Betty Hanlon-Deever: Serving hospitality

At a Glance

Accomplishments

Betty Hanlon-Deever has enhanced the foodservice department at Pfizer La Jolla by:

After working for more than 30 years in commercial foodservice, Betty Hanlon-Deever discovered what she called the “best-kept secret” of the industry when she moved to corporate foodservice. She joined the Compass corporate dining team and was placed at Pfizer, in La Jolla, Calif., “six glorious years ago.” Since then, Hanlon-Deever has not only revamped the dining and catering programs, but has impressed her guests, her client, her employers and employees with her ability to provide more than just a satisfying meal but a complete experience.

Service with a smile

“When I think of Betty, I think of hospitality,” says Jerry Neverman, district manager for Compass Group. “When you go into her dining center, it’s like she’s inviting you into her home.”

For Hanlon-Deever, good customer service is simply about knowing her customers—their names, their birthdays, what they like and don’t like and recognizing that their time in her café is “their half hour of a vacation, so let’s make it exciting, let’s give them the experience we love,” she says.

“She brings customer service to just a whole new level,” says Nancy Stephenson, conference services supervisor for Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Inc., the facilities management company at Pfizer La Jolla. “She’s just the mother hen that has to take care of everybody, and she does. It’s amazing her rapport with people. It’s just very special.”

Of the more than 900 employees on the Pfizer campus, “she probably knows all of them,” Stephenson adds. “For [some of] the site leaders, she knows what type of coffee they have, so she’ll have it in their office
every morning. The littlest things go so far with people, and she knows that.”

It’s this focus on customer service that keeps her guests coming back. “Even the people that come from other sites, they’ll go home and say, ‘we don’t get this in Pearl River, we don’t get this in New York,’ so they’re always wowed,” Stephenson says. “There was one colleague who’s on the leadership team, and [at Betty’s] Salaried Employee of the Year award celebration said, ‘I eat in this café every day and I can’t say that I did that before Betty.’ People love her and they definitely feel the customer service and [are] so appreciated here.”

Shortly after Hanlon-Deever began at Pfizer, the company requested that the department provide healthier food options and increase sustainability measures, which required the foodservice program to be modified—and Hanlon-Deever more than delivered.

“Betty really took the lead for Compass here,” explains Muizz Hasham, area director for Jones Lang LaSalle at Pfizer La Jolla. “She was able to completely turn the foodservices model around and really provide healthier options and more local ingredients, more regional items that were procured from local farmers … to the point that we got so many favorable responses from our client [and] from our customers, and not only at this facility, but other facilities of Pfizer. They actually are very complimentary, saying the level of the food and the level of the staff and the personal interaction [Betty] provides is really beyond what other facilities are experiencing. It really became a flagship store for Pfizer and for Compass to look at the model in its entirety. Betty was really instrumental in changing that type of offering for the Pfizer account.”

Sticking to sustainability

By increasing the amount of local products served, starting farmers’ markets where Pfizer employees can purchase local produce from the café for home use, establishing a juice bar and inviting local vendors to campus to meet guests and share information about their products, Hanlon-Deever has brought health and sustainability front and center, while adding revenue streams. “One of the things that we are proud of is our salad bar,” Hanlon-Deever explains. “There were a lot of canned items when I started, and now we have over 18 items on the bar, all fresh, all sourced from local farmers within a 250-mile radius.”

With the goals of both Pfizer and Compass in mind, “She’s very conscious in making sure whatever products she is actually sourcing are sustainable, eco-friendly and actually supporting the site goals,” Hasham says. “There are a lot of benefits to having these third parties come in to the site and promoting their products. It creates more of a community environment and people enjoy that as well. We’re supporting local businesses in town, and that’s something that Pfizer really wants to make sure they are also part of. Betty is instrumental in our vendor programs that she brings on site as well and makes sure that [the programs meet] the site goals at large.”

Hanlon-Deever’s impact also is felt beyond the café. She incorporates the same standards of customer service and quality into the company’s catering program. Hanlon-Deever exceeds catering expectations, Hasham says. “Even if it’s a boxed lunch—a boxed lunch is now a gourmet sandwich, not just a sandwich put together—all the way to fine china and silverware and a full-on prime rib dinner served to executives,” he says. “It’s the full spectrum. She’s able to really, really enable the customer to feel like, yep, she’s got exactly what their needs are.”

Through her attention to detail and service, Hanlon-Deever has been able to keep the bulk of catering on campus. “A lot of our executive admin staff are really engaged in sourcing and catering, and that’s a very tough group, and rightfully so, because they want the best for their bosses and their guests,” Hasham explains. “There’s a lot of confidence in Betty taking that and providing them exactly what their needs are. That requires a lot of partnership and trust and proven performance on Betty’s part. They have an open ticket, they can call anyone else and they choose to stay with Betty. The level of the food is absolutely fantastic here.”

Employee relations

With virtually zero employee turnover of her nine-person staff during her tenure, Hanlon-Deever is a proven successful manager. “I believe that the reason I don’t have turnover is because I treat my crew as family. I know all about them. I’m tough on them but fair. I listen to them as much as I communicate,” she says.

In addition to supporting her employees, Hanlon-Deever has implemented reward, promotion, team-building and employee recognition programs. For example, for one week in April, the staff will play the Egg Game, where a plastic golden egg containing at least a $50 prize is hidden among a basket of plastic eggs containing T-shirts, candy or movie tickets. Each day before service, the employee who correctly answers a work-related question selects an egg. “They look forward to this week of answering questions and winning prizes,” Hanlon-Deever explains.

“She’s really kind of more of a mother figure to these folks,” Hasham says. “She’s really protective of her staff. She takes care of them, of course, [but] she demands the best out of them. The staff is very happy as well. They will go above and beyond. She puts them on a growth development plan and provides them with opportunities, whether it’s here or at another account. She looks out for her people. That’s not easy to do as a manager. It really comes from within.”