Jim, here we are back again. Another episode of Turning the Table. Welcome y'all. Today we have a great episode. We've got a couple professionals who are gonna come in here and show us a different way of doing things cuz Jim and I were talking right before the show. The show exists because we want to talk about the problems that are persistent in the hospitality industry.
But most importantly, we wanna talk about Talk about solutions and of course one of the solutions or one of the problems that has been first and forefront in front of e everybody since Covid, actually before Covid was of course staffing. How do you attract the right staff member? How do you become the. The preferred employer in your market. How do you get to a point where you're not even looking for help? Just the right people are attracted to you.
And we've uncovered and talked about a bunch of different things, but in a little bit, we're gonna bring on Courtney and Cassandra Pike who are the principles of Flip Table Plus, which is a very, unique solution. And I think solves a lot of of those questions that folks out there are having, especially when they're trying to aggregate things. And as early as last year to do anything on the internet, you probably need two or three different platforms to put it together.
And then as soon as Covid hit people started looking around going, Hey, how can we do things differently? So we're really excited about having them. On and Jim, do you think, here we are, it's been three years. We've talked to folks in, in other markets who don't seem to have any issues attracting the right talent, and yet there are some folks who are. Bleeding constantly staff.
And at this point, with all the information that's out there, Jim, what do you think is, the message that's being lost to those operators who can't seem to put together a cohesive team? It's, very apparent, I think, and I'm looking forward to talking to, to Courtney and Cassandra about this, that it's very apparent that culture is a big part of. People wanting to work in your environment. I'm, curious to hear how they dissect that and what we get into discussion wise.
But they're the, places that are lined up with staff or fully staffed are definitely the, they're the sort of the outlier, right? They're not the, mainstream restaurant. I think even in the market that, I live in some of the air quotes best restaurants. The ones that people always wanted to work at, they're not even fully staffed right now.
So I think it really depends on we're gonna get into some discussion about leadership and we're gonna get into discussion about culture and about ways that you can, things you can hopefully do right away to start improving that, but it's just not the same as it used to be. You can't just offer a paycheck and maybe some benefits and, a pizza party once in a while and people will stick around and work for you.
Yeah. Take it for granted that there's always gonna be someone coming in the turns style. Yeah. And you bring up that C word culture and I know speaking for myself and probably a few others out there in the audience, Still confused of what that, about, what that means. In a very real sense, in a day-to-day application. Yeah. For me as a manager unlocking the doors, how does that culture get built? Who maintains it? Who gets to call it for what it is?
All these questions are right at the forefront. And we're really glad that Courtney and Cassandra could be here. And we'll get to them right after these words. Welcome to Turning the Table, the Most Progressive Weekly podcast for today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff centric operating solutions for restaurants in the hashtag new hospitality culture.
Join Jim Taylor of Benchmark 60 and Adam Lamb as they turn the tables on the prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges. Thanks for joining us, and now on to the show. This episode is made possible by e vocalize. E vocalize makes complex local digital marketing push button easy for anyone.
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And Jim, and listening to the, roll in, it strikes me that a, lot of what I saw as an operator pre covid was a bunch of platforms that didn't speak to one another or didn't speak to one another very well.
So to get the, length and breadth of data that I thought was really important as an operator to have, I might have to deploy two or three different things and even then shoehorn some stuff and maybe use some con connective stuff like Zapier because there's no other way to put an API together to have this stuff talk to me and give me the results that I am looking for. So that's why I'm so thrilled about e Vocalizes out there.
And for that matter, I'm just looking at the website for Flip Table Plus and know Sandra, I gotta tell you, it's really impressive all the functionality you have in this platform. Yeah, no we're excited about it. We are building out this product specifically for the restaurant space, and one of the things that we try to solve for is creating not just a job board or an environment where people feel they have to outsource multiple solutions, right? We wanna be the one solution.
We wanna recognize that. Restaurant operators want a more streamlined way to get the pain points that they have solved. And they, don't need to shop out. They can come to one platform and not just get hiring, but they can get payments, they can get P os restaurant capital. And in addition to that they, can get great customer service. That is something that we're striving for. We recognize that we're creating a platform.
So that you as an operator can serve your industry and your space and your customers to the best of your ability. And historically, there hasn't been a solution out there for you, and we want to be that trusted brand for you. Can, I ask just a speaking about things like Adam and I were just chatting before we brought the two of you in about culture and about what that's means and what are some of the challenges in the industry and, all this kind of stuff Can.
The two of you or one of you, or take turns, however you want to answer this, but go back to before flip Table Plus was a thing. The two of you I'm sure had some conversation at some point saying we gotta do something. Was that over coffee? Was that over a glass of wine? Was that Can, you just tell us about how, where did Flip, what was the original, we need to do something conversation.
And then I want to talk a little bit about this concept of culture in the industry and how we can help to move it forward. Yeah. So I'll start and Courtney can echo of course. So Courtney and I got our first job together in the restaurant space at a local inn, really local, in hotel restaurant. And everything we did we're twins we, do everything together, so it just made sense that when we were thinking about starting a company to solve for this space that we. Truly are passionate about that.
We did this together, right? And actually quick side note, there's something to be said about creating a company with your identical twin. Yeah, Adam. Adam, listen, there's humor. There's humor, there's challenges there's a million in one reasons why a lot of our, the listeners may be saying, okay, these two are either crazy. Or geniuses, right? We're a mix of the two.
Yeah, we're both Sure. There's a lot of, there's a lot of love and laughter in this, in flip table plus, but to, Cassie's point, we, our first job ever was in the restaurant space, and so the story that we have and in our product, the logo, we can go into depth, into greater detail if you'd like, but. There's just so much more depth to where we are at today. Just her and I being family and sisters, but also with Flip Table Plus and, our why. We're often asked why, did you create Flip Table Plus?
Why Flip Table Plus, why a mobile app? Why a web application? Why the restaurant space? We started there Mo, the majority of the things I learned and I value as a person started. When I first entered into the restaurant space as a buser, I was busing tables. One would think, how in the world can you find a positive light on busing tables? And the fact of the matter is, that is where I learned the most. I learned integrity. I learned accountability. I learned humility.
I learned there's a ton of, comedy in the back of the house. I'm sure you guys have and, I've learned, I learned grit. I learned. Karate, no. Some of the things that you've learned in this space is just remarkable, let alone, again, this could be another topic that we could discuss, but let alone the people that you meet and the conversations that you have and the stories that they too share with you. Awesome. And there's one thing that you said that there's lots of things there.
I, didn't learn karate in restaurants, but talk about that another day. But I think, did you work? Did you work in a Greek restaurant? You gotta work in a Greek restaurant. Yeah. You gotta work in a, I missed that one. Yeah. You said there's a lot of love and laughter at flip table and for anybody who follows what Adam or I talk about consistently, there's gotta be a lot of love and laughter in restaurants, period. Absolutely.
And, that is when we speak of things like personal branding and marketing and what embodies your product, one of the things that we like to touch upon that no other platform to date as we know of to our knowledge, has that we do. Is that true? Fondness and love and yes, laughter within our product. The emblem, the logo, the F you know the, it's actually family. It's family. Like it's flip table. It's not only just an acronym that stands for the speed with which you can.
Greet a guest, seat them, take their order, bust the table, clear it, and then seat another individual. It's not, it's more than that. There's a depth behind our product that we know that we can definitely improve upon To the public eye. But honing it back into what you said, love and laughter is also something that you and Adam like to project in what you guys do is that is one of the very reasons why we're doing what we are. So, good.
So, you looked at the landscape and you decided, okay, there's a couple problems to be solved here. So when you're starting out in the journey of developing this product, what were like the top three problems that you wanted to solve while developing this particular product? I love this question, Adam. Very much so the three things. Were based on experience, right? Experiences that we had that we knew that more people have to be experiencing the same thing.
And, one of those was how do we create a more predictable pathway to getting a job in the restaurant space? Historically, if you wanted a job in the restaurant space, you were looking for a, we're hiring sign, or maybe one of your friends, your buddies said, Hey, So and so is hiring. Maybe if you need a job go, stop and speak with Joe, right? But there was no predictability, no pathway that you could follow to get that job quickly, and effectively.
And not just any job, but the right job for you in the restaurant space, that quality candidate that the operator was seeking. And then the second thing was interactivity. Is there a way I can engage? With the restaurant hiring operator. And is there a way, as an operator, I can engage with a job seeker that is more efficient than what I have used in the past?
And then the third thing is how do we create an attractive and an engaged solution where people can interact passively with a lot of value and create a meaningful relationship quickly? So those three things I believe have not been necessarily solved for in the past that we're trying to bring to the table.
Can you comment a little bit, and whether this is directly related to flip table or not, can you comment a little bit on just the whole gig worker thing that's happening in restaurants right now? We're starting to hear more and more about. Hire a person for one day, hire a person for one week that kind of thing. Can I'm definitely not an expert in that, but I'm curious about just your take on it. Yeah. My take on that is the economy people, the layoffs, it's very unfortunate, right?
It's, some challenging times. It's, not new news, right? That people are struggling to, to get a job, to keep a job. To make impacts to get a job that, that they feel that they can do and do well, right? And I think this gig work economy is reshaping the way restaurant operators need to think about what they're doing to retain, right? Because gig work that I recall, again, I'm not an expert either, right?
I'm just thinking in a observing and reading and doing the best I can to stay up to speed with everything. I think it's a way for job seekers to have a voice and say, listen, if I'm not happy here, I can go here. And I think also, let's keep in mind that the average restaurant worker has more than one restaurant job. Maybe they work morning shift, afternoon shift, and evening shift at three different places, right? And so I think this gig work economy is, telling us that.
As an operator there's, gotta be ways we can attract these people to get them to stay. As a job seeker, I have options right now more than ever. And to your point, Jim, earlier on when you said what does that then mean for culture? Yeah. So when we think of gig work and what it means for the job seeker, there's picks and there's perks and pitfalls and what it means to the restaurant operator. There's also perks and pitfalls.
What does that mean for the culture that we're trying to, build when it, in terms of gig work? If the, in the essence of gig work is, a quick a quick gig, fast in and out. Cause I may have. Five other gigs or five other restaurant jobs, what does that then mean for me as a restaurant operator if I'm trying to create this culture, right? Because how do I create a relationship with someone that is maybe only here temporary? Yeah. So true. Yeah. And that's, I was gonna ask that about just what.
What you recommend maybe that a restaurant operator could do if they're thinking that gig workers might help their business a day or a week or what kind of that kind of thing. And maybe they're a good fit and stay permanently, which would obviously be a win. But if I'm, like, if I'm the manager running the restaurant going into the weekend, and I know that I've got two or three staff that are only there to work for the weekend.
How do I, the thing that I can never wrap my head around is how do I make sure they know what they're talking about, know what they're doing that the services aligned with the rest of the model. Like it's one thing to fill the, hole of needing an employee, but the the whole experience is a big part of that. I think you've gotta get personal, I think you've got to have a conversation with them.
You can't just I, think possibly an issue that we encounter often is we hire to hire, we hire to fill a void. We don't necessarily hire to then put in the additional effort required to, to learn someone what are they good at, what are their weaknesses? Can I help them in whatever capacity to strengthen their. Their weaknesses or what are they so passionate about? Let's put them there.
So I think as a restaurant operator, if I were to give some advice, I would say take, we'll require a little bit more effort, but take the time to get personal with the people that you're opening up an opportunity with. I've I've actually worked for a couple, or had a couple gigs where I ended up say, supporting a hotel upon their closing. They still have 90 days to go, but most of their regular staff have now gone on to get regular jobs.
And those empty positions get filled by the quote unquote temp agency, which for anybody in the culinary industry, in any major population, when they talk about temp agency their eyes roll in the back of their head and oh my God, here we go. I was in a situation where I trained. I had to train somebody on the pantry station every day for about 20 days straight because a temp agency was constantly sending me someone different.
So I got to be very clear about what, there is to be really concerned about or really worked up about and stuff that I could just let slide. Cuz before I used to be a pretty pretty nitpicky insofar as the standard by which we operated the product that we put out. And when you're. We've got 90% temp staff and you never know who's gonna show up tomorrow. A lot of that has to go out of the window unless of course you want a mental breakdown. So it's like taking, picking this idea of gig.
Or, it's almost like self-agency right now. We're taking it out of the hands of this third party vendor who may or may not necessarily care very much about their end product, which is filling another hole in a schedule to that person actually representing themselves within the economy. And now it's their reputation that, they're riding on as opposed to someone else's for this blank faced company. Adam, your comment about training.
A new person every day on the same thing, 20 times in a my anxiety went up. You say that it's a challenge. It really is. And I, think there's, I've always been someone, right? And just since a young girl where there's a challenge, there's tremendous amount of opportunity, right? And you can say that's a factor in wanting to create a specific restaurant solution just for this vertical.
And Adam, you brought up a really cool perspective in the sense that this gig work is really about filling a role or filling a space real quickly. You're thinking, I think of it like someone thinking on their feet, right? There's. You have something that you have to get done. You, have some your head chef decides they're not showing up today. What are you gonna do? You have to solve for that, right? Yeah. That would be catastrophic. But it's we know it's happened, right? It's the same thing.
If your, bartender is, maybe they're sick, they can't come into work, what are they gonna do? And I think going into the weekend I restaurants should be thinking about this. How are we going to solve for talent, getting the right talent in the door quickly, effectively qualified staff? And then also are there platforms out there that can help me in a way that makes me feel good so that I don't have to continually have this be a pain point?
Or, have it certainly be something like Jim said just talking about it already jacked your blood pressure up. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I only imagine. And in coming back to the Flip Table plus app, So it's cool because you've got an opportunity where restaurateurs can input information for, people that they're looking to hire. You've got a place for individuals as as, professionals to be able to upload their information so that they can actually be found or look for opportunity.
You've got in-app messaging. You've got what don't you have? Let me back up a second. The one the, word that was immediate trigger for me was community. So you talk about a qualified restaurant community. We're building the largest community of experienced applicants that are specifically seeking, like how many people do you actually have in your community now? So we have over 2000 in our community. And I like to use, so we, actually love the word community.
And we, the reason we love that word is because we're trying to rebuild the restaurant community. And, we used the word rebuild because Covid really did affect this industry greatly. Yeah. Even more than what it was previously. And so now we need a strong community.
And so we, strive to say to ourselves, not only are we building a product just for the restaurant space, creating a platform for that brand loyalty to allow restaurateurs, operators to say, We know restaurant is creating this solution just for us that doesn't exist out there right now. They're not just a job board, right? How do we create this sense of community where people wanna come in and be a part of this, right? And that's what we're really striving for. That's what we're doing.
We're building it. It's every day. We're perfecting it every day, Jim and Adam. So all that stuff that Adam listed, all those features and all those things that flip table does, which is amazing that it's doing all of those things. I'm curious what gets used the most? What's the, one thing about flip table that gets used, like it's the go-to that everybody is using? I would say it depends. It depends, right?
If you're a job seeker, you're using that match feature because it's quick, it's effective. You can engage with the operator right away. You can send it in that message. You can schedule your interview. Maybe the operator wants to know a little bit more about, you say, they may say things like, how long have you lived in the area? You have reliable transportation, and these are questions that get asked that can be answered immediately. You're not waiting to get an email.
Which is how a lot of the job boards work today. You're not waiting to engage. You can create that immediate relationship and start building that trust in the rapport instantly. And but if you're a restaurant operator, You might be using us for our hardware, our payments, the restaurant application itself. You may have sought restaurant capital from us. But from the job seeker side, it's primarily that instant gratification of I'm connecting with somebody who's gonna get me a job. Interesting.
Yeah. Cuz you're hearing about people that go and apply for jobs. I, keep hearing from the operator side more than the applicant side about, I scheduled five interviews today and only one of 'em showed up. Yes. Yeah. And I think so again flipping the script to echo Courtney's sediment earlier, to get somebody to show up to the job restaurants have to again, be more creative on, what they're doing to get people to show up. Let's go beyond thinking If we're setting a time and date right?
Let's go beyond. Let's think more strategically. Let's think more creatively. Let's sugar and spice it, right? What am I doing to get that job seeker to show up? While I think about a solution over the weekend, I'm not just going to say, here's a time and date. I look forward to seeing you. I might say something like, Hey, show up between this time and this time. We'll have a happy hour. I'll buy you a drink.
Or if they're of obviously legal age, whatever it may be, or, Hey, I'd love to know more about you. I saw this on your profile. Tell me more. Courtney said earlier again, and I agree with it. Get personal. Let's, build a relationship with somebody. Let's get them to feel like they're important to us. And I get it. I get it. Restaurant operators are so busy.
Yeah. But it's so important for these restaurant operators to take an additional 30 seconds, a minute to, to think of a way that they can communicate with this person that's saying, Hey I, wanna work for you. And there's, so much that we can do to go beyond the traditional time and date to send an interview.
I think it was Adam, I think it was Jensen, that we were having a, friend of ours, Jensen was on the show one day and we were talking about a good strategy for an operator would be to, when you've scheduled the interview, send them a 22nd video saying, I'm looking forward to meeting you. Can't wait to have you come on in da Whatever it might be. But just. Like you said something personal. Yeah, I've always that one stuck in my mind creatively, this is our best friend, right?
Because we can throw together a video almost ad hoc, and you'll have my attention if you start talking about Labrador, right? No, Totally get it. And this idea of being your own, like owning your own narrative. We, speaking for myself, only spent so much of my career passively. Engaged with potential candidates vis-a-vis whether they sent in their resume or they just showed up in the restaurant or whatever. That I think we all got lazy. We all thought that it was just gonna continue to happen.
As a matter of fact, I look back on an article I wrote and the title was 550 Resumes, which I got for a Lion Cook back in the early two thousands, 550 resumes for a Lion Cook's position in South Florida. And yet, you know this thing about About being understaffed is nothing new for us as an industry. We've been dealing with it ever since I've gotten in the industry. There's always talk about okay, who's gotta play double, who's gotta cover whatever.
But I think now what's happening is to be fully engaged with the associate means that I know whether or not they're open to say, pick up extra shifts or pick up a PM shift and not just put, throw them under the bus and have written in on the schedule and they come back chef I can't. They can't work X yeah, you're gonna have to figure that out yourself. It used to be all on them.
And now I think the responsible vendor or the creative the creative restaurateur is the one who takes the responsibility on himself and saying, okay, I'm gonna throw out a little video. I constantly harangue businesses for the way that they write their write their job descriptions or their one ads on LinkedIn. If it's above the fold. If I don't know what your values are as an organization, I'm going on. And, yet organizations are still like putting a must wear a clean uniform like that.
Is that really the first thing that comes to mind when you think about that position? So it's given, I think, an opportunity for creative people, sensitive people to actually work outside the box to really engage people and those who've been lull to sleep. They're gonna end up pretty much on the sideline if they don't like, get on it right away because 6 million, we lost 6 million in the, in during Covid. About half of that have come back. There's another 900,000 that were hired last period.
And so now everybody's scaling, everybody's wanting to open up that next location, and they're doing so without having secured the labor. Whether it's a Bojangles or whatever, now they're opened up in a market where they might have to. Again, think outside the box, whether that's pet insurance or whether it's a higher than average wage.
And one thing that I want to come back to again, flip tail plus, just cuz it blows me away, is not a whole lot of not a whole lot of end-to-end solutions offer funding. So that just jumped out at me right away. Holy crap. You guys do funding as well? Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about that because I know. Seems like every TikTok video that's coming up for me right now is about can you get your business funded? And here's the top 10 card da which is just a whole lot of chatter.
But tell me how flip table and flip table plus are actually addressing this particular problem. Yeah, absolutely. So the, reason why we decided to offer funding as part of our solution is because when we are sitting down with restaurateurs, It became very evident that in addition to their hiring, their payments, their point of sales, recruiting, retention, that they also had this need to get additional capital for anything.
It could be to hire more staff to update their kitchen, to get a walk-in freezer, or even more recently with a lot of the storms that took place in Florida disaster. And a lot of the disaster relief programs only offered a cap. I have more damage than that cap. Now what I'm, and it always happens, right? And it's unfortunate. So we decided that there was an opportunity here to serve our restaurants and restaurant operators even more. And, that's amazing.
Knew that we knew by adding to our services, but doing so remaining in our niche, but also strategizing the best way to add value for our platform, but for any platform really should be, how can we. Touch upon the pain points that are being verbalized to us from the actual consumer. So the restaurant operator and the job seeker, how can we add additional value into our current offerings by providing them something that solves for their particular pain points. Got it. Yeah, so good.
Keeping front of them, keeping them aware. Adam, you say traditionally you were getting 550 resumes, I assume all those I'm, assuming those were physical or was that through a particular specific job board, or was that through I wanna say it was through a job posting. Either it was online or back then it was in the paper. Yes. Folks, we used to use the paper Absolutely. For putting job out. Was the faxes that you got through the machine For sure.
But my, the point is, how can you possibly stay in front of 550 resumes and people, how can you contact them and you can't. So you need something, you need a service. You need a platform that allows you to stay in front of the interested party consistently, quickly, efficiently. How do you do that? Texting, calling, so you, meet the, end user, you meet the job seeker where they're at. So there's, a bunch. I think we're, maybe we're doing the same thing here, Adam.
We're trying to I wanna make sure we capture a few things. Please. I've heard you say just the last comment you just made there, Courtney, about meet the applicant where they're at. There's the discussion around culture and, how to make sure that people Actually have a conversation and care about what people are wanting and needing, and that gig person who's coming in just to work for the weekend or the week.
But we wanna make sure that we, re package this all up in a way that, again, we talked about this earlier, that if I'm a, an operator and I'm in a restaurant and I've got a thousand things going on, What should I be thinking about this weekend? And, that could be call flip table or, find you guys online is probably one of them, but what else, what should they be doing in terms of day-to-day operations in the restaurant that some thoughts on? I would say adaptivity, right?
I think becoming we're not, we're never gonna be experts in adaptivity. But I think. The restaurant industry naturally are somewhat experts up and coming experts in, adaptivity. And the reason why I use that word is because going into the weekend as a restaurant, I need to be adaptive towards the kinds of talent that I, that may, that, that I might be receiving, right? Maybe coming into the door, maybe knocking on my door.
And we need to adapt to the world that we live in, which is not the same restaurant world and talent acquisition world that we lived in three and a half, four years ago. Completely, right? Yeah. It's completely changed, right? The people that we bring to our table, pun intended. Are, we're not at, we're not getting them the same way. We're not attracting 'em the same way.
We keep using this word culture, but I think one thing I, wanna say that I wasn't able to say earlier necessarily is each restaurant has to define their culture and figure out what that is and how that culture is different because one restaurant's culture may be drastically different from, another, and that we know that's true. But the same thing is said for the job seeker.
We know that what may attract one job seeker in our gig economy especially, is not going to attract the next, but what we do know, what we do know, Jim and Adam, is that the job seekers are using their cell phones, okay? They're on social media. There's not a single gen. Z individual that does not know Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. I know I've missed more, right?
But that is where we need to, as restaurant operators, go and look and find where, that talent is in a much more, I guess you could say creative fashion. Much more abstract out of the box, not in a circle in any way, shape, or form. To be able to get attention, right? Cuz we're not going to we, can't sit here as operators and say to ourselves I'm having an issue finding staff and retaining staff, gig work, whatever it may be. But what am I doing differently that I keep complaining about?
I keep maybe I'm using the same job boards over and over. Maybe I'm hiring the same kind of Character for my restaurant gigs over and over. But I, what I need to do is I need to say to myself, what are the other restaurants doing that have an average employee retention of 25 years ac? Exactly. That's, there's that modeling piece. You gotta think of the non-traditional and traditional methods in the restaurant space.
Traditionally we're used to, the resumes we're used to word of mouth, we're used to. One way of doing things. It's not like that anymore. It's very non-traditional. It's very outside of the box. How are we going to create meaningful, purposeful jobs for candidates who are seeking just that they're seeking purposeful, meaningful positions? What is in it for me as a job seeker? And at the core. And at the core too, I want restaurant operators to understand this.
We understand your pain point every day. We are diving deeply into this problem every day as a company. Equal. Table Plus is diving deeply into this problem, the problems, right? It's not singular, it's plural. There's many of them in your sphere. Lots, right? There's, many of them in your space. And what I want restaurant operators to think about going into the weekend is don't forget who you are at your core for your business. Why did you open up that restaurant?
Why did you choose to open up multiple locations? What is your passion? What is it that made you feel inspired about what you're building in this space? And try to convey that. To the job seeker and you, and that's why I press very boldly on getting the restaurant operator to understand that the job seeker today is not going to be attracted to make sure you have black pants and a white shirt and bring an apron. Okay?
And it's, totally true, Adam, today what you need to say today, what you need to say is, People come to work at our restaurant because we value family, we value laughter, we value comedy. What are your values? Like you had mentioned Adam earlier, list them right away. Yeah. We value character. We value honesty. Loyalty. We build it. Loyalty, director, autonomy. There's, autonomy. Absolutely. Those are the things we need to be highlighting to attract and retain talent in this space.
Stop, I urge you, stop today. Operators saying, come work for us because we're cool. Or, it's 25 cents above the hour, right? It's not or, thinking like there's a perfect job description, right? There's no such thing as a you, have to live and breathe the opportunity that you're putting out there.
It's not about creating the perfect job description, because at the end of the day, if you hire that particular individual, That job description's out the window because that person's gonna be busing tables. That person's gonna be bartending. They're, they may be a sous chef, they may be a, so they may be whatever the case, but they're not going to stay because of the job description. Correct. So true. Said it something came up in our prep call before we got on that.
I think both of us both of us or organizations Courtney, Cassandra, Adam, Jim. That we appreciated and recognized about each other almost immediately was a sense of authenticity. That we're not bringing anything that's not true for us in that moment, and recognizing that a lot of operators could really become their the preferred employer in their market if they just showed up as being authentic to their associates and saying listen.
We do this great, we're working on this we're, it's not a perfect solution. And just owning again the good things and the bad things that might be a work in progress so that they know, Hey, listen, when I bring it up, it's not gonna just go in a quick garbage can. They'll forget about it because it's been filed away. It's something that's actually actionable what's what's one way, Cassandra, that you can think of that an operator can come across as being more authentic? Ask. Ask good questions.
Ask good questions about the person and not necessarily the job. And the reason I say that is my first restaurant job, they didn't care about my previous restaurant experience. They wanted to know who I was as a human being. Are you somebody who's gonna show up every day? Obviously people have sick days. It happens and sometimes they ask for time off. That's all part of life, right? Part of having a job. But I, what I wanna be asked is tell me about what you do when you're not here.
Like I mentioned earlier I'm a dog lover. Through and through I have three Labradors. I love them to death. I don't have any children. They're my children. Today with social media, If you know I'm coming in for an interview, take some time to do your due diligence. Sure. Look me up today. Today. If you don't know what someone looks like before you're introduced to them, you didn't take the 10 seconds to value them.
And I think that, like I said, the job seeker of today wants to know that you did your due diligence, that you do care about them, that they feel like you understand that they're here to help you. And they wanna know, am I someone that can make, an impact here? And are you gonna value me? And I'm telling you, the best way to, to allow someone to feel like they're valued is to ask questions and, get them to understand that you care. You are here. You're giving me your time.
Nobody has the bandwidth today that we used to have, because we're all trying to fit everything in families, jobs, puppy dogs. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's so important. I remember, like I said, I think back to my first restaurant gig and then my second one and my third one, and I take the good and I leave the bad. And I can tell you that the number one thing that I really, truly enjoyed was when the operator took the time to ask me about what I do for fun.
Tell me about the last challenge you had. That's such a standard question. Can, like that's just is a standard question. Everybody asks it, but tell me what do you, love to do on the weekends? Are you a family person? These are think about your values and your core as a restaurant and, as an operator, I believe you have a responsibility and a duty to make sure that you're finding not just the right person for the job, but the right character.
Yep. And I think at the end of the day too, you know what? A good restaurant has employees, but a great restaurant has a team and I think love it. I think if we can approach our candidates and the people that we're looking for as more or less a, team versus they just work for me, how do we work together? That's team. Yep. And we even taking a step further where. No, very often in some families there's a lot of crap that goes on and it gets swept under the rug or ignored.
But in a team, that stuff gets brought up because we don't want that trust around there's, right? And so very often my question entering an operation is how quickly can I get the associates to trust me? And the answer sometimes is ask a lot of questions, lead with vulnerability be transparent. But in the end that's a that's a game that's played over months and not necessarily days, some, sometimes it's just continuing to be consistent as a leader throughout that entire time.
Yeah. Building culture takes time. It's, a long game. It's not an imminent. Instant gratification. It, takes, it requires effort. And as we've all known, the restaurant space and of itself is just, it's a fast-paced environment.
And so when we think of, gosh, how am I ever going to carve out even five more minutes to get to know someone, to support that, team, that culture, it's almost an unfathomable, but the fact of the matter is, that is, What is required today to be able to really support your goals as a restaurant operator. And I think what you said, Courtney and, maybe this kind of in wrapping things up a little bit here the message we want, like we, I keep repeating myself on this.
Let's make sure that operators have something to take away. And I think you've, given both of you have given them some great things to think about. But your comment about a good restaurant has employees in a great restaurant, has a team. I think that's if I'm an operator, I'm gonna be thinking about that going into the weekend. How do I get this more team environment. So thank you so much for, all of the discussion. I think this, what you're doing with Flip Table Plus is fantastic.
I think I, know I speak for Adam myself, that we will, we'll encourage anybody who we talk to likely to come and speak with you thank you so much for making some time. And there's the platform does so much. Yep. That's one thing. But I find it the, dynamic between the two of you, Cassandra and Courtney gosh, what a great team you guys have put together and supporting one another. Very cool. And there's just so much to talk about that we make time to come back if we ask. Yeah, absolutely.
As long as it's an opportunity. Thank you so much. We'll, make room for the dogs, I promise. Absolutely. Absolutely. They're very well mannered. They love tidbits. Oh bet they Cassandra Courtney, thank you very much for coming here. Flip table plus.com. Actually it's flip table hyphen plus.com. As always, the links To all, everything that we talked about will be in the show notes. Thank you much everybody, and we'll see you next week.
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Turning the Table with me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor. We're on a mission to change the food and beverage industry for the better by focusing on staff mental health. Physical and emotional wellbeing. By proactively measuring and managing staff workloads. Join other hospitality professionals co-creating the hashtag new hospitality culture by subscribing to our weekly newsletter at ww dot. Turning the table podcast.com/news.
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