Friday, June 30, 2000
by Kevin Yee
The Working Lead. Focal point of Disney's theme park strategy, if you ask me, and absolutely critical to its success. Let's start at the beginning.
You have managers (previously referred to as "supervisors"), who are salaried. Then you have hourly Cast Members, running the whole range of status from temporary to very permanent (and often very entrenched). The Lead ñ pronounced like the verb, not the metal ñ is an entity between those two extremes. Not management, exactly, but certainly the person who tells the hourly Cast Members what to do. Think of them as hourly managers.
But exactly how much they do, how much responsibility they have, all depends on what location in Disneyland you're talking about. Some are really just part of the action, fill positions and basically decide when people go on breaks, and that's it.
Others have much more to do. At an attraction with many Cast Members, or a restaurant, the odds are the Lead is sometimes too busy to fill a position. Though sometimes not. It all depends, you see. Are the salaried managers around much? If they are not, then it's more likely that the Lead is supervising everything and not filling in one of the positions.
I can tell you what my experience was like, and much of what I did translates to varying degrees to Custodial, Outdoor Vending (ODV), attractions, merchandise, and so on. Just use your imagination.
At my restaurants, where you have anywhere from 15 to 45 people working on your shift, the Lead is almost always an "extra" position. There's too much going on to supervise all of it while filling on at a position, and the managers are usually downstairs.
The day begins at Cash Control, which you just read about last week. As soon as I arrive at the location for my closing shift, the day's battle against financial excess begins. While the Opening Lead fills me in on today's issues (someone sick? crowds light? prep work needs to be done?), I head over to the Lead Desk and deal with staffing.
There are numerous tools for measuring efficiency, but mostly we would use labor percents (the percentage of revenue used to pay for labor), or SPLHs (sales per labor hour) to adjust our staffing either up or down. With a bit of work, you can make this an actual science. Algebraic manipulation alone told me all I needed to know, in the various permutations. I could guarantee target SPLHs by the end of the night if I started watching it early enough, and adjusting as needed.
Authorized Day Off request form. Form design © Disney
Need to cut hours? There's always someone who wants to ER (go home earlier than scheduled, stands for "early release"). If not, you could call the schedulers and ask them to call someone off for the day; give them an ADO (authorized day off). There are specific rules about forcing people to go home, and basically it's avoided usually.
Making so much money that you need to add hours? Ask the schedulers to call someone in. Or ask if people currently working are willing to extend. As the closer, I'd always need more people to help with cleaning for the night, so I was constantly doing this. There are also specific rules regarding forcing people to stay longer, and this one is not avoided quite so strenuously. Quite a few people disliked being forced to stay, but sometimes there is no choice.
Staffing requirements might mean borrowing people from other locations, or sending your people out to help other locations. This, too, is something a Lead would coordinate. That's sort of a gray area, however. Some managers prefer to be in on this sort of decision.
Generally speaking, Leads watch over the timely administration of breaks. At our restaurant, we actually scheduled people to be breakers, but Leads needed to watch over the process and help out if necessary. Breaks are big union deals, you see.
The contract for the hotel/restaurants union.
Leads are very aware of the union and its stipulations. For that matter, leads by necessity know about the employment laws, such as not keeping high-school minors past ten on school nights or past midnight ever.
Though it doesn't always work out that way, Leads are supposed to monitor Cast Member adherence to the "Four Keys": Safety, Courtesy, Show, Efficiency. Now there is a very general set of marching orders. In reality, this means that the Leads basically ensure that things are done they way they are supposed to be.
We monitor the "Disney Look." Basically anything out of the ordinary about appearance is usually noticed first by Leads, and they enforce the rules.
We monitor the appearance of the location ñ this is also part of Show. Things canít be dirty, or disorganized. Things must be safe. Someone has got to walk through every now and then and make sure things are the way they are supposed to be. And that person is usually the Lead.
Guest relations are a big part of the job. Guest has a compliment or complaint? We get to hear it, and in fact there are classes at the Disney University dedicated to how to do it (more on that someday in the future).
But wait, there's more. As part of watching Efficiency, you basically do whatever it takes to make things work smoother, faster, better. In a restaurant that means you have to stock up on plates and so forth, maybe more needs to be broken out. Food supplies need to be replenished, prep work done for later today or tomorrow.
Food needs to be stored safely. Hot foods must be over 160, cold meats should be kept below 40. Food should be periodically tasted ñ just a bite, mind you ñ for quality control.
If you sell something, for example at restaurants or merch locations, hourly readings need to be taken, and sometimes recorded, analyzed, acted upon.
Cashiers may need something voided, or additional coins or small bills. The serving line frequently benefits from additional assistance from the Lead in one spot or another. The exact spot, of course, is always changing.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I, at least, had dozens of variables bouncing off each other in my head. It's a constant give and take... or at least it can be. A lazy Lead could very well take readings and walk around and not do much in general. And indeed there are some lazy Leads.
It takes a lot working together to make things happen correctly, and a restaurant at Disneyland is more than just a theme park version of a normal restaurant. Like all CMs, you represent the larger theme park. People's issues with the park today become fodder for their good (or bad) experiences at the restaurant. Prices get complained about more, because they are perceived as unfairly high. Image is much more important inside the berm than outside. No eating or drinking onstage here!
In short, it's a challenging job. Someone has to be there minute-by-minute to run the place, and that is not the salaried managers. That someone is the Lead.
I haven't even touched upon the Lead's role as a sort of go-between representing the CMs to the managers and vice versa. Or the quasi-managerial tasks such writing up SWR's (work orders to fix broken things), writing in the daily Lead Log, documenting employee acts both positive and negative on Incident Cards or the permanent record D-208 cards (I have no idea if there is a D-207 or a D-209 card also), and writing up employee annual reviews in the form of Performance Appraisals. Heck, I've even written up the S.O.P. ís (Standard Operating Procedures) for my locations and re-created the schedule masters, by which we decided how many CMs to schedule in given circumstances and estimated attendance.
Leads do a lot.
Yet, Disneyland for a time in the 1990s took away Attractions Leads. The idea was to trim the most expensive hourly positions, and thus save money.
Rather short-sighted, don't you think?
That made for dangerous conditions in some cases at the rides, breaks not being given out on time, and people in general not caring about efficiency.
Unions were mad, guests were mad, and Cast Members were mad.
Leads, you see, are necessary.
Next up: Great Guest Complaints
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Working Lead = hourly version of manager at Disneyland.
Part management and part employee.
Four Keys = Disneyland's symbol to remember the important elements of service: 1. Safety 2. Courtesy 3. Show 4. Efficiency
SPLH = "Sales per Labor Hour." A measure of efficiency if sales-oriented locations.
A.D.O. = "Authorized Day Off," a pre-requested and pre-authorized day when you are not scheduled.
E.R. = "Early Release," being let go before the scheduled time to end your shift.
S.W.R. = "Shop Work Request," or a requested work order to fix some element of the location (can be mechanical, paint, plumbing, whatever).
S.O.P. = "Standard Operating Procedure," or doing
things 'by the book.'
Are you a CM or a former CM? I would love to hear and share your stories! E-mail me! Stories and comments you submit become property of and may be published on this site; we normally don't publish last names of current CMs, but if you wish to remain anonymous altogether or do not want me to share your stories, please let me know when you e-mail me. — Shoshana NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in reader-contributed stories do not reflect those of Cast Place or MousePlanet. CM – Cast member; company lingo for “employee.” Empowerment Evolution – The 1995 attempt by newer park management to introduce modern accountability and market forces into the stodgy Disneyland methodology and power hierarchies. The name was meant to “empower” rank and file employees by removing layers of their management, though now there are more managers than ever. TPO – Theme Park Operations; the division of the Disneyland hierarchy that actually works in the theme park itself. TDA – Team Disney Anaheim; the name of the on-site administration building. Area manager – used to be responsible for an entire land, with all business divisions in the area reporting to him. Area supervisor – the immediate boss for location supervisors who divide up a department of intelligently grouped locations. The area supervisors in turn reported to the area manager. Nowadays all supervisors and area supervisors have been replaced by managers and assistant managers — the same idea, but smaller “business units" than a department; usually just one location in fact. RFT – “A” status; a full-time hourly employee. RPT – “B” status; an hourly employee five days a week but just not quite 40 hours usually. CR – “C” status; an hourly employee who works weekends year-round and five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). CT – a part-time hourly employee who works five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). No seniority, so shifts worked are usually quite short. Locate the employment center to fill out an application, and they will call you for an interview (dress nicely, just shy of an actual suit). Once there, follow these rules, in this order of importance: 1. Smile and be very friendly. They want outgoing people.
2. Do not let the group interview throw you off balance. They want outgoing people who can “perform” a little bit.
3. Do not worry about job (in)experience. They don't care. They want friendly people, not experienced and/or hardened people.
4. Do your best to convince them you already have a Disney attitude: you want to work with people, you're a team player, and you would consider this a dream job (however, don't overdo it on the crazy-Disney-fan side either). Strike a nice balance.
5. Did I mention the importance of a smile? 
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