Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Lauren Fernandez
[00:00:00] Lauren Fernandez: The pandemic forced a lot of people who have been lifetime employees in the industry, or had a lot of experience in it to look around while they were furloughed and say, "What else can I do? Oh, well, this Amazon delivery job starts at $15. I can be up to 17 inside of two months and look at all these benefits." Suddenly our industry was not competing against other restaurants. They were competing against other industries as a whole.
[00:00:55] Jen Kern: Hi everyone. This is Jen. Welcome back to the show. Today's episode just got me so pumped, I truly believe it's a must listen and honestly, one of my favorites. And it's not just because our guest today, Lauren Fernandez, and her company Full Course are, I believe, the best thing to hit the restaurant industry in quite some time, but it's because the topics that we talked about are ones that we both believe will really be the things to help reinvent the restaurant landscape for the future. And guess what? It's not about a wage war or a war on talent. It's about building a better restaurant culture with starts with taking better care of your employees.
[00:01:33] We dish on so many fascinating and timely people first topics, from understanding what employee value proposition is all about. Just starting with your "Why," the Simon Sinek model, to hearing Lauren's impeccable soapbox about employee training, which we've simply missed the mark on, in the industry she believes. I really hope you enjoy the show as much as I did.
[00:01:56] Let's dig in.
[00:01:57] Hello everyone and welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. This is Jen Kern, your hostess for the show, and today I'm joined with Lauren Fernandez. Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the show.
[00:02:07] Lauren Fernandez: Hey, thanks for having me on.
[00:02:09] Jen Kern: Yeah, thanks so much for joining me. I'm so excited to chat with you because you have an awesome background working, obviously at, at the well-known and massive focus brands as general counsel, and then a multiunit franchisee for Chicken Salad Chick, which I got to taste when I was in Florida a year ago, which is amazing, love that place. And then more recently you were named to the NRN Power List,
and now the founder and CEO of Full Course, which is, and I, I wrote this down a business accelerator, which envisions a people first industry.
[00:03:00] Tell me about that.
[00:03:01] Lauren Fernandez: Nailed it, a Full Course has been in the making for many, many years. Um, my background before I landed at focus brands was in product development. So, it was very steeped in brands and sort of, uh, developing brands and helping restaurants eventually figure out how to leverage their brands onto consumer-packaged goods.
[00:03:22] And I always envisioned being part of the early stage of a restaurant's development and not only helping them get the branding right and really delivering on a promise and a mission. I think those are the best brands that we see out there, really have a clear purpose and mission, not just for their customers, but also for their employees.
[00:03:42] That it's something that can be acted on, on a regular basis and everything that they do. And so, after we sold our Chicken Salad Chick units, and we wrapped up origins business, that was our development firm that managed the Chicken Salad Chick business. I really had an opportunity to push all my chips in on this and stand up for what I believe in, in this industry.
[00:04:04] I think that if the pandemic has shown us anything, it's that we can do better by our people. We can build this back better if we're willing to take a hard look at some of the things that haven't been going right. And we have a massive attrition issue, a massive retention issue with people in this industry.
[00:04:22] And so, that is a huge focus of what Full Course does. We educate the next generation of restaurant leaders. We are very thoughtful and committed to diversity and inclusion and who those leaders are, who those brands are that we invest in, but it starts at day one. And the way that we talk about their personal purpose and mission and how that flows through to the brand.
[00:04:44] So yes, at its core Full Courses is an investment firm, but we're so much more than that because we take an active stake and truly engage in the community, starting with education and the inordinate amount of time as an investment firm that we spend getting these brands ready for investment, which is anywhere from six to nine months.
[00:05:04] So, it's a very different style of restaurant growth, development and investment. And we're so proud to be bringing that to light. It was a huge honor to be open for business for literally one year and to be named onto the Nation's Restaurant News Power List. Goosebumps because, you know, just first of all, one Nation's Restaurant News, right?
[00:05:28] Two, you know, on this list, you take a look at the peers on that list was truly impressive and humbling and three, just to, just to be the recipient of that kind of press, to highlight the issues that we've been talking about, putting out there. Putting our dollars behind, putting that kind of education into the industry, a huge lift up, just a huge hand up from that publication and we couldn't be more grateful.
[00:05:57] Jen Kern: Well, congrats to you on that and, and even more so thank you for what you're doing and congratulations for getting your business off the ground. And what you're doing, which, which I saw, you know, one of your things as you're building a culturally, financially and morally rich industry and so, I just want to thank you for that.
[00:06:12] I want to thank you for bringing a new perspective to the industry. We need it. We're ready. We want it. Let's go, hashtag, and I want to unpack more about your business, but before we get to that, I want to ask you a question that's been brewing in my mind a little bit. And it's, it's, you know, it's a little bit of one of those, you know, what do they call them, questions like I'm leading, I'm leading the, the, uh, the witness a bit. But, you know, we're talking about this people first mindset. Right? And I also, I am aware of the book. I haven't read the whole thing in full disclosure, but I'm aware of the Cliff Notes for the book Winning on Purpose, which talks about putting the guests first, always, guest is always right.
[00:06:47] It's like the golden rule type of thing.
[00:06:49] Lauren Fernandez: Um...
[00:06:49] Jen Kern: And as you said, what we learned through this pandemic is our people, our employees, we need to take care of them better, we need to prioritize them better. So, what do you say, where do we start? Do we start with the people, or do we start with the customers?
[00:07:03] Lauren Fernandez: Um, yeah, you start with your people and here's why they're the ones that take care of your customers. I do think that this industry is often brushed over as "Oh, it's food, right?" It's so much focused on food. Obviously, if you don't serve good food, you're not going to be in business anymore. The competition is still stiff in the industry.
[00:07:23] So check the box on that, but what this industry is really about is people, right? It's about a connection and experience and that kind of brand loyalty that really fuels year over year growth in restaurant brands. At the end of the day, it's the most successful brands that I've seen are invested in their people.
[00:07:43] Their people deliver their purpose and mission to how their customers feel in that experience and the feeling that they take leaves with them as they exit the restaurant. And it generates a type of brand loyalty that actually contributes to additional revenue streams for the restaurant brand, including take-home products, consumer packaged goods, off-premise sales of all varieties.
[00:08:08] So that key experience that the, the entire thing is really about that customer experience, but it actually starts with how you treat your people, not only in treating them well, but in how you empower and enable them to live that purpose and mission.
[00:08:30] Jen Kern: Okay, so we're starting with the employees. We need to start with our people, our employees. Where did we go wrong?
[00:08:39] Lauren Fernandez: Um, you know, I, for many years, did not want a soap box on these issues because I am a firm believer, and you don't talk about something negatively or offer any constructive criticism without a solution. We have that rule in my family. We have that rule in my business, on every team I've ever run.
[00:08:57] Jen Kern: Love that.
[00:08:57] Lauren Fernandez: And here's, here's the thing, I think with Full Course and at the stage we are at, in this industry and very deeply needed recovery. Right?
[00:09:07] We have an opportunity to rebuild. Let's just put it that way. I think that we can easily point the finger at a longstanding tradition and a very male dominated industry. Of that, you know, high pressured environment. It's, it's a very, can be very tense sometimes in kitchens and dining rooms, um, tempers can run, and we started to glamorize and accept that that was just the way things were done. And I think starting at, or around the time of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and thereafter. There became this awareness. You just, I don't know if you follow a Kitchen Confidential Reddit, like it's, it's just miles long of people sharing these kinds of stories of what I would call historically enabled abuse in restaurants of employees. And I think that's why you see a lot of pushback from employees and disrespect on no, no call, no shows or people not even showing up for interviews anymore. Because those days of being able to disrespect and mistreat employees in our industry are gone, they're gone.
[00:10:17] And I think people have been voting. Uh, with their own presence, in the industry as whether or not they're willing to put up with that anymore. The pandemic forced a lot of people who have been lifetime employees in the industry or had a lot of experience in it. Even going back to age 14 to 16. To look around while they were furloughed and say, "What else can I do? Oh, well, this Amazon delivery job starts at $15. I can be up to 17 inside of two months and look at all these benefits." There were reasonable alternatives that they were forced to examine. Suddenly our industry was not competing against other restaurants. They were competing against other industries as a whole.
[00:11:02] Jen Kern: Right.
[00:11:02] Lauren Fernandez: I think that that, not only added to the long-time highlights that we've sort of seen the calling out of this behavior in restaurants, um, and it didn't matter, by the way, if you were in fine dining or QSR, there was a lot of options for misbehavior in any type of restaurant. I think we've all lived that, if you've been an operator. And so, what the pandemic did was just put a flood light on this. I think we had major attrition issues that were creeping up on us even before the pandemic. 73% of restaurants reported being understaffed, before the pandemic, in 2019. So, if you think about that, what the pandemic really did was accelerate an issue that was, sort of, boiling and coming up to the surface the whole time.
[00:11:52] And here we are now. And I think the conversation is like, "Okay, we're here. How did we get here?" I think we're all kind of more or less clear on it. I personally want to call out two things as not really being the true issue and being a bit of a red hair in media.
[00:12:08] Jen Kern: Okay.
[00:12:08] Lauren Fernandez: And I think you and I have spoken about this before, but I'm just going to say, here I go on my soapbox.
[00:12:12] One is wages. This is not a wage war. I think that the economy has adjusted, and you have to end up paying what you need to pay in your local market to get talent. It is what it is. What is exacerbating that as a shortage of talent? No question. I think the second issue that I see all the time in media that is, I think over-reported and misunderstood is benefits.
[00:12:35] This idea that specifically healthcare is not offered to restaurant employees. While those may have been problems in the past, I think those are true of many hourly wage industries, including people who drive for third party delivery services to be frank. But I don't know that that's the entire story or picture of what's really going on in our industry with respect to our attrition of employees and our inability to retain them.
[00:13:01] Instead I think we have this sort of long-standing culture issue. And consider that the vast majority of employees who come into this industry are young. They're 16 to 24. And that is in fact right now, the most rapidly growing segment of new restaurant workers. You have an opportunity, no, you have an obligation as a restaurant leader to look at that segment and say, "How can I positively influence their life? How can I make them a better leader? Whether they stay in our industry or not, what can I do to mentor, mold and shape them?" And that is the step. I think that's the big step that we need to take now. That is where we need to go. We need to have some accountability and responsibility for the massive amount of folks that work in our industry at an hourly or salary basis. Where this is their first job. Imagine, imagine being your first job and you walk in and the first day you get screamed at by a kitchen
[00:14:03] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:14:03] Lauren Fernandez: Not a good experience, right?
[00:14:05] Jen Kern: Right, right.
[00:14:06] Lauren Fernandez: A lot of people have a restaurant war stories. You know, I used to work in a kitchen when I was, you know, 15, you know, I, I hear stuff like that all the time.
[00:14:16] And I say, when people share those stories with me, I'm grateful because I think that that's always further justification for what we're doing to help push this agenda forward of educating and nurturing better leaders and mentors in our own industry. So that, that doesn't ever happen again.
[00:14:35] Yeah. Well, thank you for the soap box. I wanted to just say, preach, preach, preach. When you were on it. It's, it's, it's great stuff. It's all good stuff and believe you're right on. I as a guest myself, a very frequent guest and consumer, I can see it, it's transparent now. This stuff is not back in there, like you mentioned, Anthony Bourdain, I'm more familiar with Gordon Ramsey, but, you know, his show, excuse me, his show got so popular because he was screaming at people.
[00:15:02] Yeah.
[00:15:03] Jen Kern: You know, and it's like, "That's funny." And that became accepted. Like, but it's not back there anymore. Most of the restaurants, at least that I go to, are fast casual QSR and everything's right there. Everything's transparent. So, you can see how miserable the people are.
[00:15:17] You can see it.
[00:15:19] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah, read it.
[00:15:21] Jen Kern: Yes.
[00:15:21] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. I, I, I I've been that manager who's pulled people off the floor and even if they're a front of house person, I've been like, "You're not in the right head space today, come and pack inventory. I'll take your spot." I've talked myself out where there are just days where, you know you need to not answer that difficult customer question.
[00:15:41] And I have literally taught myself out and handed the reigns to an assistant manager and just gone and put my head in paperwork, you know?
[00:15:49] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:15:50] Lauren Fernandez: It happens.
[00:15:51] That, that a level of ownership and self-awareness that I think we need to encourage leaders in our industry to have. And again, not always going to be a great day, every day you go into work, but that's true of any job, right?
[00:16:07] I think we need to coach mentor to resilience, coach and mentor and educate on how to overcome those tough moments. And really inspire our employees to align themselves with the purpose in the mission. I think that that's really huge when you get your team aligned to why you are executing on that level of customer service and what it means to people.
[00:16:37] And you start to create that level of they're emotionally depositing behind that mission into the bay. They go and act out on it. They get the feedback and the payback immediately, they start to connect it. And it's a wonderful feedback loop.
[00:16:53] Jen Kern: So, you're, I mean, you're definitely speaking my language, talking about the brand, the purpose, the mission, the vision, "Embrace that stuff. Train your employees on it. Let's help them figure out ways to embrace it." Right? You know, I asked the question about how do we get here, because I think it's important to understand the problem in order to build the solution.
[00:17:14] Lauren Fernandez: I agree.
[00:17:15] Jen Kern: As you said, like "We're, we're, solution-based people. We want to be in this. We want to be pushing the industry forward right now and helping them pivot." Where do you counsel operators to start now and, and owners that are faced with so many challenges between, you know, supply chain, you know, labor, you know, not being able to find enough people to work, going up?
[00:17:37] I mean, all the changes that came with the pandemic and digital ordering, I mean, now it's like, "No, no, no, no, put all that aside, your culture, your people invest in your brand, your people." Like, where do they start?
[00:17:49] Lauren Fernandez: So, I, I actually, have believed this for a very long time. We now, mind you, we work with a lot of independently owned restaurants that we're working directly with the original owner-operator founder.
[00:18:02] And so, for me, my approach to this is to say to them, "What is your purpose and mission?" A lot of times, if you can get to talk to them about what fires them up in life, the things that are important to them, you'll get eventually to the reasons why they started a restaurant, which naturally informs the restaurant brands, purpose, and mission too.
[00:18:26] I think if you miss on that alignment, you are going to have some friction. Because then when you start talking to an owner about purpose and mission in the restaurant and why it's important, if you need to get them recharged because they've had a rough week, or they're understaffed, or no one showed up for interviews.
[00:18:44] You have to connect them back to their "Why?" And so, some natural alignment, in my opinion, needs to be there and these emerging brands between the founder and owner's original intent and purpose, their mission and the brands. And that, frankly, it sounds a little backwards to do it that way, but we always start there.
[00:19:04] I take the level of, I want to be able to not just empathize based on my experience, but I want to deeply be able to connect with what makes you thick, because if I'm building a growth plan and investing millions of dollars behind your restaurant, I know the boxes I need to check to reach the goals for five years from now.
[00:19:26] I'm, we, we're pretty clear on that. But the make-or-break moments could be small side projects that support the overall mission financially or from a marketing perspective or have benefit to the brand. But they may not be things that other investment firms would ever think about. Like, uh, children's cookbook or educating families on how to cook a better meal.
[00:19:50] And when you can really understand those things that make an owner operator and the founder of a brand really tick, you can build better purpose and mission for the brand itself. So that's where we start. In fact, we do it with a two-and-a-half-day workshop and retreat where we take our owner-operators out of their daily environment.
[00:20:12] Jen Kern: Oh, that.
[00:20:12] Lauren Fernandez: We disconnect them from everything. There's not even TVs in this resort that we take them to. And we sit down, and we workshop this for two and a half days. We're really, we don't talk about the growth plan for the company. We brainstorm a little bit around it, but we don't come up with that plan in two and a half days.
[00:20:29] We just talk about them.
[00:20:31] What do you need out of this? What's your end game? Where do you want to go? Because again, that alignment is just so critical, so critical. But when you're talking about any brand, translating that into an employee value proposition where you're taking the mission and translating it into something that is a value to that employee that makes them want to come work there is really the game changer. So, finding ways to communicate the brand's purpose and mission in everything, how you recruit, what the first day feels like, what the check-ins like a 30 days, if you can get them over 90 days they are statistically more likely to stay. Getting them through that first 90-day hurdle is absolutely critical.
[00:21:20] So, everything has to feel, we'd say, love bombed, big hug, whatever you want, that there has to be as huge infusion of super concentrated culture, purpose and mission in those first 90 days. If you can get them in, you can get them to stay that way. And that's become a really big battle right now. And I think the battleground is, "Can you get them in the door? And then can you get them to stay 90 days?" You know?
[00:21:47] Jen Kern: Right, right. I'm curious how many, so I love these retreats you're talking about. And the, you know, focusing on the Why, side note for listeners like Simon Sinek, the purpose-driven model of branding, "Get to your Why, and it can't be to make money by the way."
[00:22:02] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:22:02] Jen Kern: "What is your, what truly is your Why?" I love that.
[00:22:05] I'm curious. How many restaurants have that? Like, are we talking 5%, 10%? Like how many lead with the Why? We know Chick-fil-A does.
[00:22:15] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. I think you can point to some really best in class models of companies who nail this and who whether it was because they are, were originally founded around a strong belief system or around a charitable cause, you usually see brands who've nailed this from the beginning, have that kind of initial alignment. One of the reasons Full Course's design is a compass is because we genuinely believe in true north. If you are not in your position aligned to your personal true north and your job isn't aligned with that too you're going to feel friction every single day of your life. So, we always look to hire not just for Full Course, but in the way that we work with our clients to develop their brands, to make alignment happen.
[00:22:59] It is very common that even without realizing it, owner-operators have a purpose and mission, they have something they want to solve, make right, something they feel very strongly about. There's something there and it really informed their logic and reasoning behind taking a massive entrepreneurial leap to invest in and start their own restaurant.
[00:23:25] People don't just do that willy-nilly. There has to be a reason. And so, if you can kind of get in there and really understand it, it does help inform the brand's purpose and mission, and you would be proud of us because we actually do use the Simon Sinek model, including the workbook that goes with it.
[00:23:44] And reference a lot of his Ted talk videos, because I think that for folks who don't come from a more corporate environment where you've been either exposed to that before or you're used to this type of brand strategy thinking. We really try to just drill it down and make it very simple. Like "What's making you tick? Let's start there, is that we're building around you. So let, let's talk about that."
[00:24:07] Jen Kern: Yeah, no, no. I mean, it's, it's a good point. I've I was exposed to that whole Simon Sinek model, um, when I was doing a massive rebrand about, I'm gonna say, it was probably 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago. Oh, it was maybe a year or so after I'd come out. I don't know how many views that Ted talk has. But, for our listeners, so, the purpose driven model branding, you said, "Keep it simple." The center, the core of why you exist is your Why.
[00:24:34] Lauren Fernandez: Um.
[00:24:34] Jen Kern: What is your Why getting to your "Why you are in business? What makes you tick?" Like you're saying. Then you get to How, the next circle. There's circles. Why in the middle, how and what? What's the last circle?
[00:24:48] You don't start with your What? The product, the food. That's not where you start and the whole purpose of how this got to be such a big thing is because you can juxtapose Apple and Dell.
[00:25:01] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:25:01] Jen Kern: Dell came out and said, "We're the computer people." Well, guess what? They started with their Whats..
[00:25:05] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:25:06] Jen Kern: They can't make watches and all this other stuff, I mean...
[00:25:08] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:25:09] Jen Kern: They hit their ceiling.
[00:25:10] Apple said, "We exist to elevate experience between people and technology." And they can, can make whatever product they want. So, I think it's important to have that discussion 'cause, 'cause like you're saying it's, it's, it probably is relatively new for restaurants and.
[00:25:23] Lauren Fernandez: It is, it is. And what I also say is, "It's a nice filter." So, if you can get someone to lock in on their Why it becomes a nice filter for how we talk about everything we're going to do for the brand going forward. So, I, we, we have to unpeel layers of this sometimes because when someone first comes in the door and meets us, they're like, "I want a hundred units. I want..." There's always like a number or a big goal.
[00:25:54] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:25:54] Lauren Fernandez: And "Good. That's great." I love people thinking about like big, hairy, audacious goals. It gets me really excited.
[00:26:00] Jen Kern: Yeah
[00:26:01] Lauren Fernandez: "Okay, tell me more about that." And, you know, we have a whole series of questions we ask kind of, you know, in a normalized cadence of conversation where we try to get behind their Why. "Why do you want a hundred units? What about that number? Why did you pick that number?"
[00:26:17] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Lauren Fernandez: "What's that really about to you?" "Oh, well I think I can get a better valuation at that number, and I can exit with blank." Like they give you a number and you're like, "Well, actually, we can do that in five years and you don't need a hundred units. Here's how we do it."
[00:26:32] And they're like, "What?" you know, and like spend the next 20 minutes explaining them the economics of growing a restaurant brand and the ways to do it, to optimize your valuation. You know, I, I think that when you kind of peel back. A lot of people who have a Why in the hospitality industry, it is a people Why. It makes my job so much easier when we're trying to push, you know, mentoring initiatives, uh, recruiting, retention initiatives, flexible benefits for employees, because really you're not in this industry as an entrepreneur if you're not into people. You're, you have to have some kind of version of what we call a servant's heart. Right? So, it is not uncommon. We're talking to restaurant founders, and we peel and peel and peel back the Why, there's a people thing underneath there. It might be that they want to create generational wealth for their family because they're immigrants.
[00:27:28] It may be that they want to fund education for minority children. It may be that they want to start a culinary school that helps minorities get their own restaurant. Like there, there are so many fascinating Whys when you really get down there. I think the overwhelming majority of people in our industry who have the courage to be entrepreneurs in this space have a people centered heart.
[00:27:55] They really do.
[00:27:56] Jen Kern: Yeah, well, hopefully, right? That's the hope. That's the hope, but I think that's what you're saying. You're, you're saying, "It's there." And, you know, my original question about, like, what percent of restaurants have it? My just belief is that, like you said, "Everyone has it. They need help teasing it out and then exposing it."
[00:28:18] Right. Expose that to your guests, expose your mission to your guests. We want to know what you're all about. We want to know what drives you and thrills you and excites you. Right? And that's where I don't see a lot of restaurants doing a fantastic job, right? Is communicating their mission and their vision and taking it that next step further.
[00:28:38] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:39] Jen Kern: So, um, that's one of the things that I'm hoping would come out of your session and you know...
[00:28:44] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. Yes. So, a couple things there. Um, when, when you do clearly define the brand's purpose and mission, we start there, we don't do a brand story, we don't do brand, any kind of brand book or brand design.
[00:29:01] Jen Kern: Pillars and all that stuff.
[00:29:03] Lauren Fernandez: We do all of that starts with purpose and mission. I think you have to start there because again, that becomes the filter for all the decisions you're making down the road.
[00:29:14] And that's important because you're, you're that, you're your, that's your true north, right? Like, for the brand, it helps us filter. We work on anywhere between eight and 12 brands at a time. It helps us even reset when we go in to work on a brand we'll know, this brand about helping working moms and families and having a comfortable family setting for you to have a burger and a cocktail.
[00:29:42] Reset. Because then we think about what we're doing completely differently because we know what the intent, purpose and mission of it is. It's, it seeps into everything. It's in the training materials. It's in the way that you recruit talent, the way that you retain talent, the what your benefits even look like.
[00:30:01] It's in the training that you offer your employees, that frankly will help an impact your business, but has nothing to do with restaurants. Just solid leadership, ESL classes, you know, offering English classes to your Spanish speaking employees and, vice versa, Spanish language classes to your English-speaking employees to facilitate unity in the restaurant. You know, I think that one of the things that challenges us is when people have come from these traditions in the industry where it's acceptable to, like, lose your temper and yell at somebody. You know, I personally don't believe that yelling is acceptable unless there's an imminent threat to someone's life.
[00:30:45] Like, that's it. So, if you were in a corporate environment, anywhere else, 90% of them yelling would not be appropriate. Yet we normalized it as a tradition restaurant kitchens. And in back where it's sometimes well hidden from customers. That kind of toxic behavior out leaks out into the greater environment of the restaurant, whether you realize it or not.
[00:31:11] So, part of this reset and thinking about purpose and mission is reconnecting owners to that. To allow them to focus on more positive outlets, giving them leadership and development training to, sort of, try to roll back some of that experience. I can't undo it. I can't ignore it either. We have to embrace that it was this way. But we have to, sort of, accept that we're putting a line in the sand and we're going to move forward with positive, better solutions.
[00:31:45] And I think that's a big part of it too. Like, you connect an owner to purpose and mission. It makes it easier to draw that line and move forward.
[00:31:53] We talked about this with, um, Donald Burns last, last week or two weeks ago.
[00:31:57] Jen Kern: Um, and he's doing a lot of coaching too, of, you know, restaurant owners-operators, and he starts with the brand as well, which, which is awesome. We didn't talk about that as much, but I think, I just want to say this.
[00:32:08] It's not a sign of weakness to ask for help.
[00:32:10] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:32:11] Jen Kern: I think there's a lot of us as leaders, it's becoming more mainstream to have coaching and mentoring, but this is not a sign weakness. This doesn't mean you're bad. This does not mean your brand sucks or your restaurant sucks. It just means some help from people like you, like the professionals, right?
[00:32:25] And Donald and other folks.
[00:32:27] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:32:27] Jen Kern: And get that outside insight. Because when I've worked on brand refresh and brand building projects, they've been some of the most fruitful and productive things, you know, and, and just there's so, they're so wonderful. Right? And it's just like a gift you give yourself. Right?
[00:32:43] And so, so, so, get the help that I think you, restaurants and leaders need right now to think differently. I mean, it's, it's a lot. Um, I also wanted to go back to a term that you used, um, employee value proposition because I used this, so important, and your ring is beautiful by the way, I just noticed it.
[00:33:02] Lauren Fernandez: Thank you.
[00:33:02] Jen Kern: Um, and this is a term that I just came across recently, although I think it's been around a while, EVP, while so, as a marketing professional used to always talk about value proposition. What's your value prop? Like, what you got the brand and part of building that brand program is we would have a framework and I was just like two or three sentences.
[00:33:20] And you write out your value prop. Our company does this and we do it better than the competition because of XYZ, right? Now, I love this new term employee value proposition. So, the employee value proposition, I've been told, has a much higher ROI than building a business value proposition, because like, you were starting to say, once you train your employees on the brand and the mission, then they go out and proselytize about your business.
[00:33:49] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Jen Kern: And then it's more beneficial is what I've heard of, now, again, I'm not an expert at this. I want to hear your thoughts about it. Then put it paying a billion dollars for capital one for example, was where I heard someone telling me about this. "If you can get employees to advocate for your brand, you're going to get a higher ROI than dollars for billboard."
[00:34:11] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:34:12] I believe it, I believe that now more than ever, because we're fighting to recruit people back into this industry. And, and I think a critical point here is we're trying to convince them that careers in this industry are not only viable, but they're worth it. Um, so not to just come in and be an hourly employee from ages 16 to 24, but to build a career in this industry.
[00:34:34] You know, I have so many thoughts here, but I'll, and I'll try to organize them in order, but.
[00:34:39] Jen Kern: Take your time.
[00:34:40] Lauren Fernandez: Employee value proposition, and I want to give a shout out here to Lisa Bowen, who's our chief people and culture officer. Lisa was a really key hire for us this year. I've worked with her for years. She has over 30 years of experience in the industry as an operator, as a talent recruiter.
[00:34:55] Um, and she's worked with a number of different restaurant brands. And when she first started talking to me about this, I was like, "What? Like what, what, uh, what?"
[00:35:02] Jen Kern: Right.
[00:35:03] Lauren Fernandez: "I'm VP. I don't know. That's not right. Employer, really? Um, no." But when she broke it down for me, it's exactly what you said. It's what, as an employer, what is going to make you be the place that somebody chooses to work, but not only makes that initial decision to choose to work, but they want to stay.
[00:35:25] So that's a loyalty metric, right? They not only stay. I think the real magic of an EVP is that purpose and mission becomes in so, um, you know, it just sort of synonymous with who they are as an employee that they start living and working it, every day. And then it becomes so bought in that they become a recruiter, right?
[00:35:47] They're pulling their friends in to work for you. Then they become an advocate, they're out in the community saying, "Oh, you need a catering order. You should order from us because...." Spitting out purpose and mission, right? Like, it's just natural. It's not something that you have to force. And I think that, that is your employees working for you in ways you never could have imagined.
[00:36:11] And that's something that we believe very strongly in, right?
[00:36:15] So, some of companies best leads and all the marketing we've done, frankly, is referrals. There are people who listen to us, they understand Full Course's purpose and mission, and they're out there telling other people about it. Setting me up on calls left, right and center. And I love that so much. Because when you build a company, whose primary purpose is to help others and that is your purpose. There is no better feeling than everyone else getting behind you and going out there to tell people about it. I think there's some real magic to that. There's some power in the humanity of saying "I'm here to serve you." And mean it.
[00:36:58] If you can really put the company's mission behind what you're doing in the restaurant. Listen, it can't just be words. It has to be actions too, which is why we say that, that EVP not just something you do in the interview. It's through the first day. It's how that 30-day check-in feels. That's how that 60-day check in feels.
[00:37:21] It's that welcome basket you get when you sign the job offer, or you come home from your first day at work, you know, it's, it's the little things that matter. And the bigger picture things too, like, have you built out a benefits program that actually speaks to ages 16 to 24, as well as 45 plus? Do you have flexible benefits and scheduling that works for your working parents?
[00:37:47] This is like one of the travesties of our industry right now is we've got all these phenomenal, skilled talents out there. They have kids. One in three people who were employed in hourly positions in restaurants right now working parents. If you do not give them flexibility on their schedule, the ability to swap shifts, share shifts and have flexible benefits.
[00:38:11] 'Cause they may not need healthcare, but they may need childcare. If you can't figure out a way to change that into a more stipend-based program, maybe where they're allowed to take that monthly stipend and apply it to education, to transportation, to childcare, or to alternative healthcare, right? That may not be covered by insurance.
[00:38:33] You're going to lose out. Right? Because again, that EVP has to flow through everything you're doing for your employees up to and including allowing and empowering them to act out on the company's mission in a way that's appropriate for them. Right? Completely dictate what that looks like. Right? So, encouraging charitable, right, volunteerism, you know, maybe giving PTO for that if that aligns with your mission. Um, encouraging them and empowering them to handle customer service matters without having to call over a manager every time or go taking it to the manager saying "I've handled this situation like this. Can you sign off on it?" Brilliant. Right? But like a lot of folks don't do those types of things and you can, so the EVP kind of goes wrong, wrong.
[00:39:22] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:39:22] Lauren Fernandez: Really, how to weave it through everything that you do to build that kind of trust with an employee and think over time they become, okay, they become your apostle. Right? They really get it.
[00:39:35] Jen Kern: Yeah, it's not, I mean, obviously it's not going to happen right away. It's not going to be instantaneous. And, and like you were describing, it needs to become ingrained in them and how they operate and talk about the experience they're having, working at your company. And so, gosh, this has been so fun.
[00:39:52] I'm like, "Guys, let's talk the Lord all day." But, and yeah and so, you know, the brand, you know, we, so, so we're starting with the brand and the Why.
[00:40:02] Lauren Fernandez: Um.
[00:40:04] Jen Kern: You're now taking me, I've been thinking that, you know, I want to ask her what's next. Right? Well, you're, you've been going down that path a bit, you know, you you've been, you just talked about like check-ins with employees doing a 30, 60, and 90-day, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[00:40:17] You've touched on benefits, you know, early on you said, "This is not a wage war. This is not about, you know, wages and benefits." Right? So, but what's next? So, you've established that Why, you've teased out the mission and vision, you're training your employees. Where do we go next?
[00:40:34] Lauren Fernandez: Let's talk about training for a minute, because I think a lot of companies miss the mark on this. And I do want to make a point because I think this is where we have an obligation, as I said earlier, to do better as an industry. You've got a lot of very young employees in there who are easily molded and shaped by the examples that you set for them in your restaurant.
[00:40:54] My belief is that number one, your training has to be aligned with this sort of brand tone and purpose and mission. If your brand tone is, like, slightly irreverent and kitschy and fun and cool, like you just can't have these super boring videos that are like, first, roll out the dough, then fold the dough. Like, you just can't do that kind of stuff and expect to engage a generation that's literally locked onto their phones like this. I don't know if you have kids, but our 11-year-old is dilute.
[00:41:26] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:41:26] Lauren Fernandez: I have to text her to get her, to look up and answer me sometimes. Think about that for a minute.
[00:41:33] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:41:33] Lauren Fernandez: Your training has gotta be engaging and interactive and understand and, and align with the brand in this way that makes sense. Because that way they will retain it. And take the minute to explain why, like, don't just say "Standard, standard, standard." Like a little, what would it take in a video to just do a little blurb that says, "Here's why we do this. If you don't fold over and laminate your dose three times your biscuits will look like this instead of like this." And people are like, "Dang, I just learned something."
[00:42:07] Jen Kern: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:08] Lauren Fernandez: You're creating this nice synergy behind, okay, like "I've got your attention because it's a video and it feels fun. Right? And now you're gonna do a quick, you know, example on your own.
[00:42:21] You're going to check off with, this with a trainer." And now you have your recipe card next to you, which has a, a couple of funnies in it, right? Yes, it has the recipe and the how to in two languages. But it also has a couple of funny moments that if you're paying attention would make you giggle at your job, which "Why aren't we having fun at this?"
[00:42:38] Jen Kern: Yeah. Yes.
[00:42:39] Lauren Fernandez: I'm just using this as a good example, like most solemn and sincere, uh, brands that we work with. We try to infuse a little fun in our training, and I think that's really critical. The other piece of training that's missing is the bigger picture training. Leadership, mentoring, and other coaching classes that are about life.
[00:42:58] Jen Kern: Mm.
[00:42:59] Lauren Fernandez: Generally. And I think as an industry, we have to put ourselves out there a little bit and offer to these hourly employees, like, "If you want to better yourself, if you want to be on our path to manager, wonderful. Here are a couple of courses we think would be great for you to take. Why don't you read this Simon Sinek book? Why don't you do this workshop? We'll pay for it."
[00:43:26] And you're generating that kind of reciprocal goodwill, where you're appreciating their willingness to learn, their willingness to better themselves. And you're saying, "Hey, this is going to benefit you in your whole life for the rest of your life. This will benefit you regardless of whether or not if it's for our restaurant specific management training program." I think we're missing the mark there, like so badly. Um, so much so that one of our key tenants is before we even invest in our owner-operators, they enter into a leadership training course. Because we look at this, like, "You are an owner-operator right now.
[00:44:04] We are going to help you level up in your career to brand leader. You are now C-suite, let's go. Let's, let's figure out how to energize you, round out your skillset so you're a better people leader outside of the kitchen." And we're missing that. Not just in that space 'cause I see it and we work on that. But we're missing it in this early stage too, and not to focus too much on 18 to 24.
[00:44:32] But I do see that as a huge opportunity. And I think that those opportunities should be available to the entire workforce. But, when you put that in perspective, the enormity of the workforce, I think it's almost like two thirds of the workforce is under the age of 34. How impactful would it be if we could give them some decent leadership and coaching and mentorship that would impact their lives, not just their career?
[00:44:59] Jen Kern: Wow. Well, yeah. And I'm thinking about a lot of things too. I mean, one, I do have kids there they're 23, 25 and my stepson's 30. My youngest two, both kind of grew up working for Rita's Italian Ice and in the restaurant industry. And so, my first son started when he was about 16. I actually, he may have been younger than 15. And then he recruited my younger son when he was old enough to start.
[00:45:26] Right? talking about EVP.
[00:45:28] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:45:29] Jen Kern: Like, he recruited him because they worked for a franchisee that was a family owned. It's just the most lovely family. I was really grateful for it because they had another set of parents over there. Okay. And they learned how to clean toilets. I mean, just put that aside for a second, but I was like, "Awesome."
[00:45:44] You know?
[00:45:45] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:45:46] Jen Kern: I don't even wanna tell you the story about the first time they came home and had to clean the ladies room and they found ladies' stuff, you know, living in a boys house, you know, but, when you're talking about this leadership and coaching and mentoring and, and, and you, you alluded earlier to the stipend, like the education stipend, I think these are just such phenomenal ideas.
[00:46:06] You know, and, and, and things to, to bring about. Can you actually tell me, like, what courses do you recommend? Like, which leadership courses do you, do you ask your, your operators to take?
[00:46:16] Lauren Fernandez: That's so great. So, we always start with understanding yourself, right? I am a firm believer if you don't know and understand yourself and have some level of self-awareness a lot of the work that follows isn't really necessarily going to stick. Right?
[00:46:29] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:46:29] Lauren Fernandez: We do a lot of work. All of our incoming clients get a disc assessment, they get a similar second level workplace motivators assessment.
[00:46:38] So that is something I highly, highly recommend.
[00:46:42] Jen Kern: Okay.
[00:46:42] Lauren Fernandez: To start there and understand your natural affinity for how it is comfortable for you to work. Right? And how certain roles that you've been in might have forced you to align yourself a little bit differently, which creates friction again, to my point earlier, we want alignment.
[00:47:03] Right? So, understanding yourself first, I think is really critical. We do a lot of other things around professional development, like the cubby system. Um, we do a lot of things around, organizational leadership and goal setting and understanding, really, how to ladder goals up into a larger company goal and how all of those things can work together.
[00:47:27] You know, frankly, we don't ask our clients to do anything that we don't do ourselves at Full Course.
[00:47:32] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:47:33] Lauren Fernandez: So, you know, we do a stipend. I mean, I don't think I'm like divulging anything secret here, but we went to our key employees. We're basically a startup, we're still in our first year and quarter here, a year and change.
[00:47:47] And I said to them like, "Do you want healthcare? Or do you, would you prefer this stipend? And you can spend it however you want." And they were all like "Stipend." And I'm like, "Okay great. Here you go."
[00:47:55] Jen Kern: Really? Wow. Yeah.
[00:47:56] Lauren Fernandez: You know what I made that mistake too. I think that's an important part when we're talking about benefits and offering educational benefits to folks is you can present those kinds of opportunities and tie them back to your EVP and your benefits plan through an educational stipend.
[00:48:15] So they can choose, you know, $200 towards their healthcare and $300 towards their education or however they want to split it up. But there's basically a menu, you know, pun intended there of benefits for them to choose from that makes them feel like they're really connected to you. And there's some value there for them. You know, for some folks it might be learning a second language, which can help them in the kitchen, you know, but it can also just help them in life. And as someone who's been bilingual, like my entire life, I've been a constant student of Spanish. Like, even though I was introduced to it as a, at a very young age and we're raising our son to be bilingual, I take that very seriously.
[00:49:00] And so, for me, I think that flexibility of that education pipeline is critical.
[00:49:08] Jen Kern: Hmm.
[00:49:09] Lauren Fernandez: I can tell you all day long what we put our leaders through in terms of training. But I think that it's really a bigger picture because you have to think about meeting everyone where they're at. Is an 18-year-old going to want to take a Covey course?
[00:49:22] I don't know, I would hope so, but maybe they would want to take a public speaking course instead. You know, or a language course ‘cause they want to study overseas at some point, you know? So, I think you have to be flexible enough even as you're pushing that mentorship and education agenda to meet employees where they're at.
[00:49:41] Jen Kern: Yeah. Or, um, a business course. Right? I mentioned to you earlier, how our, actually, our number one performing podcast was recorded. I've been doing this for two years.
[00:49:52] Lauren Fernandez: Um.
[00:49:52] Jen Kern: It was recorded a month ago. And It was a founder of local place here in DC. It's called South Block Juice. It's amazing.
[00:50:02] Lauren Fernandez: Um.
[00:50:02] Jen Kern: It's been one of my favorites since I've lived here
[00:50:04] Lauren Fernandez: Um.
[00:50:05] Jen Kern: And he started his restaurant, mostly he tells a story like, I was thinking about when you were talking earlier. Because he worked in a restaurant when he was 16 or 17 and he was treated like crap.
[00:50:15] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah.
[00:50:17] Jen Kern: And he, that motivated him to go out and do his own thing. But he has done this so well around, his name's Amir Mustafi and he's done this so well with taking care of his employees and his people first business. He puts all of the people he hires through, it's called South Block Academy. They learn business, they learn business skills. They learn how to be entrepreneurs. They learn dollars and cents. They learn about finance. I mean, that to me is and it's free. It's part of working there.
[00:50:44] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we started Full Course in the middle of the pandemic and six, for six months before we even publicly announced that we existed, we did nothing but education.
[00:50:55] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:50:55] Lauren Fernandez: And we have a massive platform where we sell those courses, we do free monthly seminars through our rising
[00:51:02] Jen Kern: Oh, wow.
[00:51:02] Lauren Fernandez: tide series.
[00:51:04] You can sign up at fullcourse.com/seminars right webpage. We're huge on education.
[00:51:11] Jen Kern: Awesome.
[00:51:12] Lauren Fernandez: I think that again, not just to differentiate us as an investor.
[00:51:17] Rather, we feel an obligation to pay it forward in our industry. And we cannot be asking our own clients to make these kinds of changes unless we're really advocating for it across the entire industry.
[00:51:29] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:51:29] Lauren Fernandez: There is no secret playbook here.
[00:51:31] Jen Kern: Um.
[00:51:31] Lauren Fernandez: If you don't know how to read a PNL for a restaurant, hit us up. We'll teach you how to do it. You can do it as a workshop with us. You can do it interactively with one of our consultants, or you can take a class.
[00:51:41] Jen Kern: Yeah.
[00:51:42] Lauren Fernandez: We, we, we think that this is a bigger approach to bettering the industry.
[00:51:47] And if you think about it this way, 70% of restaurants are a single unit location. By definition they're probably a family run business then, and that is regardless of whether they're franchised or independently owned. And I think there's a misconception that there's a ridiculous amount of franchises out there when in fact, independent restaurants outnumber franchise two to one.
[00:52:08] Now, if you're thinking about this as "How do you get that information to an owner-operator? How do you get that information from them to their employees?" We are missing that opportunity as an industry to push education out in a way that's accessible, affordable, interesting and relevant. I am also so tired of seeing all kinds of how to videos out there that aren't telling you how to actually do it. Like, in a restaurant, it's clear that the person's never actually changed a water filter.
[00:52:39] Jen Kern: Wow.
[00:52:39] Lauren Fernandez: 'Cause you missed a few steps, including cutting off the water first. So, I'm just making the point that, like, I think those of us who know, have an obligation to put forward in the industry better solutions. And that is a huge part of what we do at Full Course too.
[00:52:55] Jen Kern: I love it, paying it forward, giving back. I love it. I know that, uh, we have a stop and that you have, uh, uh, something else to do today. I don't know what it is, but okay. Um, I wanted to give you a chance to um, talk a little bit more about your business. Anything else that you want to really communicate to the industry overall, or just to an operator looking to grasp some of these concepts that we've been talking about today. You've given great resources on where to go and stats and reasons to do it.
[00:53:25] Um, is there anything else that, that you want to, you know, provide here?
[00:53:29] Lauren Fernandez: I think if you're at all interested at restaurant growth, um, and you are independently owned, you should give us a call because at a minimum, I assure you, you're going to leave the call more informed about what your options are. I think a lot of times people focus on franchising and I obviously am a huge proponent of franchising.
[00:53:47] I've been a franchise. I've been a franchise attorney.
[00:53:50] I've been a franchisee.
[00:53:52] I, I just think that there are many, many different ways to think about growing your business. And that is one of several channels. And, you know, there's nothing to lose by giving us a call. Um, we built this company to solve a problem for independent restaurant owners who didn't necessarily understand how this game is played. And were getting left out of the financial reward that comes from growing your restaurant to a certain size and this Full Course solution is a complete and total partnership with original owners or owner-operators, um, to help them reach those levels where they can find that kind of financial success. We do it in a way that respects their ownership, leaves them in majority control and builds a brand that's really stable with multiple revenue channels that, on exit, has not only an exceptional valuation, but runaway. And serious runway.
[00:54:47] Um, it's a different approach and it's unique and it's novel, and we're proud to do what we do. So, if you have questions about that, you give us a call. The beauty of this is if you go to our website at fullcourse.com and click book a call, you get on our calendars immediately. Um, and we take this very seriously. Even when we're backed up, one of us will speak to you. And, you know, just take the step to find out, it's a phone call.
[00:55:12] Jen Kern: Awesome. Well, gosh, you are just really definitely reinventing restaurants. I want to thank you again for that. Really enjoyed this. I hope our listeners we'll, we'll get a lot out of it. I'm sure that they will. Keep being awesome. You go, girl, I love it. I'm right here to support you as well. So, if there's anything I can do for you or a CRQ, please, please do let me know, but I will be cheering you on like none other. So, thank you again, all my best to you, Lauren. And, um, I hopefully will see you around.
[00:55:41] Lauren Fernandez: Yeah, absolutely. Have a wonderful day. And thanks for having us on today.
[00:55:45]