#082 Getting Your Employees To Care – Carrie Luxem P4 (8:07)

In the final installment of this 4 part series, Carrie Luxem and the QSR Nation crew discuss back to school and end of summer staffing.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Hey everybody, welcome back to QSR Nation. Listen in as we continue our discussion with Carrie Luxem.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Now I know a lot of our retailers have a problem with just finding people in general before they quit eventually, you know, they just have a hard time recruiting, so as we get back to school in August and everything like that, do you have any good advice for back-to-school staffing?

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, well, my advice would be, this is a little late for this, but so what happens, people are short-staffed all the time, depending on where you are, and they get really excited over the summer because they bring on all of these students that are looking for summer help and they feel really great about that, but I think at the very beginning of summer help hiring, you’ve got to just make sure you’re not bringing on too many people that are going to leave at the same exact time, so really thinking through that and you’ve got to think ahead a little bit.

But now it’s mid-July, you still have students for the next month or so, and people aren’t really thinking, they’re feeling staffed, they’ve got great people or whatever, I think it’s just so important to right now start your efforts. Really step one is talk to people and find out what they’re really doing. Somebody you might have hired at the beginning of the summer who said, “Oh no, I can stay on,” you know, like things change, you know, they decided to take on more classes or they’re actually going to go away. So really just opening up the communication, making sure you’re finding out who really is leaving and when, and starting to fill the gaps with people that are going to be leaving, and again, it’s a month away let’s say, start now because what will happen is the night before everybody leaves, every operator will be in a panic because they don’t have enough people and “oh my gosh,” you know.

It’s just one of those things that I see so often, it’s like they know it’s coming but they are like just feeling staffed, and some people have said they were going to stay so they didn’t really touch on it that much, so just really, really getting to the people and the details of how their schedules are changing, if they’re changing, when they’re leaving, if they’re able to now only to work nights, and just really taking the time to plan accordingly, and then finding the people, tons of stuff.

Obviously, you could talk to the people that work in the restaurants and always should be doing that, getting their friends, and if they have people that are maybe changing, maybe they’re going back to school but they could work weekends, just knowing who is out there from like a referral standpoint and networking in the community and that sort of thing. I think, obviously, kids are going back to school but it’s still a good idea to advertise and communicate within the colleges, the community colleges, the universities, the high schools, with what needs you do have. Some of these community colleges, yeah, kids are going back but they’re open all day, like from 10 AM to 3 PM, they’re taking night classes, so maybe you can find some people that way. Start to put the signs out in your lawn or on the restaurant or a banner or something if you have real specific needs.

If you’re looking for five people to work fulltime, I think you’ve just got to put those, you know, people have to know, so put some banners up, put some signs up. I see sometimes operators do put these banners and signs up and they keep them up for decades, they take them down like every decade or so, but like take them down, put them back up, do fresh things. You could have marketing things made, handouts that say you’re looking for people, all of those kinds of things people are doing. It’s really just really good networking and putting some signs up. Then one of the things that I’ve been using for my own company, and I’m not a restaurant, but we do a lot of stuff on social media, and the power of social media is really huge.

It’s not going to bring in – like if you’re placing an ad on a job board like Indeed, you get a lot of applicants, and those are good things to do as well – but social media is more of a like a marketing strategy for people, it’s a recruiting campaign if you will, but there’s definitely, the ones that really separate themselves, they create these really neat little ads or they create a little video. When I had a need, I was looking to hire somebody, and I created a little 45-second video that I was looking for this person, I could not believe, and I have found the most incredible talent by posting a little video, putting it on Facebook, boosting it in the area that I needed to hire the person, I targeted the title, and I couldn’t believe the response, so trying those things.

So if you are a restaurant and you need to hire some crew members and cashiers, have somebody that’s maybe even working in one of your restaurants create a little video talking about what they’re doing and “come on over, we’re having a job fair” or something like that, put it on Facebook, spend $10, 15, $20 to advertise it, they call it boosting it, target the zip code, target the restaurant industry, whatever, and see what happens. You know, trying those little things can separate you. Those tools are out there but not a lot of people are doing them. It takes commitment and it takes time to do those things but it takes a lot less time than being short-staffed for six months.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Yeah, and being able to find someone who is attracted to your business because of something like that and that engagement level is probably going to translate into a better opportunity for retention and growth down the road as well.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, really knowing how to make an emotional connection with the people that you want to hire, and that’s really the key, and that’s why the power of video and the power of social media if you look at some of these larger companies, and again, you’ve got to try things.

I can’t say that across the board it’s going to work for everybody, of course, you’ve got to try different things, but a lot of these companies are doing a lot of stuff on Instagram or they’re doing some stuff on Facebook or creating these videos and putting them in different places, and it’s just something different, it’s something unique, and it’s just a great… aside from recruiting, it’s so great for the brand.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Absolutely.

CARRIE LUXEM:  It’s so great for the brand so it’s just a win all the way around.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Yeah, for sure, and if anybody would like to get more information from you, of course, you are the author of the Restaurant Operator’s HR Playbook, and they can visit your membership site at carrieluxem.com, correct?

CARRIE LUXEM:  That is correct.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Awesome. We do greatly appreciate you coming on again.

BETH OUTZ:  Very much.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Awesome. Well, thanks for inviting me back and I hope I get another invitation.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Absolutely.

BETH OUTZ:  You definitely will.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  I’m sure you will. Mrs. Worldwide has an open invitation on QSR Nation.

CARRIE LUXEM:  I love it.

JOSH ANDERSON:  And for all of our subscribers, if you have any questions for us, reach out to us at MDF@PFSbands.com. Actually, we have QSRNation@PFSbrands.com, I keep forgetting that.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  And then please subscribe to the podcast at PFSbrands/podcast. Carrie, once again, we truly appreciate it.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Thank you, thank you, guys.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Thank you for all you’re doing for the industry.  And for all our listeners out there, we’ll talk to you next week.

Listen to the rest: Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3.

#081 Getting Your Employees To Care – Carrie Luxem P3 (14:29)

In part 3 of our 4 part series, the QSR Nation and Carrie Luxem discuss how underperformers and a negative work environment could be why your employees don’t care! Find out how to reverse this trend and engage your employees!

JOSH ANDERSON:  Hey everybody, welcome back to QSR Nation. Listen is as we continue our discussion with Carrie Luxem.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  I think just the low standards automatically leads to some of your other points you have for us. It leads to underperformers and it leads to a negative work environment in general.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and those are some of the last points that we have, I mean too many underperformers, if you don’t care and you’ve got these people underperforming, it’s really about having the energy to take care of the underperformers, and by “take care” I mean help them. If they’re really truly just not getting it, maybe they are disengaged, really looking at yourself as the leader, as the manager, and what role are you playing in that underperformer?

I mean you can take a restaurant that has a manager or a leader that doesn’t care, and of course, they have these underperformers. You change it out, you put somebody in there that does care, that has energy, that has high standards, that underperformer is likely going to turn into a not-underperformer. They may still have some issues or whatever, but if you have too many underperformers on your team and you feel like I’m in an environment or in a community, we can’t staff so I have to keep them, it’s going to cause you so many headaches.

If you do have great performers or people that are doing great things, why would they want to stay in an environment with people that are not being held to the same standard? You can come to work, you don’t have to wear the right uniform, you don’t have to smile, you don’t have to be great with customers, you don’t have to follow the rules – people that are doing a great job are not going to want to work in that environment for very long, so that’s a big one. If you have too many underperformers, people aren’t going to care and you’re going to be in that same boat, and the same thing, like you said, you were talking about the negative environment. Who can thrive in a chronically negative environment, you know? Nobody wants to work in an environment where people are in a bad mood all the time.

It’s really more common than it is not, and I think it’s as a manager if you really look at your own attitudes, your own actions, and how are those things impacting your team, you really just have to try to figure out a way to lead from a position of positivity and avoid that, you know, whether it be victim mentality or that gloomy, there’s so much going on and we’re so overwhelmed and we’re not making enough money. People can feel that, and that is not just a great environment to work in.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Oh, exactly, and one thing that we used to talk a lot about in leadership classes when I would teach those is before you let someone go, asking them and then receiving the feedback for yourself, what is it that I’m not providing you that would make your job better or make your job easier, and what is it that I’m lacking in that’s creating barriers for you to succeed in, and really taking that ownership on yourself first before… because it’s easy to say, “Oh, well, they stink so I’m just going to cut them loose.” But to actually evaluate because if you get a lot of “well, they stink” and you’re letting a lot of folks go, typically maybe you’re maybe underperforming as well… You might be the stink maker. You might be the stink maker, that’s right. You may be the negative nanny, quit looking at me.

BETH OUTZ:  Well, that’s one of our core values that we have at our company is positive attitude always, and so that’s something that we always kind of strive for and I 100% agree with you. If you have a negative environment, not only do you not want to plan to come into work every day, but you’re never going to feel like no matter what you do is going to be adequate enough, you’re not going to have that connection, and you go back to the point of nobody cares because if it’s a constantly negative environment, I mean why would you do anything to benefit yourself or the company?

CARRIE LUXEM:  Exactly, and again, I work with a lot of serious operators that are like, “Oh, Carrie, you’re just…,” you know, it’s like positivity, that constant positivity maybe is viewed as fluff or not real. I tell my team the way it is, I tell the truth, but I present it in a way that’s about moving forward, and it doesn’t mean I’m going to always be rah-rah positive. The positive energy is that can-do attitude, and it’s really about being able to pull the team together and be real and be honest, and you will have a positive environment if you’re looking at the bright side, you’re trying to move towards a more profitable restaurant or better employees or improving, but it doesn’t have to be a phony positive energy.

I mean I have always been the type of person that likes to focus on the positive and there’s a lot of people that don’t, but if we’re referring to a team of people, most people don’t want to go into any type of job every day and be pounded on for what’s going wrong or to feel like everything is always negative, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell the truth, you can’t talk about the negative things that are happening, but it’s really the outlook, the outcome.

The focus is to be positive, moving forward, it’s about improving and making people feel like they are going to be a part of that in some way.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Oh, Beth and I both want to chime in there.

CARRIE LUXEM:  You guys are excited.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  I will concede the floor to the lady.

BETH OUTZ:  Oh, thank you for being positive about that. No, I was just going to say, you know, I 100% agree with everything you’re saying, but doesn’t it take more energy to be negative than it does to be positive?

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah.

BETH OUTZ:  And that is always, it’s a life-sucker whenever that happens. If someone always wants to be negative, it’s like why would you want to be that person?

JOSH ANDERSON:  Tony?

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Oh guys, oh man, here we go again!

CARRIE LUXEM:  Ooh, ouch.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Look, I’m a realist and I’m honest.

CARRIER LUXEM:  We’re working on him. Anthony, we do these podcasts for you.

BETH OUTZ:  He was wondering, while you were talking, if we had actually phoned ahead and talked to you about that.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Yeah, I was pointing to both of them from the phone call, like “Did you call her?”

CARRIE LUXEM:  No. Well, it’s really funny, I’ll tell you – and I think we talked about this potential in the last podcast – my husband and I are very different operators, if you will, or business people. He tends to look at the negative and he’s a real-deal operator and he’s figured out a way… it works for him but he’s not just constantly negative but I like to be way more positive than him, but it’s really about being authentic., being real, being who you are, because if he tried to act like me, his team would be like, “okay, who is this guy, this isn’t working,” right? So I do think there is some, you know, you said that it takes more energy to be negative.

It would take more energy for my husband to act like me and be positive, but he can be upbeat, he can be uplifting in his way. Like he’s a straight shooter, and the team that he’s built really that works for them, and they probably wouldn’t be as inspired under me in some regards. So I think if it’s about being a happy person or it’s being an absolutely miserable person, that’s different than like the approach that you have.

He’s going to tend to talk about why it wouldn’t work while I’m going to talk about why it would work, and I try to encourage him to talk a little bit more about the positive or looking at the bright side, and he tries to tell me or teach me how to look a little bit more at the negative side as well, you know what I mean, and that’s fine, and I think there is some truth to everything can’t always be wonderful and always be positive and always going to work, but how we approach things is very different but that doesn’t make me, because I think I’m so focused on positivity, it doesn’t make me better of a leader than him because we just have different styles, you know.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Yes, Beth.

CARRIE LUXEM:  And that goes into like who you surround yourself with. The people that he’s hired, they understand who he is as a leader. He is a very authentic guy, he approaches things in a way that is true to him, and he is influenced by people, hopefully, like me, who try to get him to focus on being more positive, and again like I said, he challenges me to look at things in a different light too. Some would say it’s more of a negative light but it’s really more of just looking at things differently and that sort of thing.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Folks like us like to call it realism, not negativism, so I’m just going to throw that out there. We joke all the time about Beth and I being the yin and yang versions of each other but it creates a really good balance, and what it all comes down to is how you communicate the message is really what’s going to be the tone-setter for things, and that’s the final point you had on your list today was about that poor communication. That’s one of the reasons why employees don’t care is that maybe things are communicated in an overly negative tone.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, it’s true, if it’s overly negative, and quite honestly, the biggest disconnect I see when I talk about poor communication is if there isn’t any. It’s like people just assume that the people running the restaurant, whether it’s managers or the hourly employees, that they just know what’s going on, and so it’s so important to take the time to meet and to have conversations. It doesn’t mean meet every single day, all day, or anything like that, but just making sure that things that you think are just common knowledge, that you’re communicating them.

I think it’s better to over-communicate slightly than it is to under-communicate, because when people don’t know what’s going on or what the goals are, the vision or the problem or the sales issues or whatever, they can’t focus on them, and so it’s just so important to… it’s like it seems so easy, it’s like just talk to your people. Talk to your team every single day and make sure that you don’t assume that they already know things. I’ve seen so many times that operators are frustrated or leaders are frustrated with their restaurants because they’re not doing something but do they really understand that that’s what they’re supposed to be doing? “Well, that’s what they do, they should know.” Well, talk about it, communicate.

So, you’ve got to make communication a priority, and effective communication is the key to success and it’s not done well a lot, I see that it’s just not. It’s just not something that people do well. I mean we’re in this fast-paced industry and environment, and you think because you put a sentence in a newsletter or send out a quick email that everyone’s going to get it, and it’s just not how it works.

ANTHONY PIERCE:  Yeah, well, assumptions are deadly, and that’s something that that communication and making sure that folks get it and understand, not only does that help shore up any of the gaps that might be there but you also might find some really great ideas from your frontline team that maybe you are actually as a leader disconnected from a little bit, so you might find out that there is an issue with wait time or an issue with the back of house or whatever the situation might be.

By having those conversations and keeping the communication open and very fluid, you actually have an opportunity to gain a lot of efficiencies and ideas, and again create – back to point one – a connection for the team members.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, absolutely. So, kind of in summary, I think that we talked through these seven points, but it’s really just about first and foremost, it’s really caring about the role that you play and bringing a great energy, having simple and easy-to-understand systems, communicate well, and know that it’s an everyday focus and process. I mean it’s constant, it never goes away, and I think sometimes operators thing like “once I get this done, then it will be good, we’ll have people…”

Well no, you won’t, you won’t, it won’t ever be… You’ve got to constantly think about how to improve every day, how to get more talent, how to keep them happy, and if you have energy and you’re passionate about the role you play, and people can sense that and they know that you’re in this and you care about them, you care about the company and you care about them as people, you can reach your goals when it comes to your people, and it’s not because someone’s young or they were born at a certain year that makes them not care.

I mean it’s like yes, the world is changing and people are lazy and technology and all that, but it’s really about connecting with people, caring a ton, constantly trying to bring your best game to the table every single day, and if you do those things, you’re going to have more success without a doubt.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Yeah, that’s just some great advice just to decrease turnover, I mean anybody can find that very valuable for sure.

Listen to the rest: Part 1, Part 2, or Part 4.

#080 Getting Your Employees to Care – Carrie Luxem P2 (11:39)

In Part 2 of this 4 part series, Carrie Luxem and the QSR Nation crew continue their discussion on how to get your employees to care. From culture to infrastructure to mindset, these are can’t miss tips! Be sure to list to Part I as well (#079).

QSR Nation Host:  Hey everybody, welcome back to QSR Nation. Listen in as we continue our discussion with Carrie Luxem. You know, no one’s ever going to care about your business more than you.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Right.

QSR Nation Host:  So trying to convey that across, sometimes these leaders and owners, they kind of get in that rut and start thinking that nobody cares, which is one of the other points you talk about, how do you get over that feeling and out of that rut that nobody cares.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Exactly, and that’s the second point here. You know, every manager talks about and dreams about having a team that cares, and sometimes I feel like it seems impossible for operators to have that team but it really starts with them. Sometimes it’s funny, I watch restaurateurs, they’re super upset about the fact that they can’t get people to care, yet they don’t put off that vibe like they don’t really care. Maybe they do and maybe nobody is going to care like them, and you’ve got to figure out how to get your people to care like you do, and you’ve got to exude that energy, you know? There’s a lot of people that I know in the business that love their restaurants and they seem to care, but they’re so burnt out and it seems like they don’t, and so it’s just a trickle-down effect.

If you’ve got some decent employees, they may hang on a little bit longer if they’ve got a leader that doesn’t seem to care, either care in general or care about them, but eventually it’s human nature, people are going to want to be somewhere else if they’re in an environment that nobody seems to care. So I think that leadership first and foremost, they need to take a huge amount of pride in their role, and they need to show in many ways that they genuinely care about the wellbeing of the company and the wellbeing of each person that’s on their team, everybody that’s coming in every day. And again, this is like we talked about with them not having a connection to the company, that to put in the time and energy to build relationships, to coach people, to mentor them.

If you think about some of these great brands out there that really seem to have a culture that’s a great one, it’s like they invest and they talk about the people and mentoring them and coaching them, and they take time to train and care and all of that stuff. So I think it’s just really… it can be exhausting to get up every day and to run restaurants, and you feel like you have a team that doesn’t care so you just kind of fold your arms and say, “They just don’t care, I’ve got to find new people,” and that is just oftentimes not the solution.

It’s like really stepping up and standing in front of people and telling them that you know there’s a problem and that you’re going to own it and that you care at this level and you want them to care, whatever the strategies maybe, but definitely as the manager or the leader of that unit or a multi-unit leader, you’ve got to be bleeding the fact that you care. It’s got to come oozing out of you. People that work for me or work with me, they know that I can about this, and obviously it’s my business, but I have the other leaders in my company, and I figure out every day how to get them to care about this at the level that I do, and I would say – and maybe I’m naïve here – but they care it as much as me, they seem to, and if they don’t, that’s fine.

They’re developing people and they see the bigger picture, and I do my best to communicate with them the exciting things that are going on, and you know, honestly, a lot of times getting people to care, when you are a leader and you sit with your people and you tell them what’s not going right and what the struggles are, that can spur a lot of motivation in people. You want to be a part of that solution.

QSR Nation Host:  For sure, and it takes a great effort to do that because everybody can get burnt out from time-to-time, and to bring that energy forward every single day, to still show that you care and bring that to your team, it’s hard to do every day.

CARRIE LUXEM:  It is hard to do, but when you’re really honest – and I’ve coached operators in this a lot – when things just really are not going right and you’re feeling deflated, and you tell your people that and you’re like, “Listen, my strengths aren’t everything and I need you guys,” that is motivating to people. It’s motivating to the right people that “alright, I’m going to be a part of this mission.” Getting people to care is not about ping-pong tables and pizza parties, you know?

Those things can be nice, but it’s really about being real with people, making sure you know who they and that you understand what motivates them, empower them to want to be a part of this great company no matter position they play in your company, and it does take skill to do that, it takes dedication and it takes patience and all of those things, but it’s absolutely doable.

QSR Nation Host:  I know you can make it easier on yourself as well by developing that infrastructure around you to provide that support and everything. I know that’s one of your other seven points.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Um-hum, having an infrastructure, yeah. You know, I think that a lot of times people, when they’re in an environment that’s chaotic and there’s no system, there’s no infrastructure, it can be a not fun place to work, you know, and that’s the thing. I grew with Potbelly pretty quickly, and when you grow a brand, when you have one restaurant and you’re getting to four, and it’s hard because you want to be so people-focused but you’ve got to put systems together, [INDISCERNIBLE 00:06:15] corporate, right, like “oh, do we really want that or do we want to stay a family feel?”

People want, for the most part, people want, they need infrastructure, they need systems, they need to understand how to do things, and if you have these basic systems – and again, we talked offline about the lifecycle of an employee – if you really have simple systems and an infrastructure to how you go about hiring people and onboarding them and ensuring that you’re tracking their performance, and mentor programs or whatever it is, if you have those things in place and they’re simple for everybody to understand, you’re going to improve the consistency and the effectiveness across the board. I mean systems are a lifesaver in my opinion, and I’ve built my whole company on very simple systems on everything I do.

QSR Nation Host:  And those systems help avoid that ownership and that leadership burnout as well.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Exactly.

QSR Nation Host:  Because it doesn’t just provide the support system for the team members to feel engaged and valued but it also helps the leadership be able to delegate things apart so that it’s not 100% on them all the time, help them avoid burnout as well so that it doesn’t create that trickle-down effect we talked about earlier.

CARRIE LUXEM:  That’s a good point.

QSR Nation Host:  So definitely, yeah, having that infrastructure in place is really key and having those systems there to help everyone at every level, from owner to new person, really be able to succeed and be there for a long time.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Absolutely, and the other thing that it does it really provides more consistency and then people are treated fair, fairly. When you have these systems in place, things are being done in a consistent way, and when you don’t have them, it’s not consistent, and that can cause people to feel like they’re not being treated the same or better or worse, and it causes people not to care.

QSR Nation Host:  Which leads right to lower standards.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Right.

QSR Nation Host:  I think that’s something that Beth had mentioned offline before about the quality of the environment and people, they can diminish, right, Beth?

BETH OUTZ:  Exactly, and going back to the lifecycle of the foodservice employee, a lot of times there’s that stigma of they’re not going to be there very long because they’re not passionate about their business, but having that accountability factor that you had talked about, making sure like this is how you’re going to be measured, this is what it means to the company, this is what it means for me as an owner and for you as an employee, you know, we don’t have low standards, we have high standards, and we expect every single person to be able to be on this team and contribute something.

I think just having that accountability is just something that it really does hit home with each employee and each person that you’re trying to manage, just to kind of give them that point and that connection that you go back to that company that you’ve been talking about.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, absolutely, for sure. You know, I took a trip with my family not too long ago and we went into a restaurant, I won’t say the restaurant and the lack of care in that restaurant, and I knew like when we walked in there and saw how absolutely terrible the place was run and the standards were so low, and then you have employees that don’t care, so managers who maintain a low or no standards for themselves or for their employees are absolutely setting the restaurant up for failure, and it starts with the ownership in my opinion.

I mean this franchise restaurant that we went into, all we said when we left there is “the owner doesn’t care about this place,” so you’ve got a person that doesn’t care, there’s probably no systems, and it’s just all about these low standards. Whether it’s related to service or attitude or hygiene, when you are operating a restaurant and you don’t care about all these little things, that are big things by the way, that keep the operation running seamlessly and it’s a clean environment and it’s got up-to-date equipment, you’re employees are going to see that you don’t really care about it, you’re not spending the money or the time.

Some would say, “Well, we don’t have the money to upgrade everything,” but sometimes it’s not even a huge financial investment, it’s making sure that the uniforms are on or whatever it is, but low standards, it is just… I can tell you, I would never want to go to work every single day if I worked for a leader that just didn’t have any standards. The people that I work with, some of my clients that are the most “high maintenance,” their standards are through the roof, and I love supporting them because I know the level they care is so huge because they care about every little detail.

When that starts to fizzle, nobody is going to care, you’re going to lack infrastructure, no one is going to be focused on your vision because it just kind of all… it all kind of messes together, you know?

QSR Nation Host:  Be sure to tune in next week as we continue our discussion with Carrie Luxem. Stop by next week for another QSR Nation episode or visit PFSbrands.com.

Listen to the rest: Part 1, Part 3, or Part 4.

#079 Getting Your Employees to Care – Carrie Luxem P1 (11:42)

Listen in as HR guru Carrie Luxem (https://CarrieLuxem.com) joins the QSR Nation crew to discuss ways to get your employees to care. This first of our four-part series with Carrie is a great introduction to getting your employees to engage!

QSR Nation Host:  Hey everybody, welcome back to QSR Nation. As always, we have Josh, Beth, and Tony here from the PFSbrands national headquarters in Holts Summit, Missouri, to talk about foodservice marketing and business strategies for success.

Today we’re super pumped. We have Carrie Luxem back on the show once again. She is the restaurant HR guru, so to speak. She was in Episode 61 and 62, so you can always go back and listen to those if you want some more great information on that, so welcome back, Carrie!

CARRIE LUXEM:  Thank you, guys! So fun to be back.

QSR Nation Host:  We’re so glad to have you. We’re so happy to have you back.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Heck, yeah.

QSR Nation Host:  Would you like to give us a little quick background?

CARRIE LUXEM:  Sure, absolutely. So the quick version of my background, I spent over a decade with Potbelly Sandwich Works, started the HR department there. There were just a few restaurants in one market, stayed for a long time, almost 11 years, and we grew to over 200 restaurants in many, many markets, and I really kind of grew up there and really started to understand how to support restaurant operators.

And then I left there and I started my own company, which is Restaurant HR Group, where we handle the HR, payroll, and benefits administration for only restaurants throughout the country, and over the last couple years, I have started carrieluxem.com which is a platform, a membership platform where I offer up unlimited access to many tools and videos and articles and compliance updates and training and all kind of things, so that’s the very quick version of my background.

I have written a book that is called Restaurant Operator’s HR Playbook, and I’m really just in the business of creating tools and resources to help restaurateurs, whether it be large restaurant groups or independent restaurateurs, with leadership and building simple and easy-to-understand processes and systems throughout their restaurants.

QSR Nation Host:  Well, and you’ve done a great job with it. When we talked last time you were on the show about your company and our company, we just have a strong passion for just trying to elevate the industry.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah!

QSR Nation Host:  Folks take advantage of the opportunities they have through the podcast, through your tools, through all the different things that are out there just to present a better experience for the consumers, better opportunity for the folks in the trenches that are working in the foodservice industry, and then overall just great time enjoying being together and hanging out and making some money and serving up some food.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, great. Yeah, it’s such an amazing industry, and so whatever we can do to help it be the best is what my goal is overall.

QSR Nation Host:  Well, there are so many people out there that think that this type of industry, it’s so fast-paced, it’s changing all the time, but the tools that you provide just bring us back to the basics, and it’s the information that everyone needs to understand and that everyone needs to know to make sure that they are staying up-to-date with the changing business, but you’re also able to have that foundation and move forward in a successful way.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, and Beth, I totally agree with you. I mean it’s all about keeping it basic. Any brand that I’ve ever worked with, they get real fancy, right, and they grow and they add all of these initiatives and projects, and almost always at some point in their evolution, they say, “We need to get back to the basics,” and so I am just all about simplicity. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated, no matter what you’re doing.

When I think of my world and how I support operators, it’s really through the lifecycle of an employee, so how do you go about recruiting and hiring them, how do you onboard them, how do you manage their performance, how do you understand the payroll, the benefits, all of these pieces, the compliance, the legalities, and then through terminating them, and really creating a simple process for doing that, so systems and processes, and then hiring good-hearted, hard-working people that are going to lead the charge. So it’s leadership and systems, and it really is that basic, and when people want to make it more complicated, they just have too much time on their hands or something.

It’s like just keep it basic, and the brands that I work with and the operators that I support, again, whether it’s an independent restaurateur or it’s a franchisee of it’s a larger group, the ones that really just keep it simple, really understand who they are, really stay focused on their vision and their mission, and they really understand the value of their people, those are the ones that have better success. They make more money, they have less turnover, they can impact their restaurants, their community, the world at a different level.

QSR Nation Host:  Wow, that makes absolute sense, and that’s just a great way to get back to the basics, basically, and that’s a great segue to kind of what we really want to discuss today, seven reasons why your employees don’t care and how to fix that and how to get them engaged.

CARRIE LUXEM:  Yeah, yeah, and I think this is a very good example of these are things that when we talk about them, it’s like, “yeah, oh okay, obviously,” but sometimes some of these common or obvious things are just not happening. I, on a very regular basis, I hear managers or owners of restaurants talk about these employees and their bad attitudes, and that people are unmotivated, and I can’t, you know, it’s generational.

There’s all kinds of excuses for why employees are not doing what they need to be doing, and I think there’s so much that a manager or an owner can do that’s really simple in one regard and it just takes a lot of dedication and thought and accountability to make it happen, so if an operator works hard enough and they care enough, they are going to be able to change the dynamics of their team. You talked about the fact that I’m going to go over seven things, there’s a lot of things that you can do, I sort of narrowed it down to these general seven things, and the first thing is one of the reasons that people are not engaged or not happy is they really don’t have a true connection to the company, and this is so much more common.

Whether it’s a big company or a small company, they just don’t feel any connection outside of their paycheck, and employees have to know that they are an important role in the company, they play a significant role in the company, so when they don’t is when they’re always looking for something else or they just don’t have that loyalty and they’re not going to bring their best game to work every single day. So when I think about not having a connection to the company, how do you get your employees to connect to your company, and I think first and foremost you really need to integrate your company’s vision and your mission and your purpose.

People spend time creating these, which is very important, but you’ve got to incorporate the everyday actions into the restaurant. You can’t just put this up on a whiteboard or in the back of the house, this is our mission and this is our vision, you’ve got to live it every single day, and I think making sure that your people really understand what these things are and what it sort of means to them, and providing them ongoing education on this or support. You know, I’m a small company, I tap into the emotions of my team all the time and really make sure they understand what is my true vision for our company and how do you, as an HR generalist, play a role in our big-picture goals and dreams, and so really understanding how to do that.

Managers might not really understand the vision, they may not understand the mission, so making sure that your leaders, the store-level leaders or the multi-level leaders, really understand truly what are the ideals, what are your values, what are you coming to work, what are you doing this for every single day. I think that’s hugely important.

QSR Nation Host:  Well, exactly. The culture will actually spawn that personal commitment, that’s something that we see with our company, and we talk about our culture, we try to execute to the best of our abilities on a daily basis, and the end of the day if leadership understands what the vision is like you’re saying, whether it’s top-level, mid-level, entry-level, whatever, and actually live it out so people can actually find a way to connect and give that personal commitment of “Hey, we’re all one goal, one mission, let’s make this happen,” that I think helps shore up that connection to the company if you actually like you’re saying, live out your culture. You don’t just put it on a pretty plaque or the back of a t-shirt and say, “Hey, that’s who we are.”

CARRIE LUXEM:  Absolutely. I remember once, this was many years ago, I had a client and they were really struggling with trying to get people to connect, and when I heard that the owner was like reprimanding people for not memorizing their vision like this is the problem, it’s about memorizing that paragraph, it’s not really understanding what you’re doing, and the fact that he was disciplining our employees for not memorizing it was a whole different situation, but it isn’t about memorizing the sentences or having it, like you said, on a t-shirt.

It’s really about living it, and sometimes I think that leaders just think that people understand it as well as they do because they understand it, you know, so really having dialogue and opening things up and doing things, activities. It doesn’t have to be parties and stuff like that but just living out whatever it is your goals are. How do you get people to feel and to understand what you’re trying to do?

Like I said, it’s simple but it’s not always easy. It’s simple to say to do it but it takes a huge commitment to wake up every single day and to go in and live your vision and your mission and your purpose. The truth is we get tired, we’re running businesses, restaurants are a lot of hard work, and it’s easy to just get into that rut where you’re just running operations and trying to make more money, but if you can really look at the bigger picture and the purpose, then you’re going to be way ahead.

QSR Nation Host:  Be sure to tune in next week as we continue our discussion with Carrie Luxem.

Listen to the rest: Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4.