Fantastic Management Training *Corporate Owned Locations* - General Manager Panera Bread Employee Review

(I'm speaking of corporate owned locations. Franchises have been known to be quite bad.) - Training is phenomenal, for management and associates - Incredible resources and support from headquarters for cafe managers, the support center will bend over backwards to help you solve any issue. - Some of the best salaries in the industry, including a Joint Venture General Manager program that can push salary into the $100,000 mark. Incredible. Assistant Manager and Shift Manager pay is above average. - Decent benefits. Not great, but better than their competitor's. - Very professional work environment. - Some of the best associate pay in the quick service industry, which means they can hire the best. - Not afraid to terminate / discipline restaurant employees. This is extremely important as poor employees can be infectious and can hurt a restaurant terribly. Panera believes in "trimming the fat", as in removing those employees that aren't moving the company forward. Dead weight or liabilities are simply let go. This is probably the most admirable quality of corporate Panera. They are determined to succeed. - Very clear work expectations and roles. - Company goals are clearly communicated from upper management down to hourly associate. - Very good work/life balance. On an average week, there is no reason management should be working more than 45 hrs per week. - Company spends a lot of money into updating Cafe's with new furniture, BOH equipment, new computer systems, etc. - The CEO is genuine & down to earth. I've seen him speak many times and he doesn't strike me as a typical arrogant CEO. He definitely has a vision.