Restaurant Leadership Development: How to Retain and Grow Great Employees

00:06 — Anthony Presley: 

Thanks for hanging out and stopping by to chat with me today. 

 

00:09 — Matt Rolfe: 

Absolutely. 

 

00:10 — Anthony Presley: 

In case there is anybody on the planet that doesn’t actually know who you are, would you mind introducing yourself a little bit? 

 

00:15 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah. My name is Matt Rolfe. I’m a hospitality leadership coach. I made that term up about 18 years ago now. But really I spent all my time focusing on the people of our industry. 

 

00:24 — Anthony Presley: 

I love that. That’s, it’s very succinct. You’ve gone through an elevator pitch or two. 

 

00:28 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah, I try to simplify. Right. What does it really mean? And I think there’s a lot that we can do in leadership or coaching and all these words and I think it can become muddy and unclear and I wake up every day, how do we help the people? That’s it. 

 

00:39 — Anthony Presley: 

I love that. I’ve seen you speak probably four times now. Five times now. 

 

00:43 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah. 

 

00:43 — Anthony Presley: 

At events like lead, which you’re very involved with. 

 

00:47 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah. 

 

00:48 — Anthony Presley: 

And so we’ve been talking a lot with operators the last couple of days about challenges in their organization and labor is like an evergreen topic. Could you, at a high level, tell us what you’re seeing, what your clients are seeing in the market around. Around labor and retention? 

 

01:03 — Matt Rolfe: 

I think. Well, let’s go. What are you hearing from the operators? Let’s go into some of the pieces that you’ve heard and I’ll give you my perspective. Is it harder to retain? Is it, are they fighting people? Because what I’ve heard at the show, some states are having, they’re having strong retention and they’re not having a struggle and others are having a significant struggle. But what have you heard in some of the interviews? 

 

01:20 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, I would say that what we’re hearing mostly has to do around retention of skilled workers. 

 

01:26 — Matt Rolfe: 

Sure. 

 

01:27 — Anthony Presley: 

So, right. You’ve gone, you’ve, you know, you have this churn kind of problem on the first 90 days. You get somebody in upskilled them and then they’re going, hey, I’ve been here 90 days. Where’s my, where’s my raise? Where’s my, you know, I was expecting that by now. I’m an expert and there’s not anything for me to do. So they kind of hang around for another couple of months and then they kind of move on. And so what does that look like? 

 

01:50 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah, I think it’s really important to highlight the 90 day mark. So there’s been a lot of research done between the 90 and 100 day exit where they really, they quit usually in the first 30 to 60 days. Stay with you until they find something that’s next for best for them. The one thing that we look into is were we ever in agreement with the employee in the first place? So what I mean by agreement, they got hired because they needed employment, we needed an employee. But were we in agreement to wage hours, compensation and quality of work life balance? What I often find, especially with hourly hires, is if they needed 10 more hours a week and we could never provide them that they’re going to continue to look for other employees. 

 

02:28 — Matt Rolfe: 

So we’re not actually addressing the agreement or what’s going to cause the retention challenge. And we repeat it. And I say that with love and care. This is an industry challenge, you know, over 100% annual staff turnover. But how do we sit and pause and look at what are the patterns of exit and how do we address them? And are the people rehiring? If we’re not in agreement out of the gate, the chances of having high retention are out of luck. 

 

02:50 — Anthony Presley: 

Gotcha. And the other thing I’ve heard, I love that answer. The other thing I’ve heard is that, okay, they’ve been with us a year and a half. They’ve been here with us two years now. They’re really looking for management. They’re looking for leadership roles. They’re trying to figure out the next steps. And if you don’t necessarily have that, because a lot of restaurants, I would say, have this nice pyramid structure. And. But if we look at other industries, like hotels, for example, or CPG brands, where they might actually want you to gain other skills and move into other areas of the business, it seems like that’s very hard and hasn’t really been adopted within the restaurant space. 

 

03:25 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah. And I think looking at progression like as often we talk about what the employee wants and needs, whether it’s hourly or a management position, but I think it’s being clear with your identity. So do you have the ability to develop leaders up inside your organization or are you developing leaders for other people’s companies? And it might sound crazy, but if you don’t have ability for people to have a path to leadership, we want to be honest about that. One thing I say with, you know, we. At its peak, I had 60 employees in my other company. I said, everyone’s going to leave my company at some point, including myself. Yeah. How do we get the right exchange? And how was I honest when somebody started to outgrow me? 

 

03:58 — Matt Rolfe: 

But it’s also looking at how do we give the best experience and, you know, what’s the ideal target for a Lot of us, if we could have somebody with us three years, there’s a good return for us in that. But are you developing them so they have something to sell to their next employer, or are you looking at paths to leadership, whether it be within the restaurant or into other divisions? I think it’s an opportunity to slow down and really look at it. And, you know, we’ve done a lot of work. What is path to leadership? What’s our promise to our people? How do they succeed and what’s next? Because the generation now is going to come and ask you, what’s my next job? When’s my next promotion? If you don’t answer, somebody else will answer. They might not get it, but they’ll answer. 

 

04:33 — Matt Rolfe: 

So I think it’s just really, we’re aware of these conversations. How do we step into. 

 

04:36 — Anthony Presley: 

I like that you hinted around it, but talk to me a little bit about what you’re seeing in the market with soft skills training. That’s the other thing we’ve heard is that this, the current generation, Gen Z, Gen A. And it’s interesting because some people said that’s not really a generational thing and others have said absolutely it is. But, you know, soft skills, talking to people, looking them in the face, looking them in the eye, really addressing that. What. What are you seeing? 

 

05:01 — Matt Rolfe: 

You have to slow down and look at, you know, the generations in our workforce. And I don’t think it’s generational. It’s been around for a long time. But the personalities that we’re hiring are we providing the skills to properly interface with their guests? 

 

05:13 — Anthony Presley: 

Got it. 

 

05:14 — Matt Rolfe: 

So when somebody want to answer, generations don’t want to answer their phone. They’d rather communicate through text. How do we expect them to show up to our guests? And how do we explain to them why our guest experience is important and not just what we want them to do, but why it’s important, why it impacts them, why it impacts the guests and the team culture. They’re not new conversations. But we can’t just do it in training. So the way that we break it down is what’s induction look like? I understand my role. What does training look like? I can do it on my own. And then what does ongoing coaching look like? A lot of times soft skills stop when we get the induction done. I can put the logo on my chest in the uniform. 

 

05:49 — Matt Rolfe: 

But how do we move them through the process and continue the development? I think Gen Y, Gen Z, if you invest in them, they’ll respond. 

 

05:56 — Anthony Presley: 

Right? 

 

05:56 — Matt Rolfe: 

But sometimes it’s just if we’re a little bit transactional and then expect them to behave differently without the why or the reasoning. That’s where we should fall short. 

 

06:04 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, that’s interesting and totally applicable. We’re hearing a lot also on where folks are having to accommodate a work life balance that we’re seeing as a little bit different, maybe completely change during COVID Less of a generational thing and. And where people are coming in and being like, look, I know you need me to work. It’s a restaurant. You want me to work on Fridays and Saturdays, but I really only work like Sundays and Wednesdays. And like that’s changing the workforce, it seems. Are you, are you seeing some of that as well? 

 

06:31 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yeah, yeah. I think there’s a different. The shifting wants and needs and expectation of when people are available to work. And I think we’ve looked traditionally of how do we hire somebody to work 40 hours a week in the five days or five shifts we want them to work? And that might have shifted on you. So I think what I want to. What we try to coach our partners to do is not to look at all of our employees the same way. So we might have a core group of staff that can work the traditional shifts. And I’ve worked. I had a client I was working with, recently owned a large pizza chain and they had to look at hire. They had to hire some people that could work the Wednesdays and Fridays. They’ve never done that in their 60 years. 

 

07:04 — Matt Rolfe: 

And it was hard for them. They were holding on to old scheduling processes. 

 

07:09 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

07:10 — Matt Rolfe: 

But if the employees want the needs of shifted and they have the leverage, we might want to look at how we meet their needs, but with. Also not with losing ourselves. So it’s not. It’s a negotiation. It’s a partnership. But I would think it’s not looking at all employees in the same way. It’s who’s our 40 hours, who’s our peak shifts and who’s our off peak shifts and then how do we attract and retain them? 

 

07:31 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. I get. I heard you speak. You’re well known on the leadership circuit. Let’s just pretend somebody just starts in the. In a restaurant position. 

 

07:39 — Matt Rolfe: 

Yep. 

 

07:40 — Anthony Presley: 

And they want to be a leader. But let’s say they’re at the. They’re at the bottom level or the top level, depending on how you do an inverted pyramid. But entry level job. And they want to have an impact. How would you coach them to say, hey, have an impact, but you don’t necessarily have any power on day one? What does that look like? 

 

07:55 — Matt Rolfe: 

I think if it day one and day 90, as we talked about, or even within the first year, I get a chance. We do hundreds of discovery calls every year with frontline staff and entry level management. And what I often hear is how do I get the next job? And my response is, how do you be great at where you are today? So how do you be the best server where you are today? How do you ask curious questions? How do you ask for support, development and health? If you’re an entry level manager on day one, you might want what’s next. But I think the best way to shine is how do you best at what your job responsibilities are today? Earn that trust, earn the experience and then progress. 

 

08:29 — Matt Rolfe: 

Sometimes what we’re seeing now is people are looking to jump through roles and I appreciate that and I like the passion. But if we don’t have the foundation, we can find leaders and roles that they haven’t had the experience to manage. I made that mistake. I failed. I’m not making any judgment, but on our side, I said it’d be great where you are and it’ll lead to a better path. 

 

08:49 — Anthony Presley: 

Love that. I love that. Well, I promise to only use a couple of minutes of your time, but I have one hot seat question. 

 

08:54 — Matt Rolfe: 

Let’s go. 

 

08:55 — Anthony Presley: 

Let’s pretend that I’ve got whatever role I’ve got. I show up for work the next day. What’s one thing I can do to make a difference in my team’s life immediately? 

 

09:04 — Matt Rolfe: 

So one thing I say is be responsible for the energy that you bring into the space. That’s something we are in control. And we might be not in control of how our staff show up, how our staff, our guests show up, but we are in control of the energy that we show up into the four walls of whatever environment we work in. Control your state, control your energy, the rest will fall. 

 

09:20 — Anthony Presley: 

Love it. Thank you so much for hanging out. 

 

09:22 — Matt Rolfe: 

Thanks for great question.