Darden Employee Review

Former Employee – worked at Darden full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good people for the most part. Excellent programs to help employees. Generous benefits after the first year to every full time employee, even hourly. Very high standards of food safety and quality.

Cons – Hourly employees are generally unhappy but they have it really good. Some GMs know their stuff, most are not good at their job. Darden goes to great lengths to make the manager jobs idiot-proof but some still can't cut it. Directors are the highest level anyone in operations will meet (after initial training). Training after the MIT program is roughly zero and don't ever think you can get to corporate from operations; won't happen. Good servers make more money than managers and get basically the same benefits.

Advice to Senior Management – Look to your own people for quality candidates before outside applicants.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company