In this interview, we sit down with Matt Kershaw, the Global Head of Talent and Capability at Domino’s Pizza Enterprises. Matt talks about the challenges he has faced in helping their Franchise Partners with their recruiting needs, and shares his advice and learnings on how to connect with your Franchise Partners and get their buy-in for new solutions and strategies. Matt discusses how a genuine partnership with Indeed has played a role in bringing in a steady flow of candidates for their Franchise Partners, contributing to the improved candidate experience as well as the growth and success for their franchise stores.
Kamellia Zeynali: To kick us off, can you tell us a bit more about your role at Domino’s and what you do?
Matt Kershaw: I am the Global Head of Talent and Capability. So I oversee our talent acquisition strategy across twelve markets. My responsibilities span across learning and development, leadership development, our operational training — so that would be how to make our pizzas — and then a little bit about our learning technologies and our innovation strategy as well.
Kamellia: What are the twelve markets that you currently oversee?
Matt: We look after Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, and in Europe we look after Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Kamellia: Wow that’s such a wide variety of different markets to look after! What do you love most about your role, and what do you find most challenging?
Matt: It's probably the same answer for both: what I love most about my role is that I’m interacting with the people that are on the front line of our business. We have a workforce of over 110,000 people across twelve different cultures and eight different languages, and being able to work on such a global scale is really exciting.
I also love the fact that for a lot of our workforce, this is often one of their first jobs. It's a foundation for their career, and we have this philosophy at Domino’s where a number of people that start as a delivery driver or pizza maker end up becoming managers and sometimes even business owners or executives. So currently, across our twelve markets, every single one of our CEOs have started on the ground making pizzas.
What I find to be the most challenging part is that we're dealing with human beings. Across our business, we’re dealing with a very vast range of cultures and different socioeconomic and even geopolitical factors in some of our markets. So it’s important to make sure that we’re staying human and making sure our strategy is adaptable enough to both scale across our different markets but also be able to account for the different cultures in a way that's really personal and respectful.
Kamellia: What is it like being on the ground with all the different franchise stores? Do you see stores in similar geographic areas having the same challenges?
Matt: Yeah absolutely, there are a lot of similarities — even globally. I've spent a lot of time in stores and with Franchise Partners across all of our markets, and largely, we are all dealing with the same challenges, but they do present a little bit differently at different times.
One of the common challenges we have is our talent pipeline. Because we have such an appetite for growth, we need a consistent pipeline of people coming into our business and growing throughout. The challenge then arises if that pipeline starts to slow down and we can't sustain the growth that we need for the business. And that's an important part of my role: first, how do we get as many quality people into that pipeline as possible, and secondly, how do we retain them?
Kamellia: You mentioned that Domino’s makes an effort to keep top talent and help them progress their career at Domino’s. What are your strategies for keeping your employees happy, motivated and engaged enough to want to grow their career with Domino’s?
Matt: One of the main reasons why people stay at Domino’s is a sense of belonging. They have a community of friends at Domino's, almost like an extended family, and I think that's been a real success. As a result, there's a big emphasis on continuing to create and evolve that community.
The second part is that we are constantly investing in our people’s learning and growth. Last year we released an app that we call 'The Path to Excellence’, which is a gamified experience for our people, specifically targeted at the younger demographic who often have their first jobs ever with us. On their first day at work, they create an avatar that becomes their learning avatar in the app that then showcases their career pathway at Domino’s. So every level is like a stage in their career, and they get to see what their career at Domino’s could potentially look like. So for example, they would see what it takes to get to level 7, where they would be a store manager, and they would even see what their earning potential could be at that level.
Kamellia: Before you started working with Indeed, what would you say was your biggest pain point or challenge when it came to recruiting, especially for your franchise stores?
Matt: For a big brand like us, with so many franchise stores, one of the biggest challenges is around having a consistent candidate experience. A lot of the work we were doing prior to our partnership with Indeed was very ad hoc. For example, our recruiting wasn’t centralised, we didn't have much visibility over how our employer brand was performing in various channels and as a result, we were very reactive when it came to our hiring.
Since partnering with Indeed, we’ve been able to be more proactive in our hiring and provide our Franchise Partners with an opportunity to be able to easily opt into targeted campaigns on Indeed that are bringing in a stream of quality candidates, consistently.
This means now, our franchise owners are hiring ahead of the need, and as a result, they’re growing.
Kamellia: Before you were working with Indeed, had you tried other solutions for your recruiting needs? And if so, how does Indeed differ?
Matt: We've never done anything as significant as what we've done with Indeed, and one of the major reasons why is that there was never an appetite for a genuine partnership from other job boards.
Whereas from day one, it was clear from all the Indeed representatives I have worked with, that there was a desire for a genuine partnership between Indeed and Domino’s.
The other job boards had a commercial offering in place, but with Indeed, it was never just a one size fits all approach. My account managers at Indeed really took the time to sit down and understand what would work best for our brand and how Indeed can help facilitate that. The flexibility in how things work has been very important for us as a franchise brand, because we certainly don't want to take autonomy away from our Franchise Partners — it's their business and they ultimately have their own hiring strategy. But we need to be able to find a way within the franchise business to be able to put best practices forward and provide them with the right tools, and Indeed has helped us do that.
Kamellia: How would you say partnering with Indeed has impacted both your day to day and the day to day of your Franchise Partners?
Matt: It’s a much more efficient process. We're getting a lot more data that tells us what’s actually happening in our campaigns, what’s working, what’s not working, etc. so we can make more strategic decisions.
It's also given me and our team here a partner that we can reach out to when we have any challenges. That relationship between Domino’s and Indeed has been so helpful in solving any recruitment challenges that may arise.
For our Franchise Partners I would say it’s taken the pressure off of them in terms of having to source candidates. They are now confident that there's something in place that they don't have to think too much about that’s bringing in consistent candidates. They just need to focus on getting the interview done rather than having to worry about ‘Where am I going to advertise?’ ‘How am I going to advertise?’ ‘What's the right amount of money to put behind this campaign?’ All of that is now taken care of thanks to our partnership with Indeed.
Kamellia: Aside from helping with their candidate pipeline, how do your Franchise Partners feel about Domino’s partnership with Indeed?
Matt: Each year we run a Rally for all of our Franchise Partners and Indeed has had a presence at this the last few years. I think it speaks volume about our partnership to our Franchise Partners when Indeed is showing up at our biggest event of the year. And the Indeed team isn’t just sitting behind the booth, or trying to sell something to them as a lot of people often do. They are out there talking to our Franchise Partners, listening to their challenges, understanding our brand and culture, and building those relationships.
Our Franchise Partners have had first hand experience with that and now they see Indeed as a trusted partner, not as just a vendor that is selling to them.
We’ve even had some of the Indeed reps do a couple of shifts in one of our stores that we filmed and circulated amongst our internal channels. Things like this have really helped to build credibility amongst our Franchise Partners. Because at the end of the day, if our Franchise Partners aren't bought in then no amount of comms will get through. Whereas if they know the faces and have those relationships, they’re more likely to want to invest. And Indeed has taken the time to build those relationships with our Franchise Partners.
Kamellia: What would you say was the turning point that made the Franchise Partners buy into the partnership with Indeed?
Matt: Ultimately, it was the results and outcomes. As with any small business, people invest in things that they can see an ROI in, and our Franchise Partners saw that investment in the Indeed campaigns was giving the results that they were hoping for. Now, we see a high percentage of our stores that opt in every time we run a campaign with Indeed.
Another turning point was when they saw how easy it is for them to opt into a campaign with Indeed and get a flow of quality candidates. When they saw how many hours they got back from this partnership, hours that they are able to invest back into their business, it was definitely a huge benefit for our Franchise Partners.
Kamellia: What advice would you give to others who also have a large number of Franchise Partners they work with and are experiencing some of the same challenges that you have before working with Indeed?
Matt: First and foremost, you need to clearly define what challenges you're trying to solve. Take the time to do the research and understand what your challenges are and then position it in a way that makes sense to your Franchise Partners. Why is it important to your Franchise Partners that you're solving that problem for them? What is the benefit that they will get?
My second piece of advice is to find the right partners that are going to help you deliver the right solutions often. It's not just a single faceted approach to this—you will have different partners across the spectrum that can help deliver different things at different times. But you need to make sure everyone is aligned and you are all working in the same direction.
Another piece of advice I would give is having constant and consistent communication, particularly in a franchise business. It's high-volume information in a franchise business, people are sharing things all the time, and it can be easy for your message to get lost. So it’s important to have a consistent message, and say it often in as many ways as you can.
Lastly, make sure to close the loop. When you finish a campaign, share the results with your franchise community. What were the results of the campaign, what worked well, what didn’t, what learnings did you take away, etc. Sharing this information back, and asking your Franchise Partners to share their wins and learnings as well, will help your franchise community be more invested in the campaign.
Kamellia: If you were to recommend Indeed to a colleague or friend how would you sell it?
Matt: It's a genuine partnership, and for Domino’s, that's really important. We feel that Indeed truly is a trusted advisor, and there’s a degree of trust and transparency there — especially around your pricing model. Indeed is also very flexible and adaptable, it’s not a one size fits all approach.
Indeed will really work with you to find the right solutions that truly work for your business’ needs.
If you would like to learn more about how a partnership with Indeed can help your franchise partners with their recruiting and talent acquisition needs, click here to schedule a free, 15-minute session with our Talent Strategy Advisor.
