Two Cultures – One Contract – Using Leadership to Deliver

The culture of a company, the shared set of values, goals, attitudes and practices that characterise an organisation, are critical to the success of any business particularly in attracting and retaining employees.

In organisations where food, hospitality and catering form an integral part in supporting the business goals – the culture of a traditional commercial catering company engaged to deliver and execute the food vision – must adapt to reflect and fit in with the same values.

Failure to adapt the culture and execute the food vision, not understanding and meeting the needs and wants of the customer/employee base, risks damaging the client’s corporate culture creating a gap in expectations and contributing to employee/customer turnover. 

The culture of a company can take years even decades to build, culture is a long term game and not something that should be eroded by a short term strategy or financially motivated quick fix gains. 

In an ever-changing world of food and hospitality, the expectations of corporate clients and their customer or employee base have never been higher in supporting the company culture. Expectations are fuelled by experiences in the retail world of food and beverage which continues to set the benchmark and evolve, offering improved food quality, creativity, convenience, service and new concepts in design driven spaces.

By contrast, the culture in many traditional commercial catering companies is not aligned with modern day expectations, often looking to outdated food and service models. The company ‘culture’ inherit in many of the traditional commercial catering organisations in Australia has typically been static and not evolving, lagging behind the expectations and culture of their client’s organisation.

Herein lies the issue for the larger traditional commercial catering companies. How can the culture of a slow moving, cost minimising, revenue maximising, food and service laggard be transformed into an adaptive, agile, customer-centric and solutions focused innovator that not only executes the food vision as promised but enhances the client’s culture? 

In a word, leadership.

Over the past two years, Future Food have engaged with many commercial catering companies through our expression of interest campaigns and F&B strategy projects on behalf of our clients. From local councils with community focused cafes to ACMI in Melbourne, Port Melbourne Yacht Club, Malthouse Theatre, Northern Beaches Hospital and multi–national companies like BHP, feeding 10,000+ employees three times a day – leadership has been a defining element for adapting the catering company culture to meet the needs and expectations of the client and their customer/employee base.

While it is no surprise that leadership shapes the culture of a company, it is the alignment of the leadership team from the managing director through the catering organisation down to the office-based or onsite manager that forms the strongest indicator of success for executing the food vision day after day. 

For commercial catering to be successful and sustainable, leadership alignment must start with the Expression of Interest (EOI) or Request for Tender (RFT) documentation with the client articulating their vision of food and hospitality along with the specific requirements of the catering and service required.

The processes mentioned above are intended to source, select and secure the best fit commercial catering company that aligns to their needs and company culture. Identifying and defining the leadership required from the outset sends the strongest possible message to the commercial catering business development team on the importance of having leadership at the forefront of their model to ensure the best cultural fit and deliver on the vision for food and hospitality.

During the selection process, it is not always possible to have names against the leadership structure at the site level, but this can be readily addressed by defining the structure, roles and responsibilities while demonstrating recent success with mobilising new contracts. Leadership principles can be further demonstrated through the recruitment process priorities, internal management development and key leadership retention programs.

Although key leadership personnel will change on both the client and catering teams, articulating strong key strategy drivers (KSDs) for leadership and staff retention during the EOI or RFT will create a framework for success over the longer term. These KSDs can then be translated and measured through key performance indicators (KPIs) in the final contract terms to provide a complete circle of continuous improvement.

The importance and influence of leadership on culture between the two companies cannot be overstated and is often only truly tested in challenging times. Aligning leadership and the culture between the client and the commercial catering company doesn’t stop at winning and mobilising the contract.

Leadership is a live, constantly evolving process that needs to be nurtured and developed throughout the life of the contract – during good times and bad – to build the partnership and ensuring the company culture is enhanced; contributing to employee and customer retention.