Would you like a smile with that?

Economie
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DÉCOUVERTES
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CULTURE
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ENJEUX
SOCIÉTÉ
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Would you like a smile with that?
PRET, PARTEZ! Des Britanniques tentent de bousculer le marché mondial de la restauration rapide, dominé par l’américain
McDonald’s. Cofondée par deux amis d’université, Sinclair Beecham et Julian Metcalfe, Pret A Manger a ouvert son premier
point de vente à Londres en 1986, où elle est rapidement devenue un phénomène. Le secret ? Des techniques de vente et
une gestion du personnel qui surprennent… même les Américains !
THE NEW YORK TIMES BY STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Would you like a smile with that?
Et avec ceci, un sourire ?
weird étrange, bizarre / Midtown à New York, quartiers de Manhattan situés entre la 14ème et 59ème
rues / quirky bizarre / thin mince, fin / understated
sobre et raffiné, simple / free-range fermier (élevé
en plein air) / avocado avocat / pine nut pignon
de pin / filling garniture.
2. cashier caissier / genuinely sincèrement / guy
gars, type / to throw, threw, thrown out jeter / garbage ordures / to swing, swung, swung by passer
par là, s’arrêter un moment / to commiserate s’apitoyer, compatir / sweltering étouffant.
3. veddy = very (avec un accent britannique précieux) / to get, got, got a foothold prendre pied,
s’installer / fries (US) frites / to fun-size ici commander (un sandwich) en miniportion / to combo
combiner / let’s face it soyons honnêtes, admettons-le / sullen maussade, renfrogné.
4. to amount to équivaloir à, représenter / fleck
moucheture, particule, a fleck of relish une infime
quantité de sauce (condiment), ici peu de chose /
if that quoique, et encore / to post afficher, publier
/ current actuel / exchange rate taux de change /
take recettes / brand marque, ici genre, style / graband-go à emporter / significantly de façon significative, ici ce qui est important / fresh nouveau /
approach conception, méthode.
5. latte café au lait / rush ruée, affluence / goal
but, objectif / outlet point de vente / to fling, flung,
flung jeter, lancer (violemment) / counter comptoir / earrings boucles d’oreille.
6. compelling convaincant, fascinant / to be worth
valoir la peine de, mériter / whatever quel que soit
/ line of work branche, domaine professionnel.
7. longtime de longue date, ancien / crew équipe
/ transient éphémère, temporaire / pretty assez,
plutôt / workforce turnover rotation du personnel.
8. proper correct, ici bon / till tiroir-caisse, caisse /
chief executive directeur général / Britishism anglicisme / kapow! pan !, paf ! / to hire engager / to
promote offrir une promotion / cheerfulness gaieté,
bonne humeur, jovialité.
18 • VOCABLE Du 6 au 19 octobre 2011
omething weird is happening inside a
Pret A Manger sandwich shop on
Broadway in Midtown Manhattan. It’s
not all those quirky British sandwiches, thin
and understated with ingredients like freerange egg mayonnaise and avocado-and-pinenut filling.
2. No, it’s the employees. The cashier is asking New Yorkers how they are doing – and genuinely seems to want an answer. The guy who
is throwing out the garbage offers customers
a cup of water. The manager swings by to commiserate about the sweltering weather.
S
This is fast food?
In Manhattan?
3. Pret A Manger, the veddy British chain,
has gained a foothold in our McWorld of
burgers and fries, where you can fun-size
this, combo that and, let’s face it, sort of expect sullen service.
4. Next to, say, McDonald’s, Pret A Manger
amounts to a fleck of relish, if that. Last year,
Pret posted sales of 327.5 million pounds, or
about $534 million at current exchange rates.
The take at McDonald’s: $24 billion. But Pret
A Manger is slowly expanding in New York
and other U.S. cities with its own brand of
grab-and-go food and, more significantly, a
fresh approach to fast-food service.
5. Pret feels almost nothing like a U.S. chain.
At a Starbucks in Midtown, you can wait 10
minutes for your latte during the morning
rush. At Pret, the goal is to serve customers
within 60 seconds. At some fast-food outlets
in the city, cashiers might fling your cheeseburger across the counter, Frisbee-style. At
Pret, they compliment your earrings.
6. What makes Pret A Manger a compelling
business case study is its approach to customer service and to training and motivating its staff. Yes, Pret happens to make sandwiches – but the lessons are worth knowing,
whatever your line of work.
7. Many businesses have trouble getting
longtime employees to work well and, in
particular, to work well together. But, Pret
has managed to build productive, friendly
crews out of relatively low-paid, transient
employees. And its workers seem pretty
happy about it. Its annual workforce
turnover rate is about 60 percent – low for
the fast-food industry, where the rate is normally 300 to 400 percent.
How does Pret A Manger do it?
8. To find out, I went to London to learn
about the company’s approach to training and
teamwork, as well as how to make a proper
Pret sandwich. “A very important part of Pret
is you see four, five, six to nine people on till,”
Clive Schlee, the chief executive of Pret A
Manger says, using the Britishism for cash register. “Pret A Manger does mean ready to eat
– kapow! – not ready to wait.” How does any
company encourage teamwork? At Pret A
Manger, executives say, the answer is to hire,
pay and promote based on – believe it or not
– qualities like cheerfulness.
9. There is a certain “Survivor” element to
all of this. New hires are sent to a Pret A
Manger shop for a six-hour day, and then the
employees there vote whether to keep them.
Ninety percent of prospects get a thumbs-up.
Those who are voted out are sent home with
35 pounds ($57), no hard feelings.
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Two workers behind the counter at the front of a Pret a Manger store in London. (HAZEL THOMPSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
10. Pret reinforces the teamwork concept in
other ways. When employees are promoted
or pass training milestones, they receive at
least 50 pounds in vouchers, a payment that
Pret calls a “shooting star.” But, instead of
keeping the bonus, the employees must give
the money to colleagues, people who have
helped them along the way.
11. There are other rewards. Every quarter,
the top 10 percent of stores, as ranked by mystery-shopper scores, receive about 30 pounds
per employee for a party. The top executives
at Pret get 60 “Wow” cards, with scratch-off
rewards like 10 pounds or an iPod, to hand
Broadway and 39th Street. The air-conditioning isn’t working, and it’s 83 degrees outside. One cashier is wiping his brow with a
napkin. Another is screeching “Who’s ordering iced drinks? Coffee?”
US style
13. This, apparently, is the New York interpretation of the suggestion in Pret’s training manual to, after greeting the customer,
“check if they would like any hot drinks or
croissants so that they can be ordered first.”
14. Another cashier is greeting everyone with
“How you doing, sweetie?” – which might
seem appropriate for a 15year old, but not so much
for the gray-haired man to
whom she spoke. It seems
that the U.S. employees, or
at least the New Yorkers,
have yet to fully embrace
the Pret ethos.
15. But then I see two employees shuttling
between the kitchen and the shelves, trying
to restock sandwiches as fast as the customers take them. It’s hard to keep up. Then
an employee swings by. “Everything OK,
Miss? You good? You need any help with anything, let me know,” he says. ●
Its annual workforce turnover rate is
about 60 percent.
out each year to employees who strike them
as particularly good. Pret has all-staff parties
twice a year, and managers get a monthly
budget of 100 pounds or so to spend on
drinks or outings for their workers.
12. A few weeks later, back in Manhattan,
the line is forming at the Pret A Manger at
9. Survivor émission de télé-réalité produite dans de
nombreux pays du monde, dont l’adaptation en
France est Koh-Lanta / hire embauché, recrue /
prospect candidat (à un poste) / to get a thumbsup être apprécié, approuvé, ici être accepté (thumb
pouce) / to vote out exclure par un vote, rejeter / no
hard feelings sans rancune.
10. to pass passer (avec succès), réussir / milestone jalon, repère, ici étape importante / voucher
bon, coupon / shooting star étoile filante.
11. reward récompense / quarter trimestre / to
rank classer / mystery shopper (marketing) client
mystère, dont le but est de se glisser dans la peau
d’un client lambda pour réaliser des enquêtes de
satisfaction et d’évaluation des services sur le terrain
/ score note, résultat / wow super, génial / scratchoff (ticket) à gratter / to hand out distribuer / to
strike, struck, struck frapper, impressionner / allstaff réunissant tout le personnel / outing sortie.
12. air-conditioning climatisation / 83 degrees (Fahrenheit) 28°C / to wipe essuyer / brow front / napkin serviette de table / to screech hurler.
13. to greet saluer, accueillir / to check vérifier, s’assurer.
14. sweetie mon chou / gray-haired (US)= greyhaired (GB) / to embrace embrasser, adopter /
ethos éthique, valeurs, esprit.
15. to shuttle faire la navette / shelf rayon / to
restock renouveler, remettre en rayon / to keep,
kept, kept up suivre le rythme.
Du 6 au 19 octobre 2011 VOCABLE • 19