Fast-food chain Chipotle apparently takes calling out sick very seriously – so much so that the company has on-call nurses to check whether employees are genuinely unwell or just hungover.
Chipotle’s CEO Brian Niccol explained the method behind the recently introduced procedure during a conference at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday.
‘We have nurses on call, so that if you say, “Hey, I’ve been sick,” you get the call into the nurse,’ Niccol said. ‘The nurse validates that it’s not a hangover — you’re really sick — and then we pay for the day off to get healthy again.’
The Mexican restaurant’s thorough policy comes as part of its latest efforts to continuously improve its food-safety standards and practises, Niccol explained – a move prompted by a succession of hygiene scandals dating back to 2015.
‘We have nurses on call, so that if you say, “Hey, I’ve been sick,” you get the call into the nurse,’ CEO Brian Niccol said. ‘The nurse validates that it’s not a hangover — you’re really sick — and then we pay for the day off to get healthy again’
One of the highest-profile incidents occurred in 2017, where more than one hundred customers in Virginia fell victim to a norovirus outbreak.
An internal investigation found the epidemic was caused by store managers failing to adhere to safety procedures and an employee working while unwell.
‘We have a very different food-safety culture than we did two years ago, OK?’ Niccol said. ‘Nobody gets to the back of the restaurant without going through a wellness check.’
The use of on-call nurses is meant to ensure that every employee is healthy enough to be working when they’re on the clock, though it remains unclear whether the nurse visits the worker in person or conducts an evaluation over the phone.
However, Niccol acknowledged having a healthy workforce isn’t necessarily enough to prevent sickness outbreaks such as the one suffered in Virginia.
‘There’s probably people in here that might have the common cold,’ Niccol said at the conference, Business Insider reported. ‘Even if we clean up after you, and we don’t use a cleaner that kills that germ, it hangs around for the next customer.’
‘Even though our team member did nothing wrong — there was nothing wrong with our food — we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard to make sure that the dining room gets sanitized in a way that it hasn’t been in the past,’ he continued.
The Mexican restaurant’s thorough new policy comes as part of its latest efforts to continuously improve its food-safety standards and practises, Niccol explained, a move prompted by a succession of hygiene scandals dating back to 2015
As a solution, Niccol said: ‘We’ve got cleaner that actually kills norovirus when you clean the tables in the dining room.’
Chipotle has not yet responded to a DailyMail.com request for clarity on how the nurses determine a worker’s severity of sickness, whether on the phone or in person.
However, in a statement, Kerry Bridges, Chipotle’s Vice President of Food Safety, told DailyMail.com: ‘Food safety at Chipotle is more than a collection of programs and processes; it’s part of our culture.
‘Like other food establishments, Chipotle has partnered with Zero Hour Health since 2008 to provide trained healthcare professionals who consult with employees who may feel ill.
‘This is in addition to various other industry leading initiatives we’ve implemented to ensure we’re holding ourselves to the highest of standards,’ Bridges continued.
Brian Niccol stepped in as Chipotle’s chief executive in February 2018, and, under his new direction, the company has been brought back from the brink of collapse, with its stock reaching a company-high of $759 back in July.
From late 2015 to early 2016, however, Chipotle’s profits plummeted a staggering 95 percent and lost $16 billion in market value when hundreds of people across the country fell ill with E.coli.
The following year, company’s woes worsened after the norovirus broke out in Virginia, causing 133 diners in Sterling to fall ill.
Niccol stepped in as Chipotle’s chief executive in February 2018, and, under his new direction, the company has been brought back from the brink of collapse, with its stock reaching a company-high of $759 back in July
Chipotle was forced to apologise for a separate scandal just weeks later when a horrified diner in Dallas captured a viral video showing rodents falling from the restaurant’s ceiling.
Before those health scares, Chipotle was growing rapidly, with an enthusiastic base of millennial customers.
The chain even enjoyed the patronage of the political elite, with Hillary Clinton famously stopped for a burrito bowl at a Chipotle in northwest Ohio, while on the presidential trail.
And now, Chipotle is enjoying a second wind, posting one of the best stocks in the S&P 500 this year, and same-stores sales accelerating in every quarter over the last 12 months.