The restaurant industry is characterized by dispersed locations, high employee turnover, and complex HR management scenarios. As business operations continue to expand, the efficiency bottlenecks and user experience shortcomings of traditional HR management models have become increasingly apparent, making digital transformation the core pathway for restaurant enterprises to enhance organizational effectiveness and support scalable growth. As a renowned catering group with years of industry experience, Xin Wang Catering operates over a dozen diverse brands, including Xin Wang and Gangli, with hundreds of outlets nationwide spanning major core cities. During its development, the company urgently needed to address pain points such as the limited adaptability of its existing management platform, low HR efficiency, and subpar store and employee experiences through digital HR upgrades. In 2023, Xin Wang Catering partnered with CDP Group to launch a strategic collaboration on HR digitalization. Leveraging the AI-powered WorkLife platform, the company upgraded its all-scenario HR management system, achieving a threefold leap in HR efficiency, store management effectiveness, and employee experience, and successfully establishing a benchmark for HR digital transformation in the catering industry.

I. HR Management Pain Points Amid Scaled Restaurant Expansion: Three Major Challenges Hinder Organizational Efficiency

Xin Wang Catering's multi-brand, cross-regional, and multi-store operational model, combined with the high-frequency and fragmented nature of HR management in the restaurant industry, has led to numerous common HR challenges during its growth. The existing global HCM platform could no longer meet the company's business needs, with core pain points concentrated in three areas.

1. Poor Adaptability of the Existing Platform, Unable to Align with the Characteristics of the Restaurant Industry

The existing global HCM platform lacked customized design for the restaurant and retail sectors. Its limited functional flexibility made it unable to support Xin Wang Catering's specific management needs, such as store scheduling, high-frequency employee onboarding and offboarding, and the consolidation of multi-brand HR data. A significant amount of core HR work had to be completed offline, rendering the online platform ineffective and reducing it to a "mere formality" in HR management.

2. HR is bogged down in administrative tasks, resulting in low management efficiency and effectiveness

Due to the limited functionality of the existing platform, a large volume of basic tasks—such as employee onboarding and offboarding, social security reporting, payroll processing, and data analysis—must be completed manually by HR staff. Collecting and integrating HR data across stores and brands is time-consuming and labor-intensive. The HR team is overwhelmed by tedious administrative tasks, preventing them from focusing on core strategic initiatives such as talent recruitment, development, and organizational optimization. Consequently, both management efficiency and the realization of core value are constrained.

3. Poor Store and Employee Experience, Lack of Digital Service Capabilities

The existing platform lacks a user-friendly mobile app, preventing store managers from efficiently handling staff scheduling, attendance management, and data reporting through an online platform. Instead, they must rely on offline spreadsheets and manual communication to manage store personnel matters, resulting in low management efficiency. Employees also lack a self-service digital platform; onboarding and offboarding processes, attendance inquiries, and benefit claims all require coordination with HR. These cumbersome processes and slow response times lead to a poor employee experience and further increase the workload on HR.

Against the backdrop of intensifying competition in the restaurant industry and Xin Wang Catering's multi-brand, large-scale expansion, these pain points not only increase the company's HR management costs but also hinder improvements in overall operational efficiency. There is an urgent need for a highly adaptable, full-scenario digital HR solution tailored to the specific characteristics of the restaurant industry to achieve online, standardized, and efficient HR management.

II. Customized Digital HR Solution: Building a Full-Scenario Management System for the Restaurant Industry

Addressing Xin Wang Catering's core pain points and the unique characteristics of HR management in the catering industry, CDP Group leveraged its AI-powered WorkLife platform to create a bespoke digital HR solution. Centered on "aligning with industry characteristics, enhancing management efficiency, and optimizing user experience," the solution fully replaced the existing platform and established a comprehensive, all-scenario digital HR management system covering HR, store managers, and employees—perfectly tailored to Xin Wang Catering's multi-brand, multi-store operational needs.

1. Building an Industry-Specific Platform to Fully Address Catering HR Management Needs

Moving away from generic platform designs, we have built a customized HR management system for Xin Wang Catering based on the WorkLife platform, tailored to the specific characteristics of the food service and retail industry. This system fully accommodates the industry's unique challenges, such as dispersed store locations, high employee turnover, and complex scheduling and attendance tracking.

• Comprehensively address the company's existing HR management needs by developing core functions such as store scheduling, frequent onboarding and offboarding processes, consolidated multi-brand HR data management, and attendance tracking tailored to the restaurant industry, thereby achieving full online workflow for core HR management tasks;
• The platform offers high scalability, allowing for flexible iteration of functional modules to meet the company's future business expansion and brand growth needs. This provides stable digital HR support for the company's long-term development, completely resolving the issues of "poor adaptability and insufficient scalability" found in the previous platform.

2. Achieve Full Digitalization of HR Workflows to Unlock Core Management Value

By migrating all daily HR tasks to the WorkLife platform, we achieve process standardization, operational automation, and data intelligence, freeing HR teams from tedious administrative work so they can focus on core management responsibilities.

• Automation of groundwork:Automation of routine tasks: Basic tasks such as collecting employee onboarding and offboarding documents, signing employment contracts, filing social insurance contributions, and payroll processing are fully digitized. The system automatically performs data validation and workflow routing, significantly reducing manual HR operations;
• Intelligent Data Management: HR data across brands and stores is automatically consolidated onto the platform, generating standardized reports. HR can view these in real time and export them with a single click, eliminating the need for manual data collection and organization, and significantly improving the efficiency of data statistics and analysis;
• Standardized Process Management: Standardized online operating procedures are established for core HR processes such as recruitment, onboarding, attendance tracking, and offboarding. This ensures full process traceability and auditability, enhancing the standardization of HR management and reducing management risks.

3. Building a Dual-End Digital Service Platform to Optimize Store Manager and Employee Experiences

Addressing the restaurant industry's characteristic of "store managers overseeing operations while employees work on the front lines," we have developed dual-end mobile applications: a Store Manager Management Platform and an Employee Self-Service Platform. These enable convenient operations, efficient management, and self-directed services, comprehensively optimizing store management and the employee experience.

• Store Manager Management Platform: Empowering store management, store managers can use the mobile app to handle employee scheduling, review time clock entries, process onboarding and offboarding requests, and submit store HR data. The platform provides efficient data analysis support, offering precise insights for HR management decisions, significantly improving operational efficiency, and achieving cost savings and productivity gains;
• Employee self-help platform:Employee Self-Service Platform: Covering the full lifecycle of employee services from onboarding to resignation, employees can independently complete tasks such as filling out onboarding forms, checking attendance records, submitting leave requests, viewing pay stubs, and initiating resignation procedures via the mobile app. This eliminates the need for in-person interactions with HR, enabling employees to "handle business without leaving home," significantly enhancing the employee experience while reducing the HR team's workload related to inquiries and coordination.

4. Comprehensive End-to-End Training to Ensure Efficient Platform Implementation and Operation

To ensure the efficient implementation and smooth operation of the digital platform within the company, CDP conducted multiple customized training sessions for the HR team at Xin Wang Catering and store managers across the country.

• Training focused on core topics such as platform functionality, digital management mindset, and practical digital HR techniques for the restaurant industry, enhancing the platform operation and digital management capabilities of HR staff and store managers;
• Establishing a dedicated post-implementation support system to promptly address issues arising during platform operation, assist the company in resolving various challenges during implementation, and drive the steady and efficient advancement of Xin Wang Catering's HR digital transformation.

III. Remarkable Project Outcomes: A Comprehensive Upgrade of Restaurant HR Management

From project launch to full-scale implementation took only a few months. The digital HR solution developed by CDP for Xin Wang Catering was rapidly deployed, successfully addressing the company's core HR management pain points and achieving a comprehensive upgrade of HR management, establishing itself as a successful case study in digital transformation within the restaurant industry.

1. Significantly Enhanced Platform Adaptability, Aligned with the Needs of the Catering Industry

The customized WorkLife platform perfectly aligns with the unique characteristics of human resources management in the catering and retail sectors. It fully addresses the company's existing management needs and offers ample scalability, allowing for flexible iterations as the business expands. It has completely replaced the previously unsuitable global HCM platform, becoming the core digital foundation for Xin Wang Catering's human resources management.

2. HR Management Efficiency Has Surged, Fully Unlocking Core Value

The full digitization and automation of HR workflows have freed the HR team from tedious manual tasks, drastically reducing the time spent on administrative work and significantly improving the efficiency of cross-brand and cross-store HR data analysis. The HR team can now devote more energy to core responsibilities such as talent strategy, organizational development, and employee motivation, fully realizing the core value of HR management.

3. Significant Improvement in Store Management Efficiency, Achieving Cost Reduction and Efficiency Gains

The implementation of the Store Manager Management Platform has enabled online and efficient HR management at the store level. Store managers no longer need to rely on offline spreadsheets or manual communication to handle scheduling and attendance, resulting in a significant improvement in store HR management efficiency. The data analytics support provided by the platform enables store managers to make more informed HR decisions, effectively reducing store HR management costs and achieving the goal of cost reduction and efficiency gains.

4. Comprehensive Optimization of Employee Experience and Enhanced Organizational Belonging

The employee self-service platform covers service scenarios across the entire employee lifecycle, enabling self-directed and convenient handling of various HR-related tasks. Employee processes have been significantly streamlined, and the overall experience has improved markedly. Digital and human-centered HR services allow employees to perceive the company's management upgrades, further strengthening their sense of organizational belonging and identification, which helps reduce the employee turnover rate prevalent in the restaurant industry.

5. Building a Comprehensive Digital Management System to Lay the Foundation for Scalable Growth

By establishing a full-scenario digital HR management system covering HR, store managers, and employees, Xin Wang Catering has achieved online, standardized, and intelligent HR management. This has broken down data silos across brands and stores, enabling centralized coordination and management of comprehensive HR data, thereby laying a solid digital foundation for the company's multi-brand, scalable expansion.

IV. Conclusion: Key Insights into Digital Transformation of Human Resources in the Restaurant Industry

The in-depth collaboration between Xin Wang Catering and CDP Group has successfully addressed the common pain points in human resources management within the restaurant industry—namely, multi-brand operations, cross-store coordination, and high employee turnover—providing valuable, replicable, and actionable experience for the digital transformation of restaurant enterprises.

Digital transformation of human resources in the restaurant industry cannot simply rely on generic management platforms; instead, it must center on industry-specific characteristics to create customized, highly adaptable digital solutions that align with the practical needs of restaurant store management and frontline employee services. At the same time, the approach must adhere to the principle of "efficiency as the core and experience as the driving force." By leveraging digitalization and automation, the core value of HR and store management is unlocked, while employee experience is optimized through convenience and autonomy. This ensures that digitalization truly becomes the core driver for enhancing organizational efficiency and supporting scalable growth in the restaurant industry.

As a leader in HR digital services, CDP Group leverages its extensive industry experience, leading-edge technology platform, and capability to deliver customized solutions to precisely address the pain points of workforce management in the restaurant industry and meet Xin Wang Catering's development needs. By building a comprehensive, industry-specific digital HR system tailored to Xin Wang Catering, CDP Group has once again demonstrated its professional expertise in driving digital transformation for HR within the restaurant and retail sectors.

Moving forward, CDP Group will continue to deepen its collaboration with Xin Wang Catering. Leveraging the WorkLife platform, we will continuously iterate and optimize digital functionalities to empower the enterprise's human resources management through digital and intelligent solutions. Simultaneously, using Xin Wang Catering's successful implementation as a model, we will create customized digital HR solutions for more catering enterprises, harnessing digital and intelligent capabilities to address the industry's workforce management challenges and help these businesses achieve high-quality, scalable growth.