Restaurant Employee Development: Why Growth Matters More Than Pay

00:06 — Anthony Presley: 

And here we are. Thanks so much for hanging out. 

 

00:08 — Troy Hooper: 

I always hang out with you, my friend. Wonderful. 

 

00:11 — Anthony Presley: 

In case there’s somebody on the planet that doesn’t know who you are, would you mind introducing a little bit about yourself? 

 

00:16 — Troy Hooper: 

Sure. My name’s Troy Hooper. I’m CEO of Hot Palate America. We’re the parent company of Pepper Lunch Restaurants. Pepper Lunch Restaurants is a fast, casual, Japanese do it yourself teppanyaki concept. It’s a hot plate that we put protein, rice and veg on. And we’re in 571 restaurants in 17 countries today. Growing rapidly in North America will actually double this year in North America and adding some new countries to be announced in the near future. 

 

00:44 — Anthony Presley: 

Wow. Well, congratulations on the growth. I know it’s been a rocket ship. 

 

00:48 — Troy Hooper: 

Busy, busy. 

 

00:50 — Anthony Presley: 

Yes. And part of that ends up being managing a workforce, trying to find the right people for the right spots. Tell us a little bit about pre Covid post. Covid, you’ve been in the industry a long time. What kinds of, what trends are you seeing with the workforce that you’re hiring today? 

 

01:07 — Troy Hooper: 

Yeah, I think Covid was coincidental catalyst. It sped up the adoption of a lot of technologies and it put people who were disenfranchised by losing their jobs essentially and temporarily being set aside. And it forced them into looking for alternatives which forced them into adopting the digital world and the opportunity to make money online. And it just probably accelerated that entire curve. You know, at the time we thought five years. I think it was at least 10 years. I think if Covid hadn’t happened, we still wouldn’t be in that universe of so many people making money online so many ways like TikTok shop. You know, you can go to TikTok shop for two hours. 

 

01:47 — Troy Hooper: 

The young lady who got me this very cool badge for the show where I can show pictures of my kids and represent the brand, she did so through an affiliate link. She has a job, she has a side business and then she just does the like at any moment you can make money. And so what does that mean for the restaurateur? What does it mean for the operator? Does it mean for a brand? It means that you don’t sort of command it all anymore. You don’t hold people the way you thought you held them by the. By controlling that paycheck. And so money is less and less the motivator. And what I’m seeing far more since COVID and I started seeing this with gen. Early Gen Z and Gen Z to kind of Elaborate on who they are today. They’re in college. Right? Right. 

 

02:32 — Troy Hooper: 

So in Covid, they were in junior high and you know, senior junior high to early high school. And so they’ve grown up in this new age ecosystem and they’re digital first and so they’re very quick to adopt. And so in that environment back then they wanted development. What do you, I mean, I remember doing interviews and people, young people saying to me, that’s great. What do you have to offer me? What am I going to learn here? What am I going to get from here that I’m going to take on with me? Now I’m one of these people that I always wanted to say that to employees to tell them that I understand this is not the last job you’ll ever have. 

 

03:07 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

03:08 — Troy Hooper: 

You know, you’re working as a bus person or a dishwasher or, you know, you’re learning how to serve in a restaurant. I know you’re not doing hospitality for life now. Some people want in 100 or something will do that. But I always acknowledged that with my teams and said, I know, but there are things you should learn here that you’ll carry for life. How do I know? I started as a busboy and now I’m a CEO. Right. And so, and on whatever level I was at, I was always preaching that. But it was interesting to see the tides turn and then say to me, it’s not about the money. Like, I can make minimum wage anywhere. Right. I’m here to get something out of it. 

 

03:40 — Troy Hooper: 

And so I think operators today having a clear understanding that people can make money and they are actually making money. And I think you can leverage that in your business, by the way. But I think you have to set that aside and really think about the human. And it’s become much more one to one. It’s not like, oh, this is my A team server group and these are my bartenders and this. No, Every single person has a purpose for being there and every person has something they want to get out of this relationship. And I think you have to proactively be a giver as the owner, operator, franchisor, franchisee, whatever your business is. So that’s my take on it. 

 

04:16 — Anthony Presley: 

Wow, that was a whole lot. I loved all the strategy. 

 

04:19 — Troy Hooper: 

I’m not known for being short winded. 

 

04:21 — Anthony Presley: 

Well, you know, that’s okay. That’s okay. So I want to narrow down one or two of those items though, because one of the things we hear from a lot of folks is all about soft skill training. 

 

04:30 — Troy Hooper: 

Yep. 

 

04:31 — Anthony Presley: 

Tactically that to your point, Gen A, Gen Z, that they’re having a hard time looking people in the eye, that they’re, you know, basic things are you seeing that? Does that change any of your training within your organization? 

 

04:42 — Troy Hooper: 

Yeah, definitely seeing it, definitely. You know, these young people are used to communicating digitally by text. Even the Gen Zs were originally by Snapchat video which disappeared in what, minutes or hours. They’re not used to sort of this long form relationship building. They’re spending a lot of time talking and getting to know people because they’ve been doing it digitally through gaming and other interactions. Right. Or the other side you see is they kind of communities have gotten a lot smaller, meaning very more niche. If they’re into cosplay or they’re into anime, they’re into certain gaming. You know, even gamers will kind of just live within one game ecosystem and not really even explore other communities. Right. And so that does put them in a position of needing some support. You know, it’s hard to relate depending on how big that age gap is. 

 

05:32 — Troy Hooper: 

But I think the common things that you have to look at is this is still a young human being in development that needs to learn things. But I think we have to make it interesting. And to your point, around learning and digital and LMS or whatever that is, you know, good friend of mine, Jason Berkowitz, he’s been doing this a long time. He’s a cultural icon in training teams and motivating people. And he has a phrase that I always try to remind myself. Constant gentle pressure, right? It’s that 30 to 60 second clip, that meme, that very ADHD engagement that we have to have. And it’s not because we’re pandering to adhd, but it’s really to say, look, just drop this little seed today, right? And let’s water that tomorrow and water the next day and let’s nurture it over time. 

 

06:19 — Troy Hooper: 

That’s what really seems to work with the younger and younger generations. But it’s time consuming and it’s, you have to be thoughtful and you have to build out the content or build out the process or you have to build out what I find back to the one to one. You have to sit down, each individual, know them, understand them and sort of in your mind just have a, here’s what this person needs. Because the one size fits all just never has worked. Right. Certainly does not work in these younger generations. Right. 

 

06:48 — Anthony Presley: 

And we’re in this hospitality industry. You and I were at the Google events just to feels like a week ago, but I think it was yesterday or day before. Yeah, there’s a lot of discussion around AI for marketing, for restaurants, AI to help with, you know, everything under the sun. And then we get back into this human to human interaction, which AI has a hard time with this one to one thing. Where do you think that the AI around, we’ll call it workforce management or engagement. Where do we think that’s going to go? 

 

07:16 — Troy Hooper: 

Yeah, I think it’s going to do exactly what I’m saying we need to do, which is personalization. You know, whether it’s a device on your phone or a device in your restaurant or whatever it is, and whatever the future platform is of communication, I think AI is really going to allow us to say, okay, here’s the brand ethos, here’s. Here’s the things we want to work on, here’s the goals we have for the business. Here’s what we’d like to see our teams focused on or doing or learning and allow it to adapt into the personal brand. You know, we’re all using AI and talking about how do we train the AI in the brand voice and make sure it speaks the brand language. All this kind of stuff that’s going a little bit to the side. 

 

08:00 — Troy Hooper: 

I think the core of your brand will always have to be very strong. But, but you have to think about the individual human as they have a brand. Yeah. They have interests and ideas and desires and wants. And if you look and understand their brand, then the AI can just say, I’m going to speak to them in their language. I’m going to talk to them about the things that will motivate them the most. And I think what ends up happening inside, like your four walls of your restaurant hospitality company ecosystem is that you’ll be able to surface the individual personalities and individual skill sets much more quickly. 

 

08:34 — Anthony Presley: 

Love that. 

 

08:35 — Troy Hooper: 

Because what do we do now? We train everybody the same way. We try to sort them by what we think they’re going to be good at. 

 

08:41 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

08:41 — Troy Hooper: 

We tell them what job they’re going to do. That’s right, Disney. Because Disney does that and you’re this, you know, and then basically if they fail, we see them out the door rather than, hey, maybe this isn’t the right situation for you. Maybe you would better doing this other job. And we’re not as a whole, we’ve not been really good at that. Some brands are better than others, but I think AI is going to allow us to segment and treat people individually. And also learn about their individual best skill sets and core interests that we can, we can work with and find application for in our business. 

 

09:25 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with all that. The skills based work roles, being able to train people up, cross training, all of that so that they, they have a career path, may not be with your brand very long, but that’s actually allowing them to have a why within their organization. 

 

09:41 — Troy Hooper: 

Let me tell you what I think restaurants need to do. I had a really good opportunity out of business school to be recruited by Procter and Gamble. 

 

09:49 — Anthony Presley: 

Okay. 

 

09:50 — Troy Hooper: 

I got to do five and a half years at Procter and Gamble. It’s the only time I left the hospitality industry. And in that ecosystem they basically tried to get you to tell them what you think you are most interested. Because if you’re interested in it, you’re going to do a better job 100%. Because Margaret and Gamble at the time had 326 brands and they probably had a thousand job titles for every brand. And so quite frankly they needed to fill anywhere and everywhere all the time. And so they had the space to plug and play anybody. And so they actually reversed it. They said, let’s learn who you are and what you’re interested in, what things you like and what you’re going to be passionate about. And then let’s try to stick you in a role that seems to fit that. 

 

10:33 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

10:34 — Troy Hooper: 

And then guess what, if it doesn’t, you get to raise your hand and say, I’d rather try something else. 

 

10:39 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

10:40 — Troy Hooper: 

And I’ve seen it done in marketing at VaynerMedia with Gary Vaynerchuk. That’s their philosophy too. They don’t want anybody to leave the ecosystem. They want you to go where? Taste it, taste it, try it and then find your home. Procter and Gamble forces it. We are not allowed to keep. And when I was there, you were essentially not allowed to keep one single role for more than two years. And it actually was encouraged at about a year and a half. You should be interviewing, you should be thinking whether it’s in the same vertical or the same brand or changing industries or changing brands within an industry. They wanted you to grow by moving up and out. Yeah, restaurant hospitality doesn’t do that super well. Hotels have traditionally done pretty good with that. 

 

11:20 — Troy Hooper: 

You know, a year to a year and a half in a job at a hotel. If you’re moving up into a larger hotel or a more luxurious hotel or a busier hotel or a new role within that hotel. We just haven’t done that in restaurants, I think we need to. 

 

11:31 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, no, I love that. I had a conversation with Chip Close a couple of years ago. We were talking about Marriott, and that Marriott, as you reach certain levels, will relocate you to another brand somewhere so that you can have a different role at their cost. 

 

11:45 — Troy Hooper: 

It’s openly encouraged. 

 

11:46 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, yeah. 

 

11:46 — Troy Hooper: 

They want you looking at the job opportunities. 

 

11:49 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

11:49 — Troy Hooper: 

And saying, hey, I’d love to live there. Or they’re building a new hotel that’s a new brand or. Yeah, same thing. So same in restaurants, I think. I think we need to. And by the way, if you’re a single unit operator, three stores in a city, that doesn’t mean you don’t have opportunity. 

 

12:04 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

12:04 — Troy Hooper: 

You know, one area I talk about all the time is, you know, operators, small operators especially, say, I don’t have time to learn marketing, social media or how to. How to learn AI. Right. You don’t have to. 

 

12:15 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

12:15 — Troy Hooper: 

How many employees do you have? Eight. Great. One of them is on the Internet. 

 

12:20 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

12:20 — Troy Hooper: 

And they’re selling things on the Internet. They’re applying, they’re using AI, they’re creating bots or agents. Somebody that works for you, knows more than you about something. Use them, Invite them to be a part of building your business. 

 

12:34 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah, that’s a fantastic A point. B tracks with everything else I’ve talked about with some of the smaller brands who are going, you know, I’m overwhelmed by the marketing side. I’m overwhelmed by all the HR laws and all of this. And it’s like, okay, well, I bet there is someone on your team that would love to learn that. And looking forward two years, five years, 10 years, like, that’s a role you’ll probably need. 

 

12:56 — Troy Hooper: 

It’s a development opportunity. 

 

12:57 — Anthony Presley: 

Absolutely. 

 

12:58 — Troy Hooper: 

It also shows them that they have value beyond picking up cups and throwing. 

 

13:02 — Anthony Presley: 

Them in the trash. Right, right. 

 

13:03 — Troy Hooper: 

So I think all the way around, you can grow and level up and improve your business by using the resources you already have. 

 

13:11 — Anthony Presley: 

Perfect, Perfect. 

 

13:12 — Troy Hooper: 

Two more questions and then we’ll get. 

 

13:13 — Anthony Presley: 

You on your way. You’re a busy guy. First question is, you touched on it slightly, but I wanted to hone in on it. How do you give advice to somebody that’s maybe not in a management role but wants to be a leader? And they’re trying to figure out, like, hey, I’m just a server over here. I’m, I’m bringing cups around, I’m clearing tables. How do you go, hey, you should be a leader? This. How should you think about leadership and growth within an organization? Because it may Be not the job they want. But you know, we’re dealing with a lot of folks these days who are coming in and going, hey, I’ve been here three minutes, I’m ready for my promotion. 

 

13:46 — Troy Hooper: 

Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah, I’m going to take your job, boss. 

 

13:48 — Anthony Presley: 

That’s right. 

 

13:49 — Troy Hooper: 

Yeah. Okay, come on, please do. Let’s go. So, so I always say, raise your hand. I’ve always told teams especially when I come home. I did Turnaround business for 15 years in hospitality and so the very first thing I would say and always reinforce to especially new teams that I was in charge of, I would say whoever raises their hand gets the attention. So come to me with ideas, come to me with interest, come to me with observations. Can something be done better? Are we wasting our money buying inferior products that we could do something different with or use different utensils? I didn’t care what it was. Right. Hey, you know the concentration we use for the cleaning, floor cleaning leaves it sticky. I bet there’s a way, you know, so what I tell people is bring solutions. 

 

14:35 — Troy Hooper: 

Don’t, don’t just bring ideas and don’t just bring I want, I want, I’m better make, you know, promote me. Bring a solution. Show that you have spent a little time researching. I would encourage you to collaborate resource crowdsource information from your cohorts, your colleagues. I would encourage you to go to other restaurants or businesses like the one you’re in and observe what do they do differently, what do they do better. It’s just aspirational leadership. I aspire to be more like you or that brand or that business. What can we do in ours to mold ourselves to that? Bring those things to your leader. 

 

15:16 — Troy Hooper: 

Say, hey, you know, I’ve been thinking about X and I looked into it a little bit and I’ve spent some time talking to my colleagues and I’ve spent some time talking to other, my friends who work at other restaurants, you know. 

 

15:27 — Anthony Presley: 

Right. 

 

15:27 — Troy Hooper: 

And I’ve asked how they do that and I got a couple of good ideas. So especially with AI now. So I asked Claude for a one page summary of this dictated conversation I had with it and here’s what I think we should do and I’d love to be a part of implementing that, but I need you, Mr. Leader, Mrs. Leader to. I don’t know how to go about that. I don’t know what that looks like. Is that something we can do? 

 

15:51 — Anthony Presley: 

Yeah. 

 

15:51 — Troy Hooper: 

Raise your hand. 

 

15:52 — Anthony Presley: 

I love that. I love that. Okay, Patsy, you leave your role this Pretend you get a brand new role. You’re on the operation side or the C suite at another brand. Small, medium, large, doesn’t matter. What’s the first thing you do? What’s the first thing you would tell someone to do? It’s day one. How do you make some impact? 

 

16:11 — Troy Hooper: 

There’s employees already. 

 

16:11 — Anthony Presley: 

Yes. 

 

16:12 — Troy Hooper: 

I ask a lot of questions. You spend time listening. Whether that’s a week, a month, three months, it doesn’t matter. You do the tour, you sit down, you ask for information, you ask for advice. You understand the people, you understand the culture, you understand the brand. Because you’re going to come into that role with a lot of ideas. You’re going to have these preconceived notions. But I got very lucky at Procter and gamble. About 26 years old, I accidentally discovered Stephen Covey and the seven habits. And in the back of every custom jacket that I wear, I have it stitched. Seek first to understand. Yes, Because I am an idea guy, I see all of the opportunities and all the things I think I can bring to the table. 

 

16:59 — Troy Hooper: 

But if you do that without context, if you do that without popular information, crowdsourced context, you don’t really know what’s possible and you don’t know what roadblocks. And the best way to get people on board, on ship, rowing together, is to paint a vision that’s educated or informed. So seek first to understand, then be understood. That’s the first thing you do. Anytime you take any position over a new thing or a new person or a new team or a new business,. 

 

17:33 — Anthony Presley: 

I love that helps you build all the political capital you’re going to need to be able to go do those visionary things at a later date with the team that you. You’ve got. 

 

17:41 — Troy Hooper: 

Absolutely. 

 

17:42 — Anthony Presley: 

Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. 

 

17:44 — Troy Hooper: 

Thanks for having me. 

 

17:45 — Anthony Presley: 

Absolutely. 

 

17:46 — Troy Hooper: 

Always. Love sitting down, chatting, wonder.