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White Castle
White Castle has been though many changes over the last ninety-five years. This family
owned business has been through three generations of leaders, and recently the company has
been handed over to the fourth generation, Lisa Ingram. Former CEO Bill Ingram believes “Lisa is
a highly respected business leader, who has gained the experience necessary to guide the
company into future growth (White Castle System, Inc.).” Lisa has high hopes for the company,
and has her own goals on where she wants the company to go. Since Lisa has taken over the
company many changes have occurred. These changes have had a huge impact on the
demographic of the company. Though all the changes over the years, White Castle has done
whatever possible to monitor and listen to their team to make the change process go smoothly.
Although the company continues to go through a restructuring phase they continue to take care
of their team by all the benefits and reward programs they offer and by listening and addressing
all concerns the team may have. White Castle will continue to be successful due to their loyal
team members and dedicated customer base.
History
White Castle was founded in 1921, by Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram in Wichita, Kansas.
They were the first fast food hamburger chain ever. In the early 1930’s Anderson sold his half of
the company to Ingram. When Anderson left the company the home office relocated from
Wichita, Kansas, to Columbus, Ohio and is currently still there. White Castle is a family-owned
business, which has just recently been passed over to the fourth generation. White Castle was
given its name hoping to convey a positive image of their business, meaning “White” signifying
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purity and “Castle” signifying strength, stability, and permanence. When White Castle first
started out they only borrowed seven hundred dollars, and now they only build off of profit. To
guarantee the highest quality products and reduce the middle man cost, they are mainly their
own supplier. They own and operate two bakeries, three meat processing plants, and three
frozen food plants, which supply to their Castle operations. White Castle is also known for
inventing the first industrial strength spatula and mass produced paper hat. They were the initial
fast food restaurant to sell a million and billion hamburgers. They were also the first to sell frozen
fast food and continue to sell their sliders in grocery stores all around the world. White Castle
currently has four hundred and eight restaurants, in thirteen states. White Castle’s first licensing
agreement was a huge success in January of 2015, with the first Castle opening in Las Vegas,
Nevada. White Castle has never gone this far West. First time ever being in a Casino and Alcohol
is a permanent menu item. White Castle continues to grow and plans on staying family owned
for years to come. (Ingram)
Vision and Values
The White Castle Vision has only changed once since 1921. The original vision for the
company was: “Serving the finest products, for the least cost, in the cleanest surroundings, with
the most courteous personnel.” The Vision was the first thing that was taught to new team
members. As a team member you were expected to know it and work by it. The company took
pride in the quality of products they served to their customers. Jenny Myer team member who
has been with the company for twenty-years stated “The pledge stood for something, when we
came to work we knew what the expectations were.” Theresa DeMarco, General Manager for
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thirty-nine years, said she remembers when she was being trained her trainer used to tell her “if
she wouldn’t eat it don’t serve it.” DeMarco also said White Castle did whatever they could to
keep the cost low for the customer. They would monitor the amount of condiments that were
being handed out, they ensured procedures were being followed, and they watched how much
extra was being cooked up during slow periods to cut down on waste. Then there was cleaning,
when Demarco first started, she remembers the deep cleaning they did on a regular basis not
just when there was time or if visitors were coming. She said the expectations were high and
everyone knew them and honored them. “We all took pride in our jobs and wanted to see the
company succeed, the family took care of us so we wanted to do the same for them” (DeMarco).
It did not matter what position you were in, everyone knew the vision and what it stood for. “The
company had high standards and it was clear what was expected” (Wooldridge).
The new vision: “Feed the souls of craver generations across their lifetimes.” And the
mission statement is “Create memorable moments.” The new vision has been in place for about
six years, since Bill Ingram started handing over the reins of the company to his daughter Lisa.
Lisa and her cousins (fourth generation), decided it was time to retire the old vision and start
making some changes to revamp the company. Lisa believes this vision and mission statement
“is built around stories, experiences and fun. We want to make sure those experiences are the
same in every location. If we franchised, we would lose control over that” (Vanae, White Castle’s
Ingrams have seen things evolve). Unfortunately, as nice as this vision sounds it did not have a
huge impact on team. Surveying more than one hundred employees, from regional directors to
team members, only a handful of team members actually knew what the vision was. Some knew
parts of it, others thought the mission statement was the vision. When told what the vision was
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they felt it had no meaning. Many felt they could not relate to the new vision as they could to
the older one. According to General Manager Joyce Weiss, who has Twenty-eight years of service
in, “we all know the company’s main focus is to create memorable moments for our customers”
(Weiss). Weiss feels the company has lowered its standards and should go back to focusing on
serving great products and keeping the store clean and everything else will fall into place. Many
of the new team members who have been with the company anywhere from one year to five
years had no idea what the vision was but several did know they were supposed to create “Wow”
moments for the customers. While this vision is shorter and sounds more hip it doesn’t really
appear to have an impact on their team. White Castle’s vision does not give their team a clear
vision of what is expected and what to aim for. According to Bill Ingram, White Castle will
continue its success because he believes “Lisa is committed to growing the family business while
adhering to the values that have guided White Castle since opening our first restaurant in 1921”
(White Castle System, Inc.).
Diversity
White Castle is an overall very culturally diversified company, with New York being the
most diversified region and Missouri the least. New York has thirty stores and Missouri has
twenty-seven stores, each of these stores has one General Manager. The New York area has
twenty-seven different nationalities among their general managers. Whereas, the Missouri
stores only have one nationality among their general managers. Although the other regions are
not as culturally diversified as New York, they do have diversity amongst their general managers.
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All of the regions have some cultural diversity amongst our team members with the least
diversified being in Missouri again.
White Castle managers have tried many different techniques when managing diversity.
For example, General Manager April, was transferred to a White Castle that was primarily
Hispanic. April was struggling with fitting in with her team and felt that she was unable to
relate because of the cultural differences. She could feel the barriers begin to form and knew
she needed to do something to be able to communicate with her team. April decided to take a
Spanish class to help with the communication between her and her team. Her team was able
to see that April was making an effort to bring the team together as one and learn more about