Darden Restaurants, headquartered in Orlando, is the world's largest company-owned and operated full-service restaurant company with almost $6.7 billion in annual sales and approximately 180,000 employees. The company owns and operates more than 1,700 restaurants including Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52. Daisy Ng, senior vice president, talent management, says Darden concentrates on "building organizational capability, capacity, and engagement to enable and accelerate Darden's business growth through effective, integrated talent acquisition, optimization, development, planning, and deployment." She spoke with Learning Executives Briefing about talent management at Darden.

Learning Executives Briefing: What is the goal of talent management at Darden Restaurants?

Daisy Ng: It is critical for an organization to have an established definition of talent management around which everyone is aligned. At Darden, talent management is an integrated process focused on three themes that enable company growth: capability, capacity, and engagement.

LXB: How has that changed from the company's previous approach?

Ng: The restaurant business is first and foremost a people business, and starting with our founder, Bill Darden, the company has long recognized that people are our "best competitive edge." The first department Bill Darden created to support his early restaurants was the training departments - to ensure that employees had the knowledge and tools needed to succeed. About three years ago, the company decided that we would benefit from a talent building structure that was more enterprise-focused. At that time, we had four restaurant operating companies within Darden, and each of them had been doing the right thing to engage and build talent. But to enable Darden to grow and achieve our goals, we recognized the need for talent sharing among and across the operating companies, which in turn, would give our people more opportunities to progress. For example, a general manager in a Red Lobster may not want to relocate from his hometown, but under our new structure, he would have advancement opportunities at our other brands in the area.

LXB: Is the idea to create your own talent, as opposed to looking for it elsewhere?

Ng: Darden has more than 170,000 employees and 90 percent of those people work in our restaurants. Internal promotion is our goal. Nearly 50 percent of our restaurant managers have been promoted from hourly workers - the people who prepare our food and serve our guests in the restaurants. Nearly all of our general managers and managing partners have been promoted from the restaurant manager position, and 95 percent of our directors of operations and regional managers have been promoted from general manager and managing partner. In fact, the president of Olive Garden, who has been with us for 35 years, started as a line cook in one of our Red Lobster restaurants. We aspire to have 100 percent internal promotion in operations.

We know that the best way to build our talent pool is to enable strong performance among those "closest to the action" - our restaurant employees and managers. We also have a restaurant support center (corporate headquarters) in Orlando, which employs about 1,400 people. At our support center, we aspire to 75 percent internal promotions, but we also recognize the value of "new blood" coming in. We want to remain best in class in our various support functions such as supply chain, marketing, HR, and finance. We benefit from a diversity of thought, background, and experience that external hires can bring to the company.

LXB: How do Darden's talent management efforts align with the company's business strategies?

Ng: Our ultimate goal at Darden is to be a great company. And to achieve that, we focus on two primary objectives: to be a winning organization financially and to be a special place. We have multiple, distinct brands that provide both physical and emotional nourishment to really delight our guests. But to be a multi-brand company that achieves the growth potential we see in our industry, we need common operating practices that leverage our scale and resources along with a strong, unified culture. In our talent management strategy we ask: How can we create tools and processes that can build talent for multiple brands? Because we are working to make Darden a special place, we have placed even greater emphasis on obtaining employee insights and responding to employee needs in meaningful ways, including creating new learning and growth opportunities.

LXB: What kinds of metrics do you use to measure the success of your talent management efforts?

Ng: Part of our metrics center around culture and bench strength. We want to make sure that we have candidates ready for (key) position. For instance, I am measured on the readiness of replacement candidates for our senior executive roles. We also make sure that candidates have gone through the assessment process so that they can be ready to take on more or different responsibilities. We measure how quickly we can fill a role - either internally or with an external candidate. That's the talent side. For the culture part of the equation, the key indication for us is found in the employee engagement survey. We also benchmark externally to see 09.08 //View from the Learning Executive Continuedhow well we compare with the restaurant industry as a whole.

LXB: Is a high-potential person in the company in line for just one job, or several different kinds of positions?

Ng: There are two different kinds of candidates. One is ready for a particular role, but could move into that role at any of our restaurant companies. For example, we might identify a person who is ready to be a senior vice president of operations overseeing 100 restaurants. That person could be moved into position at Olive Garden or LongHorn Steakhouse, or wherever there is an open position. Ninety-nine percent of the skills are similar; the individual just needs to learn the intricacies of the different brand.

The second kind of candidate is an individual who could perform multiple roles within a particular function, such as a marketing, operations, finance, or HR. We have a job rotation program in some functions to help broaden knowledge and skill sets and prepare individuals for a variety of positions that may become available.

LXB: What challenges do you face today that were not as critical when you arrived three years ago?

Ng: Preparing to integrate a new culture into Darden (has been challenging). About a year ago, we acquired RARE Hospitality, which included nearly 300 Longhorn Steakhouse and about 30 The Capital Grille restaurants. This required integration from an employee and cultural standpoint, as well as a systems standpoint. That has included new processes for employee management, selection, and assessment. But this is very similar to my previous role as chief learning officer for HP. We acquired new companies much more often, so we tended to take the process for granted. Three years ago, when I joined Darden, I didn't know my role in talent management would include integrating new companies, but it has been an invaluable experience that provides a foundation for future growth of this type.

LXB: What will be your biggest challenge in the next few years?

Ng: Our plan is to standardize our performance management system for all six restaurant operating companies. That will be a huge job for us. We are also preparing to move - about a year from now - into our wonderful new restaurant support center campus. Right now we work out of 14 different buildings around Orlando. We are moving into a very environmentally friendly facility (Gold LEED certification). Our aim is to foster greater collaboration and cultural consistency. On the first floor we will have centralized training facilities and training kitchens where our development chefs can more easily share best practices. We will also have a dedicated training room and a leadership assessment room. It will be a wonderful thing when we move in next fall.