Day 005 - 04 Jul 94 - Page 73


     
     1        maintenance and repair that is required in their various
              restaurants.
     2
              These individual stores are then totalled up and put into
     3        a pile basically and a computer disseminates all the
              numbers.  It spews out on a restaurant by restaurant
     4        basis, then by a market by market basis, then by a region
              by region basis, a composite of what the people in the
     5        restaurants themselves, together with their supervisory
              folks, have said is there best shot at next year, 1995 in
     6        this case coming up.
 
     7        We regularly review what they have done versus what they
              themselves said they were going to do as the year
     8        transpires.  We can do it each month.  We can do it each
              two months.  We can do it each quarter.  We can do it on
     9        just about any basis we want to.
 
    10        The point -- what I am saying is the numbers against which
              people are being compared as you are increasing, you are
    11        decreasing, are not my numbers given to them, alah, do
              this; they are their numbers being fed back to me as to:
    12        "This is what I think we are going to do".
 
    13   MR. MORRIS:  Here we have a situation down in Newcastle where
              in January 1992 one manager is being basically told he is
    14        going to be dismissed unless he keeps his labour costs
              within certain guidelines; also in January 1992 in another
    15        store in Newcastle, a manager is going completely over the
              top, but she feels under pressure to increase sales?
    16        A.  You have taken the dismissal as one segment of
              numerous things on a page.  There were numerous things on
    17        the page related to the young gentleman that needed
              improvement, as I recall.
    18
         Q.   Concentrating on labour?
    19        A.  You cannot take it individually.
 
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can you not just pick them out, for
              instance, the complaints started with hygiene, did they
    21        not, puddles on the walk-in refridgerator floor, and
              things like that, dirty sinks.
    22
         MR. MORRIS:  We have a situation where the company is ordering
    23        someone to decrease their labour costs while at the same
              time, not that I think Mr. Preston was doing it, but in
    24        the same town another manager clearly feels they are under
              pressure to increase their sales.  Do you not think there
    25        was something wrong in this situation in this region?
              A.  Look, the two stores are different.  They were 
    26        achieving different levels.  But I think it is entirely 
              right that they be compared as business entities to learn 
    27        of the good things each was doing and share it with the
              other.  But I think it entirely right to share the
    28        negatives as well, so that those who had a problem do not
              find it repeated in another business.  This is just common
    29        business sense.
 
    30   Q.   But you do not think there was something within the region
              that should have been looked into?

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