Interview with Wahaca CEO Mark Selby

At Chillisauce, we spend all day coming up with corporate events and team building days. We work hard to make employees happy, build better teams, and help companies across the UK become better places to work.

This week, our own Michael Chidzey goes behind the scenes of Wahaca, one of the UK’s fastest-growing restaurant chains, to meet a man who shares our passion. He talks with company founder Mark Selby about employee happiness, building effective teams, and how the Wahaca family brought us Brits ‘real’ Mexican food.

Chillisauce's Michael Chidzey (MC) talks to Wahaca's Mark Selby (MS)...

MC: How did Wahaca grow from one restaurant in Covent Garden to where it is today?

MS: We started off in 2007. From the beginning my aim was to build a truly sustainable restaurant business that could be a group chain, but with individuality in each one. We wanted to grow slowly. We really didn’t want to rush anything so that we would keep hold of the family feel. We made sure we picked our teams carefully, so they enjoy the culture and that we would maintain the experience that we started with.

We’ve grown and now have 25 Wahacas. We also started DF Mexico and Burrito Mama. Tom [co-founder Thomasina Miers] and I get itchy feet if we sit around doing the same thing for too long. We both know we do burritos really well, so created grilled burrito takeaways. We know there’s a great market that loves Mexican food and the opportunity within the Mexican space is growing. We thought that we’ve got Wahaca and burritos, but nothing in the middle like a Nandos-style concept. These both offer great Mexican food, delivered very quickly so you come and leave whenever you want.

One of our big things is innovation. We're always thinking how do we keep doing things differently, bigger, better. Whether it is doing a big festival, working with different food types, using new technology - whatever it is we’re always challenging ourselves

MC: I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody from Wahaca who isn’t incredibly happy. And I eat here a lot. How would you describe the culture?

MS: It is very organic. Ultimately, when we set up the company, we wanted a fun environment. We wanted everyone that works with us to know us. We used to have a party every four weeks when we just had the Covent Garden Restaurant. We were all young, so thought might as well. Having fun gets a bit harder as you get bigger, for example working out when to do something, where to do it, and not everybody can as they have families now. But we still do lots of cool and different things. There’s a funk committee that is tasked with coming up with fun things everybody can get involved with. We have a big summer BBQ each year and we do a big Christmas party. We also try to encourage each site to do fun team building exercises.

MC: What other activities do you organise?

MS: We've organised away days where staff get to learn a new skill like street art or something they find interesting. We do a Masterchef challenge every year, where any of our chefs can enter, where we take finalists to Mexico. We also encourage staff to do things outside of their day job, like helping with festivals, events and social activities.

MC: What advice do you have for readers looking to build new teams?

MS: That side is really important. We’ve got very good at the integration of people in new teams. We always bring people over the strongest members of other teams and get them to talk to new teams. We then try and break down the inhibitions and the barriers, usually getting people to do something completely outside of their day-to-day job so they see each other from a different angle. We found the one thing that works really well is bowling. We also do lots of team dinners. Our focus is putting people in an atmosphere that is relaxed, where they are not being judged and just having fun together.

MC: Are there any metrics that you look at to measure staff engagement?

MS: Yes - we do a big staff survey ever year. This year, it’s going to go out to more than a 1000 people. Hopefully about 800/900 people will complete it and we want to get the NPS [employee Net Promoter Score] up. They answer questions like would you recommend working at Wahaca to a friend for example.

[Other questions the survey covers include do you feel happy? Do you feel your opinion is valued at work? Do you feel listened to? Do you feel the company follows the values it sets?]

Our aim is to improve that every year, which we’ve achieved over the last three years. We can easily see if we’re doing a good job.

MC: Last thing, in your industry what is the biggest frustration?

MS: For me, the hardest bit of this business is time to get whole company together. I wish we could just work 9-5pm in an office where everyone could be together, but it's not possible. Every customer that walks in needs a table and we have people located all over the country. That's the biggest frustration. We can’t have many one on ones. Obviously, when we do get everybody together, within a salaried environment, it's crucial to make the most of that time. I would love to create the happiest company in the world, and if that was possible I would certainly invest.