A few days ago I read MSN Money’s report on ” 10 Things Chipotle won’t tell you” found here –
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-chipotle-wont-tell-you-2014-11-07
When reading article #5 about how they pay their executives, I had a strong feeling of righteous anger and sympathy for the employees that Mr. Charles Passy wrote about on #6. Feeling injustice for others, I wrote an email to one of the CEO’s of Chipotle, Montgomery Moran.
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Dear Mr. Moran,
My family and I enjoy Chipotle every Sunday. I love the kid’s quesadilla!
I have just read MSN Money’s report on Chipotle. I think it is not just selfish, but unsophisticated as well, that you get $24,000,000 dollars a year and your children’s schooling paid for also, while your employees only get $10 an hour and you sometimes don’t pay them at all. If Chipotle is making $1.08 billion dollars every quarter, I think that is downright unfair that your employees aren’t getting more than the average $10 per hour. I, personally, think you should pay them $25 dollars per hour. I have a blog (www.10yearsoftastebuds.wordpress.com) and I have recently written a post of Chipotle, and since I gave such you a good review, hopefully you will be able to do this one thing for me.
Thank you kindly,
Ellie
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About three days later, he wrote back! Saying this,
Dear Ellie,
First, thanks to you and your family for going to our restaurant each Sunday! We appreciate your business, and also your interest in Chipotle.
I want you to know that we take great care of our employees. First, the comment that “you sometimes don’t pay them at all” is simply not true. Did you know that over 90% of our managers start out as crew members? We are always looking to hire people who are smart, curious, ambitious and enthusiastic about helping us in our restaurants at Chipotle. When our crew members first join us at Chipotle, they start out at a competitive wage that is higher than minimum wage, but even our newly hired crew enjoy benefits like free Chipotle food when they work, a bonus program and twice annual review of wages to make sure that we are paying them the right amount, and where they usually get a raise. But the biggest thing that we give to our newly hired crew members is the opportunity to move up and advance at Chipotle, first to a kitchen manager – once they’ve learned what they need to know to make our great food, and then to a service manager – once they’ve learned what they need to know to take great care of our customers, and finally, up to a salaried manager as an apprentice and then general manager. Lots of people start out as a crew member and become a general manager in under a year (and becoming a general manager means they get paid a lot more, and get even better benefits)! Our salaried managers get paid competitive salaries and twice annual bonuses. We even have hundreds of managers who we call Restaurateurs – they are our elite managers who we promote based on their ability to find great crew members to join our teams at Chipotle and promote them to be managers. And our Restaurateurs get bonuses, stock options and a company car. Almost all of these Restaurateurs started out as crew, and they make a lot more than $25.00 an hour!
So, what we provide to our crew members is more important than just a starting wage – what we provide is an opportunity to grow with us, to move up, and to have a terrific career. We have many executives at Chipotle who started out as crew members and who are now leading teams of hundreds or even thousands of people, so the opportunities we give are real!
In terms of what I get paid, my salary is a small fraction (about 1/20th) of that $24,000,000 figure that you read about. The rest of that amount is calculated based on the stock options that are given to me. If Chipotle grows and is successful and the stock price goes up, for which there is no guarantee, then my stock options, and those of our Restaurateurs and other leaders at Chipotle, will become valuable. But if the stock price does not go up, then the leaders, including me, don’t make any money from the stock options. What this means is that if our investors – our shareholders – make a lot of money, so do our leaders, and if they don’t, then the leaders at Chipotle don’t make any money from these options.
Thanks again for writing to me, and for your loyalty to Chipotle!
Monty Moran
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This is where I freaked out. I got an email from the CEO of Chipotle!!! Who gets to have that happen to them? I’m gonna have to write to Mr. Charles Passy about how he didn’t do a very good job investigating Chipotle. But it’s not over yet. I wrote back to Mr. Moran thanking him for writing to me. Here’s what I said,
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Dear Mr. Moran,
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And only half an hour later he wrote back. That makes me feel special a whole lot. Here’s what he said,
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10 Years of Taste Buds 