For Jeff Warden, change has been a constant.
In his 25 years at The Rose Group, he’s held a number of titles, starting as a director of operations before rising through the vice presidential ranks to become president and chief operating officer in 2003 and president and CEO in 2010.
Over that time, The Rose Group has undergone a great deal of change. In the 1990s, the Newtown-based restaurant franchisee and operator was heavily involved with Boston Market and Roy Rogers, owning 12 locations of the former and managing 84 of the latter. In 1997, the company developed and sold 23 Einstein Bros. Bagels restaurants.
By the opening years of the 21st century, that had all changed.
The Rose Group began accumulating Applebee’s locations in the late ’90s, and within 10 years, Applebee’s had become the core of The Rose Group’s business. In 2007, the company added Corner Bakery Café to its portfolio. Together, those two restaurant brands now sustain Warden’s business.
Through all of the change, Warden and his leadership team have had to maintain a strong company culture and keep employees motivated in a fluid, changeable environment.
“That is one of the biggest challenges we have, to maintain our culture through multiple changing concepts,” Warden says. “Going through all of that, since we franchise, the importance of people becomes paramount to what we do, being able to recruit and retain top talent.”
With 5,000 employees at dozens of locations in four states, Warden’s challenge is one of scale and distance as much as it is the ability to identify and cultivate promising players. Centralized standards and practices need to be rolled out to a highly decentralized work force.
It is a task that requires a keen eye for new talent and the ability to communicate with employees over horizontal geographical distance and the vertical distance of management layers.
