107: The Hospitality Industry & The Current State of Its Mental Health

Yeah. Yeah. And before we get there, I just wanted to make sure that I shouted out to a couple some friends of ours who are, have been really great supporters of the show. So I wanted to kind of shout out to Patrick and Jemiah, Rodney Carl Scott Turner. All folks from seven shifts and food advis app, you know, they're inconsistently our biggest fans in shouting out for us and wanted to say thank you very much. And also to give a shout out, believe it or not to my, father-in-law.

Yes. That's exactly correct. You'll see right here. My father-in-law has never commented on anything I've ever done on LinkedIn in all the years. And just the other day he posted a he DME saying, keep up the good work, like the inform feedback, Dave . That was all. Yeah. So I guess I'm doing okay. We're doing okay. Right.

That happened to him and happened to me in one position where I was asked to leave because some folks did not feel safe around me. Right. They thought that I was creating a hostile work environment. I had a completely different perspective on that particular situation. But I have to say that in the years, since then I've come to understand that a role Our role as leaders means something completely different than it used to be.

And consistently I've seen where folks are commenting on why they're leaving positions and it has nothing to do with the extra 50 cents or a dollar has everything to do with their employer being unable to protect them both either emotionally or physically. So they need to feel cared and cared for in a way that's different. and yet I look back on my career, Jim, and I think that that's probably something that I always wanted too, to feel like someone was looking out for me.

And my, because I was very much a, a rule follower in the restaurant was like, you know, it was like, you're supposed to carry a trace, so carry a tray. And you're supposed to, you know, keep your thumbs off the rims of the plate. So keep your thumb. And, and I actually got to the point where I would ask people, you know, you either don't know, or you don't care, and I've told you to do this this way. So I know, you know, right. So that tells me you don't care. Anyways, he.

He was pretty quick to say, Hey, look, you either need to change the way you address people this way. Or, or, you know, you're not gonna be the manager anymore because you're the problem. So it, you know, it was a quick reminder early in my management career that you know, we gotta make sure that we come across the right way to people are they're not gonna stick around.

It, tried to flip that the other and make sure that I just did whatever I could to make sure my staff loved coming to work every

I mean, if at most, you know, you had to sit through a, you know, a five minute sexual harassment video in the HR office, but when it comes down to those stressful situations and you know, there's nothing more unique and satisfying as a manager and a leader as to get, you know, people from all walks of life and maybe three different languages, all moving in the right direction.

Based upon your way of being with them, but it's kind of like one of these things that for some reason in our industry just takes a backseat to actually getting the job done that, that busyness, right? Yeah. About like, if you need, if you just getting stuff done, then you need to take a look at, you know, where you're headed. Because as as a manager, you're doing great, but as a leader, not so great. Yeah.

You know, which, and I, when I asked him that I was asking things like, what part of service or which line item on the P and L do you want me to really work hard on mm-hmm and his response was, I want you to make sure that everyone loves working on the shifts that you run. Hmm. And he was, that was it because he get, he just said, if people don't love coming to work every day on the shifts that you run, you won't be running shifts. And then you can't focus on anything.

So really it was, you know, that for me, I, I took that and, and actually tried to give that feedback to a lot of people that I worked with, you know, when they were starting out new in management, this is the only thing I want you to work on. I just want you to make sure that people love

If make sure that everybody loves coming to work every day on the shifts that you're running is the filter for how you deal with people. You're gonna give feedback in a, you know, more constructive, you're gonna take time, you're gonna do it, you know, in a productive way. You're gonna make decisions that are, you know, gonna be beneficial for the business and the team and the customer. You know, it was kind of this filter for how you operate and how you interact with people.

But it also, you know, your comment earlier about protecting people, it was really, that was a big part of it. It was a filter for how you deal with and interact with people. All.

And as human animals, we desperately need that connection. So we had people lining up at the doors ready to come in and didn't have enough staff. and continued to not have enough staff. And I think the one missing piece, or that's not talked about a lot right now is I, I think that the folks in the hospitality industry are, are having to deal with more stress now than when they did during COVID. And it's one of these situations where everybody, everybody wants it and most operators.

Need the revenue because they're making up for losses. Mm-hmm . And so they really wanna push really hard to make sure that everybody's efficient as productive, but very often the people are left completely stressed out. Yeah.

Now it's a combination of all these things, inflation, labor, shortages, profit margins, pricing, strategy, wages are going all these different things. And it's pulling in, in so many directions, I think right now. So many of the conversations that I know you're having too, Adam, is with operators that are just like, I just don't even know where to start.

But one of the things is, is both you and I are very vocal about the work that the Bern chef project is doing. Absolutely. And so I thought naively that, you know, these type of these types. Posts on social media were going to be, I, I don't know, less than maybe, but my daughter who knows how, how fervent I am about this type of work tagged me in a, in a Facebook comment where this person basically just stated, you know, I can't do this anymore. I'm an alcoholic.

I don't eat well, I don't sleep well. My coffee addiction is too much. I smoke four packs of cigarettes a week. I don't do hard drugs, but I still itch all things considered. It's not so bad. I just can't anymore. I cry a. I'm always angry. How do you all keep going on? And that's it really hit my heart. And so I answered as best I could relating that I felt the pain. I felt the anguish and you know, how much pain is that person willing to go through before they actually take action?

Because ultimately we're all sovereign beings and we need to be responsible for our. But this idea that there are folks who are hanging on by their fingernails. And very often those folks are like I did at one point in my career, you know, just self-medicating with anything that's cheap available and at hand in order to ease that pain.

So. I don't really wanna be a bummer about this, but I think it's important to highlight to everybody that first off to those who are going through some difficult times you're not alone and your voice is valuable and we need to hear more of it. I made a commitment before coming back, bringing back chef life, radio, and to go full fledge on my, on my coaching and mentoring business that.

I felt very strongly that I didn't wanna lose another hospitality professional to suicide because they didn't have access to resources that they, that they thought that they didn't matter that no one wanted to listen. And I think one of the things that I'd like to hear you speak about is this. Kind of condition, you know, when we, when you got that feedback about, you know, oh, you're, you're gonna need to change that. I think we're creatures of habit and we do as we've been taught.

So one of the things that I came to understand in my career was that just because it was, does to done to me, or that's the way I was trained change and condition didn't necessarily mean that I had to do that with other people. So. Yeah.

And, and I still do that. Everyone just loves working in restaurants again. Yep. and I've had a couple of interesting, you know, lots of people say, I agree, which is awesome. Lots of people say, what do you mean again? Yeah. like, as if to say, I never really heard it, which, you know, everyone's, you know, got their own, but right.

A lot of people saying things like there's too much change that needs to happen or there's, this is gonna take decades or this is gonna take, you know, a combination of policy. You know, approach and all those different things at the same time in order to accomplish that. Well, that's fine. You know, one of my, and Adam, you know, this, one of my personal missions is to, is to change the way the entire industry looks at how it protects its people. Correct.

Like really think about it in terms of like, let's go back to caveman and you know, I stay awake while you sleep. So the savor tooth tiger doesn't, , you know, we need to find ways to protect people because you're right. There's too many of those. I can't do it anymore. I left, I had a woman send me a message about, she was worried about her son because he was so stressed out that he, he not only did he leave the industry for another job, he left the industry and couldn't work.

You know, we definitely need to do this and Shane, you know, I know Shane and Shane and I have been back and forth having conversation here a little bit for the last few months. And he's got lots of experience and a good comment here about yeah. Chefs in their car and pride. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

Make sure that everybody's aware that the need for this type of work, this type of outreach is even more necessary now. So and Jamie Lauren is watching us on Facebook and she says, so gut wrenching and true AAF. And I don't necessarily want to, you know, it's kind of like a. I don't want it to be kind of depression, porn, right. like, okay. So we know there's a problem now, what are we gonna do about it?

Because, and I, I can't speak for anybody else, Jim, but I know for a while in my career I would not, you know, it, I could see somebody struggling and I purposely would not approach them because to start a conversation and. At that time, what I thought was a can of worms meant that they probably weren't gonna be able to finish the shift. And that meant that I had to shift people around.

So very often I was looking the other way, shamefully and now advocate, teach and mentor other ways of being but I want to first talk about this very I wanna say nontraditional way of, of, of acting, which is Benchmark 60 has a productivity metric that they, which is a solution to operators. And I love it because it's kind of a, it's not subversive, but it's kind of sneaking in a little way because basically we're approaching operators by saying, listen, you're, you're struggling right now.

You can see that. And let's look at labor this way, as opposed to how we've always done it. And the resulting the, the result of that is, is a metric by which. Without even stepping into their restaurant. We know if it's over a certain, you know, if it's 0.1 over what that metric's supposed to be. We know that everybody in that restaurant had a really shitty shift yeah, right. That they worked too hard. Yeah. And who, and who wants that? Right.

So can you speak a little bit more about the applications that you've seen in some of the changes that operators are, were actually able to achieve based upon your, not only your, your coaching around the data analysis, but also Allowing them to see the opportunities within their own organizations.

I remember the guys that I used to work with, they always had contests to see who could do it the fastest, you know, so it's like how much work can one person get done? in a certain shift and that right. I'm biased. But my, my belief is that the beauty of how we look at some of this data is that it's not about one person. It's not about one shift. It's not about someone's skill or or that type of thing.

It's actually about how hard does the whole team have to work in order to achieve the result the business wants to achieve. And, and like you said, we can actually say to them, your team is having to work too hard to get this. And that's not a good thing typically because it causes, you know, burnout and stress.

And so, you know, Adam, you and I have talked a lot about this, but where, where a lot of this came from was that we did a bunch of research that showed us that labor cost as a percentage of revenue, when that's the metric that restaurants measure, which pretty much every restaurant does in my experience, at least mm-hmm. It's the number one cause of stress, anxiety, mental health challenge addiction. You know, we don't need to go down the, the rabbit hole of what the, what else that causes.

So if we can find a way and, and actually use real information and data to protect how hard the team has to work. We can connect that directly to retention turnover, you know, mental health challenges in, in at least what the business is causing side of it. Right. So. It's it's definitely helping a lot of restaurants get better perspective on how hard their team has to work.

And the thing I love about it is we, we've done lots of cool work with companies who are actually creating messaging for their team in their manuals and in their training that says, as a company, we have a policy and a procedure to protect how hard you have to. So that you don't get burnt out.

So this whole idea of transparency and vulnerability, you know, You know, it's one of my values that I work and live at and understanding that, you know, I can't ask anybody else to be vulnerable if I'm not gonna do that first and admit, admitting your mistakes is a great way to start with that. And to Shane's point that, you know, it can't just be that, you know, you can only say you can only hear, I'm sorry.

So many times before there's a seed change and people go, well, you know, that's cool because now, now it's just words and don't. Not really landing with me.

So while there's a data approach, there's also a behavioral modification approach, which is behind, you know, the work that I do with chefs and hospitality professionals about transmuting, a lot of this crap that we've carried around with that would cause me to yell at somebody so that we can actually, you know, get on with the business of building the hashtag new hospitality culture. And I just wanted to speak to a couple resources that are out there.

If you don't mind, Jim, so everybody, you know, we talk about the burnt chef project a lot. But they are continuing to expand all the ways that they can actually help and support people. So there's, you know, the there's the call line. They're actually working on an app. They're connecting with all these people. and for me, it's very, very important to make sure that everybody understands here in the United States, that, you know, the Bern chef project has done lots of different research.

And they've said, you know, 84% of hospitality professionals have had at least one mental health incident in their career. Mm-hmm and almost 70% of them are not gonna say anything to their family, to their friends or to their coworker. So, again, not only are you struggling inside, but now you can't talk to anybody. So what a burden that is. So you know, here in the United States, the, the Bern chef project has a a free service and you text home Hom E to the number 7 41, 7 41.

And somebody calls you back with him about five minutes with a list of resources that you can have. And. there's also other organizations out there called like not nine to five mm-hmm , which is very doing some important work. And if you go to their website and click on the coalition button, you'll see all the other organizations that are actually actually committed to changing. and you know, again, Shane is Chi in with like, it's all trauma, man.

Yeah, we have, we all had it and we're constantly reacting it just in different ways and couldn't agree more, man. And yet there is a way to transmute that trauma into something that's good and positive so that the other people around you. Are lifted up from that. And the other one that I really love is I got your back, which is Patrick Mulvaney who started this project basically on a whim, him and his wife in the restaurant.

And it's created this huge opportunity for other organizations to tag along with it. And it's basically, you know, during pre meals, you're actually checking the temperature. of your organization verbally. And there are people who wear a little purple button on their jacket and every time they go around they're they're the person that if someone's struggling, they can go to, so there's what we can do afterwards.

But these preventative measures, I think are very powerful Jim, again, back to the benchmark 60 routine, which is, you know, I would love to be able to show my staff. Show them, not just say, but show them that, Hey, we're actually doing something to protect your workload. Yeah. Yes we should. Yes, we should work hard. However, you know, we don't want too, we don't want too, too hard, right?

Or as an operator or as an industry to take the time to protect our people, then it is to try to talk about burnout or, or turnover or people quitting after and try, oh, well, we'll change. We'll do something. I'm sorry. Can you stick around? We'll pay you another dollar. Just invest the time in advance to make sure we, like I said, protect them from the saber tooth tiger that we know is, is coming after them. Right. It's. That's part of the change that we

And as we come together as a cohesive force, moving forward towards a specific goal, which is to create supportive, equitable workplace cultures, , you know, it can't just be blaming somebody else. We're all responsible for, this is what I guess is what I'm trying to say. So as we continue to work together, then things start changing a little bit.

I can honestly tell you, man, I think you do a better job and communicate better about the things you do personally, to protect yourself than almost anyone I've ever met. Mm-hmm thank you from sauna to, you know, groups. I don't, I won't say what all that stuff is, but you can what that stuff is, if you want to. Sure. You know? Sure, sure. I, I know that's something I need to do a better job of sharing the things that I do to try to make sure that I'm still good, but.

You know, you're, you're just incredibly good at that. And I think you, your

And I got used to having, well, I got used to having instant gratification. So when there was something that wasn't going right in my life, very. I would go the con conquest way because it fed a need within myself. So this idea of having very, like understand, like creating healthy boundaries for yourself and then articulating that to your employer is very, very powerful.

Like you, you can say, no, you can say no. As a matter of fact you know, to rip off the burnt chef project, you know, it's okay to not be okay. You know, if you're feeling it great. If you're not feeling it and you're gonna go to work anyway, then that's probably something that you want to take a moment to look at because you're probably saddled with some responsibility that you think is yours.

And I get that everybody needs to make a make money, but we have to be able to hold our boundaries or else, you know, we're gonna get run over because the business. Is changing. The stresses are not gonna go away. So part of that is like how you actually deal with that stress and know when enough is enough. Yeah. Reaching out for help.

Speaking to somebody like you said, Jim, you know, you and I are available almost all the time and wanna make sure that wanna make sure that everybody understands that there is, if you're struggling, there is a solution. And I could go into much more detail about some of the things I've seen and, and what's happened to other people, but I'm not gonna do that. Like you said, it's about solutions. So I encourage everybody listening to do their research, check out.

I got your back because it's something you can implement in your organization tomorrow. That will make a difference. And just consider that when you start making a change, people are gonna not know what's going on because they're so used to you showing up in a certain way. And all of a sudden you're showing up a different way. You won't wanna preface it by saying, Hey, listen, found the solution, listen to this podcast, watch this live stream.

I think this would really benefit is does everybody, you know, can we get consensus? At least we want to try. So that point about to Shane about, you know, needing to communicate it, it, where we are headed as an industry into.

New hospitality culture communication is the, a number one thing it's got, we have to have fluid, transparent vulnerable conversations so that people understand that we're not just looking at 'em as a position on a schedule or a pair of hands that we are actually employing whole human beings. So yeah. You know what, so thank you know what that just reminded

And now I hear it all the time and it jumps out at me every time when people in operations in restaurants or any other industry, they say, oh, how many bodies do we need? Ha right. How many bot schedule another body it's like? Is that, what is that what they are? They're just bodies. You know, I think it's one of those things and, and I catch myself all the time and, and was talking about this with an operator the other day that can, can you try to change that terminology to people?

Mm-hmm because it will, again, if we're looking for a filter. You know, that for me is I've really been trying to hone in on that in conversations that I've been having about, let's make sure that we refer to the people that we work with as people cause that's a place to start.

And that can be troublesome and especially because you get to a point where people start to relating to one another as just bodies, less than, you know, Fully functioning, whole human beings with, you know, dominion over their hearts and minds and sovereign. Right? Like I love that idea about I love that idea that they're now starting to do in Germany. And in Canada about you can't call your employer. on their day off. It's illegal. You get fined.

And as I said before, in other shows doesn't have to become law for you to go ahead and think that that's a good thing for your organization. Mm-hmm so all these resources are available, whether you're looking at them as an individual or saying, Hey, heard something on this podcast. I think it's pretty good. You know, giving it to your boss. I don't know of too many restaurant tours, owners or GMs who don't wanna take better care of their people.

but sometimes because things are going at such a rapid pace, they might like miss it. Yeah. Or maybe not understand that that's the biggest challenge that they have. I think both of us are, are completely down with this concept of the biggest challenge that anybody will ever have in the hospitality industry is. Is there people mm-hmm and if you can master that, everything else is just a detail. I don't care what technique you're using in the kitchen or how difficult it is.

If you can be a master mentor, then everything is easy, man. So well said, Jim, I wanna thank you as always. Any last words before we kick off,