Hospitality. It's a fast-paced, high-traffic industry - so it's not all that surprising that CIPD research has shown hospitality has the highest turnover rate at around 52%.
That's why Wingstop UK & Ireland decided to do things differently. By sustainably scaling up their recognition programme, today their labour turnover is at an all-time low - and significantly below industry standard.
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The customer
- Fast-growing chicken wings chain
- 88 UK & Ireland locations, and counting
- High standards and fast-paced sites
If you haven't tried Wingstop (and you should!), you've likely still heard of them. The chicken restaurant launched in the UK in 2018 and hasn't stopped since - with an impressive 88 locations, and more in the works.
But their focus is quality, as well as quantity. So as they scaled, their People team focused on building a network of workplaces where employees feel valued, and want to stick around.
"Saying thanks for your hard work - that's missed quite a lot, particularly in hospitality when it's so fast paced. But we really prioritise making sure our teams feel thanked and appreciated, even if it's a tough day."
Laura Wharton, People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
The challenge: high growth, and high standards
- Maintaining quality with an ever-expanding workforce
- Recognition a priority, but becoming a time sink
- Struggling with a manual vouchering process
New location after new location popping up. Thousands of orders every day, teams expanding week by week. Business growth is great - but it always comes with risks attached. Wingstop realised that their recognition practices were about to become unmanageable - and the stress of distributing vouchers to hundreds of employees at Christmas served as a warning sign.
Because for Wingstop, recognition wasn't a "nice-to-have". Their teams are under pressure to work fast, maintain high standards, and deliver consistently high customer service. So Wingstop's belief is simple: if you expect people to give their best, you have to give something back - authentically, consistently, and in a way that feels human.
"When we were delivering vouchers to a few hundred people one Christmas, we realised that it was taking too long to do it - we knew that we needed to have a process where we could deliver [recognition] a lot quicker, and a lot more efficiently."
Laura Wharton, People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
The solution: scaling up "we mean it, thank you"
- Offering a choice of gifts, so recognition feels personal
- Making it easy to send hundreds of gifts at once, with one CSV upload
- Powering Christmas incentives, long-service awards and more
Handing out vouchers wasn't going to cut it anymore. Leanna Brennan and Laura Wharton, who sit in Wingstop's People Team, discovered Huggg. And two things stood out:
The choice Huggg offers - so recognition feels personal, not transactional. That was the "aha!" moment: Huggg removes the "anxiety of not being able to please somebody with a gift". With a constantly growing workforce, you can't individually choose presents - so Gift with Choice gives you another opportunity to make recognition feel personal.
The ease of bulk gifting - for a hassle-free way to recognise teams. Wingstop incentives like Employee of the Quarter and their long-service awards often mean 50+ people need to be recognised at once. Huggg's "no address" sending and user-friendly platform offered a more efficient way to get the job done.
"One of the things that we were concerned about is that it felt personal to the person that we're delivering it to. If you buy a voucher from a high street retailer when you don't really know that person, it takes away that emotional connection to them. We know that through Huggg, they have their own choice of what they get."
Laura Wharton, People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
Their programme: finding more use cases
- Saw the benefit of bulk sending with Huggg at Christmas
- Used it to roll out long-service awards for existing employees
- Planning to use data to expand their gifting programme
It was the hassle of Christmas gifting that made Wingstop look for a better way. But the success of Huggg for that use case helped them solve another challenge. As a way to encourage lower turnover and reward dedication, they wanted to implement a long-service award scheme - and Huggg made that a lot easier.
What's next? Wingstop are going to keep developing their gifting programme, looking at the data, and linking it to engagement - to make sure recognition is inclusive and measurable, whether you're working on the till in Glasgow, in the kitchen in Manchester, or at the London office.
"It was in our People strategy to roll out a long service benefit. Having Huggg where you can click a button and ping out a benefit to multiple people - that was really, really beneficial in terms of time saved, and in terms of an impact on the team as well."
Leanna Brennan, Senior People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
The results: high recognition, retention and satisfaction
- Turnover at an all-time low, way below the industry standard
- Included in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work
- Significant amount of time saved on admin
Gifting is one part of Wingstop's commitment to impactful recognition, and whatever they're doing - it's working. That's not just anecdotal - they're featured in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work, and their turnover is at an all-time low (and far below the industry average - avoiding the churn challenge that most hospitality businesses face).
It's not just that their employees stick around. Laura and Leanna also told us that their workforce is made up of some genuinely ambitious people who want to stay, learn, and lead. You can't pay for that sort of engagement - and you definitely can't earn it by handing out a few basic vouchers here and there.
"Many companies will say that they're a people-focused business, but we genuinely put our names on that. We are as authentic as they come. At the core of it all is our people. We truly try to do the right thing by our people."
Leanna Brennan, Senior People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
Our takeaway
In a sector where employees are often overworked and underappreciated, Wingstop is doing something different. You don't swerve a 50+% industry benchmark for turnover with one-off perks. That takes a consistent commitment to making people feel valued.
It's a simple formula:
- Make recognition consistent, even as you grow
- Keep it personal by offering choice, so people feel seen
- Make it easy, so it doesn't fall by the wayside as you scale
The result? A recognition culture that supports what matters most in restaurants - holding on to your best talent.
"It's easy to set up an account. There are dedicated people behind the scenes that can help and support you with anything. So we've had nothing but a positive experience with Huggg."
Leanna Brennan, Senior People Partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland
Are you looking for an easier way to scale recognition, and keep it personal? Learn how to give a gift with choice, or book a quick demo.
Video transcript
Leanna Brennan from Wingstop 0:00
It kind of opened up so many more doors as to how we can do things, how we can measure things, how we can calculate return on investment. So my name is Leanna Brennan. I'm the senior people partner at Wingstop, UK and Ireland.
Laura Wharton from Wingstop 0:14
My name is Laura Watson. I'm the people partner at Wingstop UK and Ireland. We were delivering vouchers to a few 100 people one Christmas, and we realized it was taking so long to do it, we knew that we needed to have a process where we could deliver it a lot more efficiently.
Leanna Brennan from Wingstop 0:32
I think it was pretty incredible in terms of the response that we got to it when we moved over to hug, the variety and gifting that we could now offer, instead of kind of guessing what people wanted, when you don't have everybody's preferences to hand, having something that really helps you in terms of making sure that there's something for everyone's really important.
Laura Wharton from Wingstop 0:52
I think it's the mass delivery we have to deliver recognition to upwards of 50 people. Sometimes at a time, huggers just made it efficient for us to be able to deliver on a mass basis, which sometimes that could feel impersonable, but actually, we know that through hug, they're having their own choice of what voucher they get or what gift they get.
Leanna Brennan from Wingstop 1:12
When we've gone and asked for more things or for any help, support, guidance, it was always on hand. Super flexible. Nothing's ever been too much trouble for the team, I would say the customer service element of it has been the Paramount part for me.
Laura Wharton from Wingstop 1:25
I think we've all probably worked for someone that your hard work isn't recognized, and so like, we really wanted to ensure that our teams felt like they were appreciated in the workplace. So having something like hug on hand that is so personable for their individual was really important to us when we were making that decision to start working with you,
Leanna Brennan from Wingstop 1:47
every Monday, we get an email that gives us the reactions from our hugs that we've given out that previous week, and definitely a special part of that is reading through those reactions, seeing how much joy it brings to people in terms of how we recognize them during the week and how it's impacted them. One really key benefit, again, is that streamlined approach. We can send out mass vouchers in minutes that land in people's inboxes really easily. We can dress them up and make them relevant. We can pass on thanks messages as well as giving that financial recognition as well. We can swap and change things up as well. We're not having to dash out to the shops every two minutes or carry a big stash of gift cards in our pockets and our bags and things like that. So the streamlined part of having hug as a partner is brilliant and has opened up loads of opportunity for us to grow our comp and bend strategy.
Laura Wharton from Wingstop 2:35
There's always a little bit of nervousness when you start collaborating with a third party company. Initial conversation with hug kind of squashed that straight away, for me, knew that they really cared about what we were trying to achieve and what we wanted to deliver as well. So it felt like a really natural partnership to move into.
Leanna Brennan from Wingstop 2:54
It's so easy. Everybody got on board. Really easy. It's easy to set up accounts. There's dedicated people behind the scenes at hug that can help and support you with anything. So we've had nothing but a positive experience from that.
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