
of diversity:

 Employees from multicultural environment bring individual talents and experiences

which help in balancing market and customer demand.
 In terms of solving complex problems related to service, sources and allocation of
resources diverse workforce can provide various and sufficient solutions.
 Diverse workforce helps Denny’s to become one of the most popular restaurant chains
and it also helps them to achieve a good brand image.
 The diverse collection of skills and experience allows Denny’s to provide service to
customers on a global basis.

Challenges of embracing workforce diversity: Though embracing workforce diversity turns

out to be a very efficient way to increase productivity, creativity and most importantly reputation
of an organization, to introduce and maintain diversity is not an easy task. Sometimes it can be
enormously challenging.

 Introducing diversity in the workplace: To introduce diversity Denny’s needed to go

through a holistic approach. The company provided intensive diversity training programs
which covers Diversity Awareness and Diversity Skills for each and every employee and
employer.

 Time Consuming Process: Embracing diversity in an organization is not a fast motion

process. It requires lot of efforts and time to successfully implement it. In case of
Denny’s; it took almost 10 years for the successful implementation of diversity. The
company needed to change its recruitment agency, the whole cultural environment and
also ensure structural change.

20
  Expensive: Since the introduction and maintenance of workforce diversity requires lot of
efforts and time, it is expensive too. To embrace workforce diversity the company went
for a holistic approach. To do that initially there were more than 100 certified diversity
trainers on staff which was later reduced to 66 for the newly recruited employees. To
maintain diversity the company offered incentives to its employees.

Denny’s realized that the diversity of their clients, employees, suppliers and franchises would
ensure their quality and reputation nationwide. They discovered that diversified client base was a
great business and the effect was also positive on the performance of the organization.

Currently 50% of 46000 Advantica (Parent company of Denny’s) employees are minorities. 32%
of the supervisory positions are minorities too. 17% of the company’s supplier purchases have
been done with the minority suppliers which is approximately $100 million. By embracing
workforce diversity though they needed to face some significant challenges but they managed to
achieve 10 million more consumers as well as a record $2.23 billion sales.

Moreover, they’ve got a worldwide tremendous image for their generosity towards minority (the
company donates $1 million a year to human or civil rights organizations).

Conclusion:

Denny’s Grand Slam success story is a story of a miraculous turnaround from a disconcerting
situation, where there brand image was about to fall steeply, to a balanced and profitable one.
The company managed to execute a holistic approach to determine diversity in the organization.
This diverse workforce increases the efficiency of the employees, hence, productivity. Efficient
workforce was able to implement their diversified creativity to the cause of the organization. The
top management was stringent enough to introduce and maintain diversity by adopting cultural
and structural change which set up frameworks and ensured diversity remained in everyone’s
brain consistently. The company has become a precedence regarding utilizing the fruits of
diversity for other industries. They have not limited the diversity practice only to the HR but it
has been practiced widely to all the departments of the organization which safeguarded the noble

21
cause. Denny’s is now experiencing 5% market share of the US chain restaurant and yearning to
keep up the positivism. Denny’s has been a favorite name among families in terms of dining
classifications, providing exemplary service and maintaining reasonable cost and to maintain that
they need enhancement regarding training and maintaining diversity.

Recommendation:

Continuous Improvement Program: Continuous improvement programs focus on long term

well-being of the organization. Though currently Denny’s is a favorite name among families,
nevertheless to put up with the competitors, beside diversity management, the company needs to
focus on continuous improvement programs for the employees and occasionally employers as
well.

Changing Skill Requirements: Focusing more on recruiting minorities may do away with their
focus form recruiting and developing skilled labors. Since recruiting and developing skilled
labors are essential in terms of competitiveness, productivity, quality and managing a diverse
workforce effectively, Denny’s should focus on changing skill recruitments and not recruit
unskilled labors and managers in the process of recruiting more and more minorities.

Employee Involvement: One of the significant roles that HR might play is in employee
involvement. There are a number of employee involvement concepts that appear to be accepted
like- delegation, participative management, work teams, goal setting, employee training and
empowering employees. It will boost the morale of the employee and they will become more
efficient and loyal to the organization.

To Keep a Limit to Diversity: Diversity plays a significant role towards the success of the
company. At the same time overabundance of anything is unpleasant. Sometimes over practicing
a good habit can turn out to be a bad habit otherwise it may affect the company negatively.

22
11. References:

Books:

1. Gary Dessler,“Human Resource Management” Fifteenth Edition

Websites:

1.  West, Anna (May 15, 2012). "Denny's Moves to End Gestation Crate Pig Confinement
in Its Supply Chain" (Press release). The Humane Society of the United States.
Retrieved June 13, 2012.
2. Jump up^ "Denny's Restaurants H

3. https://restaurantfood.menu/dennys-menu
4. https://www.delish.com/food-news/news/a53433/dennys-will-deliver-24-7/
5. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/dennys-partners-amazon-
restaurants-expand-its-delivery-reach

Others Sources:

1. Adamson, J. (2000). How Denny's went from icon of racism to diversity award
winner. Journal of Organizational Excellence, 20(1), 55-68.
2. Dass, P., & Parker, B. (1999). Strategies for managing human resource diversity: From
resistance to learning. Academy of Management Perspectives, 13(2), 68-80.
3. Singal, M. (2014). The business case for diversity management in the hospitality
industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 40, 10-19.
4. Magurran, A. E. (1988). Why diversity?. In Ecological diversity and its measurement (pp.
1-5). Springer, Dordrecht.
5. Ferner, A., Almond, P., &Colling, T. (2005). Institutional theory and the cross-national
transfer of employment policy: The case of ‘workforce diversity’in US
multinationals. Journal of International Business Studies, 36(3), 304-321.

23