People on the payroll

Usage examples of employees.

I am grateful to city historian Billy Ellington for guiding me through his files on White Castle and directing me to former White Castle employees still living in Wichita.

One of those surviving employees was especially helpful: former manager Jimmy King and his son Wayne gave me their personal insight into the early years of White Castle in the 1920s that I could never recover from paper documents.

Ingram also mandated that all serving employees be held to strict standards of conduct, personal hygiene, and attire.

Once they were hired, employees had to observe dress guidelines, stipulating that they wear clean white shirts with sleeves neatly folded, a clean black necktie, clean patchless white pants, and a clean white apron free of stains.

These virtues were stressed to new employees during an intensive, unpaid two-week training period, administered by an experienced operator.

This goal of continually improving sales was not lost on White Castle employees, but just in case, Ingram offered frequent and pointed reminders.

Ingram had pointers for his employees on how nearly every aspect of their interaction with customers could be the basis for an additional sale.

Ingram felt that it was important to create a sense of camaraderie among all employees and to reinforce for the customers the concept of company uniformity.

His stated purpose was to promote the notion of family among everyone involved in the company, including both employees and customers.

employees and customers alike anxiously awaited each monthly issue to see whether their contributions had been included and to keep track of the activities of other employees and customers at other White Castles.

Numerous copies of every issue were mailed to each Castle to be enjoyed by employees and distributed to interested customers.

Started in 1924, this fund was designed to pay all or part of the health care costs for both employees and their dependents.

Although this was not comprehensive health insurance coverage in the modern sense, the fund assisted with exceptional bills that would have driven the employees into debt.

In addition to covering hospital and surgical costs, the company also gave paid sick days to employees for recuperation.

Shackelford and other original Wichita employees into the new territories was simple: they intimately knew all the essential White Castle company policies, the correct procedures, and the proper techniques for food preparation.