Why did Honest Burgers need Stream?
Honest Burgers built its recruitment approach around understanding what people actually want from a career — whether it's someone's first job, a single parent balancing work and family, or someone mid career-change. That "recruit for potential" philosophy became harder to execute after Brexit and Covid-19 made hiring in hospitality more difficult, pushing the business to look for benefits that would genuinely stand out to candidates.
"Our vision has always been to understand what people want when it comes to a career
For some it’s their first ever job. Others are single parents or are in the middle of a career change. Some want to work for three or four companies. Recruiting for potential has always been the vision of Honest Burgers, it’s just been elevated because of Brexit and Covid-19 which has made it harder to recruit."
What challenges did Stream solve?
Honest Burgers wanted to give employees genuine ownership over their own pay, rather than routing everything through the employer — while keeping the offering optional rather than forced on anyone who didn't want it.
"It's got to work for everybody. We'll provide the tools for our teams to be successful, but it's up to the individual to how much they want to use them.
Stream is great because the partnership is so vital to the future – and to the now. We know that employees coming into our workforce want to take ownership of their lifestyle and that also relates to pay. Stream allows our employees to take ownership and have the freedom to manage their pay themselves rather than through us."
What measurable outcomes were achieved?
What was the business impact?
For Honest Burgers, Stream has become part of what makes the business attractive to work for in the first place:
"What attracts people to your business is a whole bag of golden nuggets. Stream is one of those golden nuggets."
Stream sits within a wider focus on technology as a way to sustain a culture of caring across a disparate hospitality workforce — critical, in Oli's view, for keeping engagement high when a team is spread across sites and shift patterns. Chatbots are part of that approach, helping Honest Burgers reach every employee and talk to them directly rather than relying on top-down communication.
When furlough was announced, for example, Honest Burgers sent every employee a calculation of exactly what they should expect in their bank account. Oli's underlying philosophy is not to dwell on difficulty but to get on the front foot — and he's clear that Covid-19 didn't change the company's recruitment strategy so much as accelerate focus on the areas that already mattered.
That same front-foot approach shows up in how Honest Burgers sources talent:
"We’ve always had an open talent pool," he explains. "We partner with different charities, we go into local prisons to do employability events, we do outreach. We find people who want to get into the workplace. There are so many great people in hospitality and there’s a real misunderstanding of what it takes to be in hospitality which stops people applying. That’s why we focus on showing people exactly what the job entails and what it’s like working for us, so they get a good feel for it."
That sits alongside a wider commitment to an open talent pool and community outreach:
"Stream is great because the partnership is so vital to the future – and to the now. We know that employees coming into our workforce want to take ownership of their lifestyle and that also relates to pay. Stream allows our employees to take ownership and have the freedom to manage their pay themselves rather than through us."
For Oli, all this stuff isn’t rocket science – it’s just about doing what’s right.
"There’s stuff we do really well and things we don’t do so well, and we talk about that. Transparency is key. Feedback is key. That’s how we improve. We focus on what matters and what we care about and that makes us Honest."
Honest Burgers also leans heavily on referrals, on the belief that great people tend to know other great people, and pairs that with a strong retention strategy — reasoning that higher retention means fewer gaps to fill, solving recruitment from the inside out. Stream plays a role here too: employers using Stream see up to a 16% improvement in retention and a 26% improvement in shift fill rate.
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