Party of Six - Bar and Restaurant Staffing Solutions: Reducing Turnover and Building Culture

Discover the evolving landscape of staffing and turnover in the bar and restaurant industry with insights from global experts.

Explore how COVID-19, Brexit, and generational shifts are reshaping employment dynamics. Learn why investing in employees and fostering a supportive culture are crucial for business success.

Gain valuable strategies for adapting to industry changes, enhancing employee engagement, and understanding the 'why' behind business operations. Discover the importance of diversity and inclusion in creating a thriving work environment.

Join us in this insightful discussion and take actionable steps to improve your business operations. Listen now to transform your approach to staffing and turnover.

Panelists this Month: 

• Dave Nitzel - Co-Owner Dave and Dave Consulting, Best-Selling Author
• Aoife Halliday - COO of Ruckus
• Minakshi Singh - Co-Founder of Sidecar and the India Bar Show
• Cliff Crider - Founding Partner of Stinger Compliance and Truck and Tap
• Chris Schneider - Host of the Bar Business Podcast 

Key Takeaways

• It's crucial to invest in employees to retain talent.
• Generational shifts are impacting the bar and restaurant industry.
• COVID-19 and Brexit have significantly affected staffing dynamics.
• Creating a supportive culture is key to reducing turnover.
• Understanding the 'why' behind business operations can improve employee engagement.
• Diversity and inclusion are important for a healthy work environment.
• Exit interviews can provide valuable insights for improving retention.
• Adapting to changing industry standards is necessary for success.
• Employee training and development are essential for growth.
• Measuring turnover and understanding its causes can lead to better management.

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Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:00.974)
Welcome to Party of Six. We are joining you again this month and we have a fantastic panel of people that have a lot of experience in the bar and restaurant industry. Joining us today is Cliff Kreider, is the founding partner of Stinger Compliance and owns Truck and Tap. Dave Nitzel of Dave and Dave Consulting. Ifa Halliday of The Ruckus Group. And Minakshi Singh of, who is that? I should say the co-founder of Sidecar, the India Bar Show. There's a bunch of stuff.

And then you got me, Chris Schneider. I am the host of the bar business podcast. Today, we're going to dive into staffing and turnover. And so what's should be fun today is we're going to talk about from different perspectives, kind of from around the world. so we should see a lot of interesting things about how staffing has exists and also see where kind of we're all in the same boat, regardless of where we are. So with that, the first thing I want to ask, because this is something I hear and

It's always interesting to me, people will say, well, it's impossible to find a good team. And okay, it's not hard, but I also know people that never have a problem getting a good team. So with your experience out there in the current market, knowing owners and being owners yourselves, what do you think about staffing? Is it actually a problem? Is the problem that you can't find good employees or that you just can't find good employers?

Dave Nitzel (01:26.584)
Who asking Chris, who do you like?

Dave Nitzel (01:32.962)
Look, I'm not a bar owner. again, I always qualify my opinions with that. This is what I think I observe from up close, frankly, is that there's been a relationship between bars and bar employees for years that was transactional, which is to say, I've got a job, you want to fill it. The person coming in to fill the job says, hey, I want temporary work. Either I'm young and I'm doing it during school or I'm in between jobs.

And there was a sort of a transactional nature. And then I think post COVID, we lost a lot of people. And the transactional nature went away because there just wasn't as many people coming in for that type of work. And we've had to rethink employment to some extent. And to be as employers invest more into people than what we traditionally did before. And understanding too with prices and costs going up, I should say costs going up on everything, creating some tension.

and some continuity in the business matters more than it did before. And that's from afar. That isn't to say that people in our industry haven't valued employees in the past. I'm not suggesting that, but just sort of as a baseline on what the behaviors look like.

A lot of emphasis on guests from a people perspective, not quite the same energy put towards employees and that might need to shift. That's my 10,000 foot view perspective.

All right, so that's Dave's 10,000 foot view. Minakshi, does that line up with what you see in India?

Minakshi Singh (03:06.702)
Yeah, look, I mean, I see this everywhere. I feel like from an Indian perspective. And I started my first bar in like 13 years ago now. And that time, we pretty much managed everything on our own. And we were fairly new into the industry. And over the years, we've seen there's been a constant churn of people coming in and out while the churn is very regular. And it is a high-atrition industry. Having said that, there was

Like what Dave is saying is that it was always, we were always a consumer first, guest first sort of an approach always. And I think that's how traditionally a lot of the hospitality industry has been for the longest time. And I feel the shift in the mindset is happening and it's happening very slowly, but it is very much there. We are seeing a similar crunch here in India as well. More than anything else, there's a lack of the funnel which was constantly getting filled up earlier.

So there was a lot of younger people constantly joining into the industry. And so we could always depend on a little bit of the trainees coming in and the newer people getting trained constantly. And of course people are moving in to larger jobs. But there was not so much industry shift happening in the past. I think post-COVID we've seen a lot of the middle management level people have left the industry for quality of time that they wanted to spend. There was a lot of...

know, flexy time that they got, they got a lot of time with their families. So I think all of that changed perspective and shifted that. There's been a big correction, I would say, in the industry standards in terms of salaries and take home and the kind of policies also that we are seeing, which I think is really positive. We really needed that. And I think the shift has happened really quickly in that space. So in the last, I would say two to three years, the shift is very clear that organizations are re-looking at

their own policies, their own people with a far more closer lens and spending a lot more money with them, not just in terms of the salaries and remuneration, but also upscaling, trading up and looking at horizontal growth, not just vertical growth. A whole lot of that is happening. So we are completely in the thick of things exactly. I feel like everywhere I go, I hear the same story, even within the Southeast Asia Asian perspective as well. We are seeing the similar sort of changes.

Chris Schneider (05:32.398)
Aoife, What are you thinking on this?

So in the UK and Europe, we not only had COVID here, we also had the B word, had Brexit. So.

You know, geographically we're positioned and with free movement of people. We had in London, because I'm London based, we had in London just transitional staff coming through, people coming for their two years, three years, whatever abroad, coming to learn bartending in London as well. You know, from France, Italy, Spain. You know, so we had this mass of like influx going

Back to like when I was sort of frontline. So like 2008, 2009, when I was frontline, we never had to advertise for staff. We would have had just, we would have had a stack of CVs where people would just come to the bar and just hand in the CV, you know, and you'd have, you know, name, date, you know, what they wanted, put it away, fine. And you could just go through them to get trials in, you know, you just had an abundance of people. But then COVID happened and then

A lot of people.

Aoife Haliday (06:53.192)
here that worked in the industry got trapped in their home countries for two years. And then we lost a lot of people that didn't want to come back. And then it coincided with the finalization of Brexit. And then it meant as well, that people couldn't come back because then they couldn't apply for their long-standing visa because they had been here and stuff. So we had a big exodus in London, specifically

London of people that couldn't come back and didn't want to come back to work in the industry.

We here, I don't know if it's the same with you guys and they are like, we have sort of, you know, two types of people that work in hospitality. They're the people that just want to pay the rent. They pay the bills, they're students, you know, they're here for a good time, but they're not here for a long time, you know, and that's fine, you know, it's absolutely fine. And we'll teach them the skills. And sometimes, sometimes we teach them so much of the skills that they stay and they become lifers, you know, or we have the people that have decided that it's a career.

but we don't really have the foundation here where we can go into schools and list out all the careers that we have in hospitality. And there's a lot of ignorance as to what we have and what we can offer as an industry to the younger people. So in terms of finding staff, lots of people here's perception would just be, it's just to pay the rent. And they don't understand this wealth of career paths.

you can have within the industry. So we struggle with that.

Chris Schneider (08:38.818)
So, Cliff, because I want to ask you a question kind of building off what Ava just said. Do you see in the US the same sort of thing where people don't see hospitality as a good career path? And do think that's part of why people may have trouble getting employees?

Yeah, so I agree with if there definitely are two types of employees, I think, in the food and beverage business, but I think there's a third one, I think it's the default. It's the people that just, you know, they just default into a certain, you know, let's just call it food and beverage of trade, right? They default into a certain trade. And yeah, they could stay or they could pass through. So I kind of say the same thing. You have pass throughs, you have the defaults, and you have the career.

But yeah, food and beverage is difficult. It's probably, when I was like 15 or 16, I worked at fast food, then I worked in a really heavy duty bar and restaurant. And I was so afraid of going anywhere near the kitchen. Those guys would just beat the shit out of me. that still exists today. It's a tough business. I being in the food and beverage business is a tough business.

And so, why do you want to subject yourself to be in a career in such a tough business when you can go somewhere else and maybe have a better situation? So first of all, let's just say, I mean, let's just lay down. It's a hard business being in the food and beverage business. If you're a bartender, if you're a server, if you're a if you're a cook, and there's a lot of problems. There's a lot of problems that we deal with.

probably mental illness and substance abuse and other kinds of abuse. So why do you want to have a career in this business? I mean, you got to love it, right? You got to love it. And you want to persevere past all those issues and you want to change things. So I really think the people that succeed in this are passionate about the food and beverage and they want to make a change. It's unfortunate that

Cliff Crider (10:52.468)
exist within all levels of management, this default of people that really, I don't know, they see this as their playground or something, or just a way to make a paycheck and, you know, have another drink at night. So yeah, it's, I forgot what the question is, but it's a tough business. so if I was a young person looking at the alternatives out there, you know, I don't know if I'd go with food and beverage, you where's my upside?

Yeah, and I think that's true for a lot of people. And I think it's really good that you pointed out that default group, because I don't know how many people I knew that were, you know, bartenders in college to pay their way through college. And then they were 40. And you're going, hey, you're not in college anymore. Yeah. And that seems to actually, think that's in some regards, that might be like this most sizable chunk of our industry over people that actually set out to have a career in the industry.

Yeah.

Minakshi Singh (11:52.27)
Yeah, that's pretty much like every bartenders or you know, story where they always say that or they started bartending just to just for pocket money and you know, some money in the middle and then suddenly just kept doing this and they found their passion and I mean, yeah, I mean, 100%. You have to be passionate, you have to be in love with this. No matter what I feel like you have to be really invested to really grow and I think that's what the challenge of this becoming a career is that a lot of times in the middle somewhere you might

find yourself confused in the journey where you're like, okay, so where is this taking me? Is this gonna be in my life for the next number of years? Until the time, if you can't see that, and sometimes it is a little confusing, unlike the corporate where the ladder is a little clearer, you have a lot more processes driving you, you have a little presence, you have a very clear cut assigned, duties and jobs.

In our industry, it's so fluid. It's literally like the bartender can also be a great host and the host can become a great front line cook. You never know when that day has to come where you have to shift your sort of tracks and be good at everything. And to become a manager, then you have to, again, assign yourself those responsibilities and duties. You kind of end up learning on the job and picking up a lot of skills over the years. And you end up becoming a manager who started off as a...

behind like line cook or you know you could be a bar back and then you suddenly become you can rise to a GM so I think it's it's it's very much about perseverance and very much about you know is your brain tuned towards hospitality and I think it takes a certain type to to to reach that sort of a level it's not definitely everybody's everybody's ballgame I've

Well, for sure. And I'm to pick on Aoife a little bit because I know she was spent all day yesterday doing training because that's that's kind of where we're getting at. Right. Here's we have these employees. We have to give them the tools to your point. So Aoife when we're thinking training around the industry and how we have to adapt since you you're tired this morning because you've been doing that all day yesterday, what what do we need to teach people to to actually make this industry attracted to them to actually keep them here?

Aoife Haliday (14:08.782)
Well, like...

I completely agree with Minakshi that knowledge is power. And a lot of people that come into the industry, they don't understand what lies beneath and the amazing careers and the amazing journeys that they can go on. Again, they might come in and start as a host. And then the next thing they know, their passion's in the kitchen. I do think it's about training and investing in your people and making sure that they're fully aware.

that all these things are going on. I started like the reason that I ended up working in bars and restaurants, I worked in retail, you know, just part time pocket money. And then when I went to university, I spent my student loan in the first week and I had to get a job. So I got a job in a bar and had to pay my way through university. So, you know, I I loved being in bars and I loved partying. And I thought, this is great.

I can save money and I can still go out and I can still listen to great music and I have a boogie on Friday night and it's not going to cost me any money. So that's how I fell in love. And when I came to London, it was all pubs and stuff that I worked in. then when I came to London, I joined a group. was the first time that anybody has ever said, OK, your induction's done.

You know, you're going to come in on Tuesday and this guy is going to teach you how to make drinks. And I was like, what? I've been working in pubs for years. I know how to make a drink, you know? And they were like, no, no, no, you're going to come in. He's going to teach you how to make drinks and, you know, this and teach you service and all of this. And I sat in that training and it was the first proper time that somebody had invested in the training, me how to work behind the bar. And and I sat there and I was just blown away.

Aoife Haliday (16:08.728)
that we spent four hours talking about cocktails, spirits, how to mix drinks, how to create atmosphere, how to create vibe, and how important that you are as the bartenders, the frontline staff in making the magic happen. And I sat there and I thought, this is, I was like, can't believe somebody pays you to do this. This is an amazing job. And it sort of opened my eyes to all these amazing jobs.

I did say to him, a couple of years, I'll have your job. And I did, in a couple of years, I had his job. But it opened up the entire industry, the drinks industry, the spirit industry, and just all of this thing. So I believe that you have to invest in your people and you have to give them that insight into how it works, how it works, what your business is, what it is you're trying to create.

the experience that you're trying to give people and you have to really bring everybody along from the very beginning and invest in the training so that they're able to create that magic and that experience for your customer.

You know, Chris, to kind of run with that a little bit more too, I think it's incumbent upon the ownership to make that happen. So, you know, a lot of this is we talk about the employees and getting them to stay, but getting them to stay means that we create a path and a conversation. So for example, I was recently doing a talk and a gentleman in the back raised his hand and I was talking about the importance of doing one-on-ones.

which isn't something that I think we naturally do in this industry. I don't see it. And I was like, look, you need to have one-on-ones with people to find out what their individual needs, wants, and desires are. And then you can sort of manage to that. And this gentleman raised his hand in the back and he goes, Dave, know, he goes basically bah humbug, that doesn't work. I do one-on-ones and nobody cares. And I was like, you know, that's rare. Like I haven't really ever seen nobody care about that. So I was like, tell me more. And he said, well, I told everyone that if they

Dave Nitzel (18:17.358)
want to have a one-on-one with me that they can come see me anytime. I just kind of laughed and I said, no, man, that's not how that goes. It's our responsibility as the owner and leader to schedule unique. This isn't a performance review. This is you getting to know your team. And frankly, selfishly, we need to slow down the turnover because what's churned, one person's about $4,000.

ahead and turnover and people say, that can't be do the math. And it's about right. And what would your life look like? What's your life look like at 100 200 % turnover? What would your life look like at 10 % turnover? And if everyone knows what you know, and you've invested in and we've got everyone moving in the same direction, and no one's leaving suddenly as an owner, you have something called time and options, which is hard to find. Cliff has time and options. I know this about Cliff.

Cliff has time and options because he doesn't have massive turnover and because he invests in his team and it's very clear to him what his team wants and it's very clear to his team what he wants. So anyway, without going too far in, my point is it starts at the top and owners have to change the culture of their business if they want to change the culture of their business and invest in people and understand them at a more...

Yes, personal level and professional level. Final point. I said this in that same talk. Show me a career where I can start as a dishwasher and be an owner in like five or six easy steps. It's an incredible industry to work in. It's an incredible career with a rocket ship trajectory if we let people know what that path is. And I'll shut up.

Dave, you're good. Real quick though, I want to go to Cliff because you called him out, so I want to give him a chance to tell us about time and options a little bit.

Cliff Crider (20:16.27)
I think what we've done a good job here is creating a bench, right? So, and we had those success stories. One of our beloved general managers was, he started as a customer, know, a balding purple haired punk rock drummer, little chubby guy. But everybody loved him. And so, so he started as a bar back and

went to bartender, went to assistant manager and went to GM. But, you know, it's a tough business and he works somewhere else now. But while he was here, it was fantastic. And so we've had those stories. We've got two bars right now that probably have the same crew that have been there pre-COVID. Maybe one turnover, you know, things happen. But

where we just lost somebody at our Woodstock location and, you know, someone was telling me about it with a tear in their eye. You know, so it's it's we've got a good team. We've got we've got a good culture while they're here. They need to be, you know, they figure out where they're where their role is. You know, we've got two locations that have kitchens and the dynamics are a little bit different. But again,

turnover is low. just think you've got to, it's a philosophical question really. It transcends economics. So you just got to do the right thing to your employees. Dave knows a little bit about it. hey, Dave, give me some books. I'm going to pass the books out. See who one of your books sparks with.

you

Cliff Crider (22:07.906)
Little things like that. It's not like I'm just running around having one-on-ones with people, but, you know, take some time to pull somebody aside and give them a compliment, hand them a book, ask them how they are. I mean, that goes a long way, but our general managers and our assistant managers have come from the ground up. of fact, our busiest store, a general manager came to us as a bartender.

by way of Cheesecake Factory. And he was a manager at Cheesecake Factory. So COVID just gave us a wealth of employees because they were getting out of the business. And we were one of the few bars that were open in the Atlanta area. And so we got some talent. And so he's been there since COVID. And so again, from the top down, it creates a culture. And it gives us options. So Dave's absolutely right.

Yeah, I feel like key word to pick up from there is culture and it's a lot about culture building. It's about your DNA as the founder, which is going all the way to the person who's at the gate, to the person who's even washing the dishes. What we've seen is that we looked at a bunch of things two years ago where we were like, so, you it's really fun exercise that we've started doing every three months. We've done a few things.

and looked at it generally and what like one is of course, you're always available to talk to you. But in second level, as far as know, this is the owners and owners is on the founders to take that call. can't just hire an HR manager and expect them to spin things around and they will never understand or feel the way you feel actually about your business. And one of the great things that came out of that exercise two years ago was that we saw

a bunch of people who came up to us and shared things like, know, staff news and you we would like to have a longer break. So we would like to have, you know, we don't need to work extra, but we would like this, you know, nice smoking area and stuff like that. really worked because we went back to be like, hey, listen, you know, this is important. This is back at the house stuff, which is not really even making you money per se, but there is a, there is something called comfort of the team. There's something called, you know, assistant. And then it just

Minakshi Singh (24:27.554)
creating that environment, right? And then we started doing the family meals and a bunch of things that we sort of turned a few things around and we could see the overall general happiness, like, how people work for people. we always say that they don't really work for any organizations and working because their, you know, manager is a good manager or sometimes they leave because their manager is not good enough, whichever way you look at it. And, and if that is where

you have to look at and I think when you should ask those questions as a founder yourself, if you're seeing things shift too fast, you should definitely look at your own managers and see is their behavior different in front of you and is their behavior different in front of the employees? Are they behind your back, not treating your team nicely with respect? mean, at the end of it, with comfort, you know, are they giving that sort of space to grow? To have a, just have a space to vent out sometimes, you know.

Once, remember a few years back, someone came up to me and while they were leaving, I was very upset and I was like, what happened? You know, were doing so well and we were so happy with your performance. We were looking at shifting you to the next bar. don't know, she... You know, whenever we go up to the manager, he sort of shuts us down with how things are and, you know, did not listen to us. I felt that being the... sometimes being just needs to be listened to. You know, just a good person.

overall, right? And I think that's what Cliff meant by philosophical there, where you do transcend from processes very easily into being a good human being. And just kind of it's a very old school to say that you're all family and you we are working in a family. A lot of the younger genders not understand those words. And when you say that, you know, we're all, let's eat a meal together, you know, let's just have a chat, let's have a coffee together, what a great time, know, why do we have to have a standing up?

session all the time. Let's all sit down and be comfortable. The body language shifts the minute they are comfortable in talking to you and sharing things. And we've seen that change with a few of the younger team that joined us and we were really struggling with, I mean, if you notice that it's the older guys who still have the boys and the girls who still have a career path going on, but younger ones are the ones who are very quickly moving or very quickly shifting industries because

Minakshi Singh (26:47.47)
There's more restlessness in them and we keep making fun of the gen Z's but at the end of it, this is the generation we have to reach out to. It's always the elder generation talking badly about the younger generation. I our parents talk badly about us. So I feel like this is how this was your prerogative, right? we got that. But yeah, I feel like it takes patience and it takes listening and it takes looking internally sometimes that maybe you need to be more

calmer and more patient with your own people.

Well, I just want to add some, can I just add some real quick? You know, get back to the general manager and the family time. Just an example, the general manager will twice a year take the whole restaurant to a mountain house and hang out for one night. And our accountant will bitch and bitch and bitch about that money going out the door. Why are we doing this? No one does this, you know?

And it's like, why would we not do that? And so that's part of it. You've got to break the mold of being everything about the numbers or everything about what we did somewhere else. So anyway, sorry, 8foot, go for it.

I know you're good. I wanted to jump on the younger. So we did three trainings yesterday. The last training that we did.

Aoife Haliday (28:15.894)
The general manager said, I've got 50 staff. How do you want to break this up? And I said, well, let's do let's let's get your your senior team, you know, your general manager, your AGM, your supervisors, all the rest will go through it with them first. And then then we'll get the juniors and the part timers. And she was like, right. OK. She was like, she said, don't be expecting much from them. You know, don't you shouldn't be like, you know.

So she had our expectations going into that training last night and it was myself and Dave. Dave knows my business partner and our expectations going into that training. were like, we're going to do this. We thought we were going to be sitting with, you know, 23 Gen Z's looking at us like we were, you know, sort of dinosaurs and crazy, you know, and what are we talking about? And, you know, kind of thing. She set us up with this expectation and it was the best training of the day.

She like they were they were so engaged. They they were having so much fun. And because they they don't see one another because it's such a big team, you know, it was really good to get them together, you know, to understand each other's roles within the business. It's quite multifaceted. This business we were in, you know, and they got on. had them broke up into groups and it was the most energetic and the.

the most fun training we did all day. was the same training, but the three different groups of people. And it was really good. So yeah, I think sometimes our perception of the younger ones, it blew me away yesterday because I was like, there's a lot of moaning in the media and in the press about, know, they don't know how to work, the work ethic, they're so distracted, you know, and all the rest. But they were so engaged yesterday and it was really refreshing to see. So yeah, I think we underestimate them.

That is so true. I think part of that is that for whatever reason, we've gotten this idea that like Gen Z is lazier, Gen Z is this or that, right? And we take those preconceived notions in and then it just, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And something I like to tell people a lot of times is how you treat your employees is how they treat your customers. So if you assume your employees are dumb, they're going to assume your customers are dumb and now you have a bad experience.

Chris Schneider (30:37.058)
But with that, Dave, what are your kind of thoughts on this area?

Yeah, I agree with that too. think every generation is different and just because they're not the same, because they may not think the same as us, doesn't mean they don't want to be just as successful or more so. So I reject the idea that there's generational stupidity. I mean, if you talk to the greatest generation about baby boomers who we sort of, know, baby boomers are somehow exalted now, those were the pot-smoking hippies of the 60s that nobody liked, right? So...

ignore anything about that. what I do think and Cliff undersells himself a little bit. If you treat people as disposable, they'll behave as such, right? You tell people how important they are. Cliff does a wonderful job, if I may, of sharing knowledge. And one of the greatest gifts we can give as leaders to our teams isn't how to do something, or what to do, but why to do it and why it matters. And we teach people how to think.

.

Dave Nitzel (31:37.16)
instead of how to do stuff. And Cliff doesn't walk into one of his bars and tell people how to pour a drink. People gravitate to him because he'll talk to him about business. He will. He's a natural sort of teacher and is a happy sharer of information. And people gravitate to that. And I think too often in the industry, I see people that just want to teach process, even training. So there's one thing to train the hell out of someone, which I agree with. We want to train people.

But when we get people to transition from what to do to why I do it and they understand how to think and behave in a business, then we've given people so much, so much more and they'll stick around longer, right? So there's not, it's...

it by behaving in a very unselfish way and being very giving to others, we it's reciprocal and that's how we get that. That's why Cliff has time to do stuff because his team knows how to think. There's no doubt and by the way, Cliff does Christmas parties. They don't just go to cabins. I got the invitation to the Christmas party. Cliff does lots of celebratory events.

It's not by accident. if you want to have this low turnover, if you want to have time and money and continuity in your business, it's very deliberate how you have to go about doing that. And someone said something about breaking the mold. That's what I think. I think we have to break the mold of what's been for many, many, years. And the people that are on the cutting edge of that, people are lining up to work with Cliff. Where other people, I have people who are shutting down service in their restaurant and they're brown bagging the restaurant because

Because no one will even apply to work there. So there's a chasm between the people who understand people, not just guests, and people who don't.

Aoife Haliday (33:32.408)
Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, I mean, you said it, Dave, that if you have people who ask the why or go for the why rather than how, and this is again beginning for me, you know, the low most to the highest in the hierarchy, that is, those are the kind of people I also feel that at the same time, you also have value or investment in the human resources.

Definitely, you know, something which is right now of prime importance. And that's what we are discussing and why you're fitting. But also at the same time for you to understand that which is where and who do you want to, how do you want to do this intervention? Because this is where the generation and the age and the career and the paths are going. So while you might have a vertical growth, you also need horizontal. There are many, many younger ones who want to know more about how is this business run?

Many people have come up to me and said, you want to be a bar owner? I didn't have the guts to go up to the person I was working with, whatever, five, when I was five years down there, down into my own career to say that, how do you own this thing? And I want to this one day. But today's young ones do come up to you and they will ask you this, that I want to open a bar. How did you do this? What did you do? How did you get the money? Who are these people? How do you get the concept? And it's interesting because I like that. I like the fact that they are

questioning and they are questioning you and they also they don't have the inhibition is much lower. The social norms are not as stringent. They're also like when we talk about India, there's always been a lot more difference between the blue collar jobs and the white collar jobs. you know, I came from a corporate job moving into a hospitality industry where we ended up washing, washing one day where somebody, you know, we had to be in the party, you because you have to do it one fine day. We need to clean it. It's a Friday night.

Minakshi Singh (35:25.974)
You you do it. your MBA doesn't count here. Your background doesn't count here. And I think that's where the mixing of the setup is, where you say that, now is the time where the generation and the people who working with you today are very different from the ones that worked with you five years back, five years back, 10 years back. Because they were just working because they were like, you know, is a great bar, pays you good money.

founders, know, won some awards. It's, it's, they're going for that. But I feel like now people are working for people more and looking at their own self growth much more. And, and have a lot of questions there. And if you have the answers and if you can intervene and you can customize their journeys and find the stars between that, the ones who are the inclusive ones, the energetic ones for the investors, I think that intervention goes a long way.

rather than a blanket intervention across the board for your management setup. You while you will do the basics, but you know, it's about I'm talking about certain set of, you know, trainings and, you know, sponsoring certain trips, certain sessions, certain workshops, know, know, bar shows, all of that. So it all kind of comes down to where the motivation of your employee is.

and intervening as the founder to say, hey, like, you know, this person wants to do this. I can't force them to become a manager if they want to travel the world because that is not a good manager for me. You know, that's the manager is never in the bar. That's the that's the whole kind of I mean, that's my bit, but I feel like things are shifting really fast and the ecosystem is changing right in front of you.

Cliff Crider (37:12.814)
Sometimes the journey isn't at the bar and you have to make that decision sometimes for them. And many times it's the best decision for them. So it's not always that the food and beverage business is perfect for an individual. You do have those situations where we have to sit down with someone and say, listen, this is

this is probably best for the both of us. so, you know, we're talking all about the touchy feely, you know, having great employees and great lives and kinesthetic moments and things like that behind the bar and the kitchen. It's not always that way. So, you know, if we're talking about labor and we're talking about trying to, you know, have our bench and have our options.

you know, sometimes we have remove some of those options and that's, just, I just want people to remember that sometimes it's, it's a good decision to do that for, for both parties. I know I'm a little bit of a downer here, but it's the reality, the reality of the business.

Yeah, yeah, we we call it freeing up somebody's future. You know. We need to bring up.

Yeah, I liked it.

Aoife Haliday (38:39.182)
Yeah, we free up your future for you, you know, and for us. So I wanted to sort of jump on the back there of what we were saying, you know, in the shift in front of you, like the ecosystem shifting in front of you. And I think as well, especially in London, in London, it's such a competitive market, you know, for staff, you know, and the employers here.

really, you know, it is so competitive that they really have to think about what they are offering, you know, an employee going forward. And there's been a big sort of generational shift now where, you know, the younger ones are being, you know, they're looking at it and they're going, well, you know, I get my pension and I get this and I get that. And they've got, you know, their staff trips and they've got, you know, maybe an extra day's holiday a year and, know, and all this different thing. And

Whereas in, you know, we just, you know, we were just like, yeah, that bar looks cool. Let's go and have a work, you know, let's go and work in there. And I think there is people are being, you know, much more thoughtful, you know, about where they want to work and who they want to work for, you know. So as an employer, you have to really think about what you're what you're offering, you know, your potential and future staff as well to to attract, you know, the players that you need.

So something I want to throw out there, because this is something I've noticed and kind of a theory I've had, and I want to see what you guys think. When we're talking about these generational shifts in the industry, it seems like with owners, when I think back to when I first got in the industry when I was like 15, 16, know, bus and tables, the stuff I would see after the doors were closed, whether that was people not wearing clothes or heavy drinking or drugs or whatever, like that was just every night, right?

If the things that I saw 20 years ago happened today, there would be lawsuits, people would get arrested, employees would quit, you'd be lambasted on social media. Like just what happens in the industry to me in the 20 years has almost entirely shifted. And then so you have some of these folks that have been around for 20, 30 years that grew up in that environment where it was a little bit more, I don't know, rough and tumble, little more Wild West.

Chris Schneider (41:02.016)
And it seems to be hard for them to adjust to today where everything has to be a little bit actually professional, like don't do drugs at work and keep your clothes on professional. And that seems to be a hard shift for some people. And I see a little bit of a difference between kind of the old people with the old style mentality and people with the new style mentality when it comes to ability to get employees.

Yeah, those are the ones we're talking about when we say dinosaurs. Those are the dinosaurs. That's why they're extinct. And I feel like there's a reason why they are sort of getting out of the industry or maybe are finding it very tough to find people to work with them. Because if you're not moving at the time, maybe, know, okay, 20 years ago, this was the norm and this is how things happen. It's not the norm now. It's not something you can just get away with. And

I think if you don't have that mentality, which is where you're constantly learning and growing, that is a learner's mindset, right? So if you don't have the learner's mindset, that could be very dangerous and counterproductive too. I have met many very, very, very senior people in the industry who would be like, this is how we used to do things, you know, and this is how things have to be. And those are the people who are getting canceled now constantly with the, you know, with the younger ones because

And in all honesty, I also feel that that's healthy because we don't want that, you know, that to happen again to anybody if they did do all those things behind those doors. I mean, good riddance.

Dave, see you all over the place. I was just going say, Dave, I see you taking notes over there. I'm wondering what you're writing down.

Dave Nitzel (42:43.438)
Yeah, look, I always take lots of notes during a, right, just to track the conversation. No, look, I was actually thinking while Menoch was talking, I was thinking about, you know, last episode, we talked about why do you own a bar? And I was, and I won't take too much time here, but I was called in for a coaching, or a consultation, a guy wanted to work with us.

We're going through the bar and he was just all negative about everything, like everything's negative. So at one point I just naturally said, you know, why do you own bars? He said, I own bars so I can have sex with college girls. He was in a college town.

I was like, oh, all right. Well, like he had no entry. He couldn't. All this guy wanted. That's the only reason I was like nothing else. He's like, no, he goes, I make a ton of money and I want to have sex with young girls. And I was like, all right, dude, well, probably not my I didn't I wasn't you know, I didn't like plant my holy flag and say, I'm not working with you. But inside, I was not working with him. I didn't verbalize it. I was like, oh, that's that's an interesting take on the business. We did the rest of the walkthrough and that sort of thing. And I left and never called him back. So, you

why you do this matters and I think the why for the younger generation of owners is different than the why for the old but not all old people are evil either I mean look at Cliff he's really old and he's wonderful so not all not old so it's not ever it's just like the other generation not all young people are lazy and not all evil but the why for everyone does does matter that's what I was thinking in the moment that wasn't the notes I was taking

Did John Bagg go on what Monarch was saying about people getting cancelled? Like we have quite a lot of, you know, the sort of dinosaur, you know, like the ones that aren't changing, they're not shifting with the times, you know, and, you know, and some of the areas in London, you know, their venues should be busy just based on the simple fact of location, you know, but they've not shifted their offering, their offering to their, you know, to the

Aoife Haliday (44:45.838)
the new demographics in the area and the new demographics of attracting good people. And they're very confused as to why it's not working. Why was it working 15 years ago? Why was I making 150,000 pounds a week and I am barely scraping 50,000 pounds a week? And it's quite hard. Like you said, Dave, trying to tell people.

that this is, you you're doing it all wrong. It's quite hard sometimes to explain that to people when this is their mindset. Like we had one client, the area in London that they had their venues, they didn't even like going there or being there. you know, and they used to just like, you know, slag off the people that like sort of created the area, made that area busy and, you know, popular and all the rest. it's like, why do you even bother? You know, why do you bother having venues in this area?

trying to create something for this area, for this demographic, for the people in this area, and you don't even like the area yourself. It's just mind-blowing.

Just to add to, know, we were talking about just two bits of, it's a really unsafe environment for women to work in. mean, and if you see 20 years ago, 25 years ago, countries like India didn't even have women in the bar. They would never have women behind the bar, in the kitchen, because these were the really unsafe spaces. And the fact that there's a shift, the fact that we are living in far more inclusive, more global, vocal world,

even if you think of doing something, you better not, right? So it's clearly the boundaries have been drawn, right? And if you don't realize that, and then you also walk into the bar, this is one of the signs that I have for myself that if I see no women around in the bar, either serving or somewhere working in the bar, I see that as a question mark where like, what's going on? Like, do you want to hire girls or do you have something up there?

Minakshi Singh (46:49.784)
something amiss in, especially in the bigger cities where you can find women who are eager to work, you know, and are open to working in the service industry. And if you don't have them, you should call it out. Like I call out all the time with bars where you'll be like, hey, you you might be the most whatever that you're doing, but where are the women in your team? Like, what's up? Like, you not hired? Is there a deliberate non hiring policy? I mean, I can be a little bit of a stubborn person when it comes to that, but I feel

to speak it out. I've been to panel discussions where there are only men sitting and giving you no premium about how the industry must run or where the future stays. I'm like, literally, you're taking 50 % of the population and discussing the future of the industry. Come on. There's something wrong with that setup. And I feel the unhealthiness of the industry is where the good riddance part was. When I said that, that's all of it. was the toxic.

I feel part of our industry, I think kept a lot of the women away. of course, know, especially in companies like India where, know, it's culturally also a tough one to navigate.

I think too, for anyone who doesn't know, she helped redraw social borders in India. So if you guys don't know who she is, you should look her up because significant, significant impact on an entire, I don't know, not just in Delhi, but like in a whole country. She's a really big deal, everyone. So check out Minakshi and see what she's about. It's really cool, I think anyway.

okay, you do a better introduction than this

Dave Nitzel (48:26.446)
That's not how it works!

Boom! Shot's fired.

These are-

How long will it take? How long will it take you?

There you go. You were saying something. Sorry, I kind of rolled over.

Chris Schneider (48:44.737)
it.

No, we have a similar thing. know, obviously, know, Minakshi you know, re-drew the social borders in India and stuff. know, much, much bigger walls to crack down, but you do find here as well too, it's very male dominated. You know, I am generally the only female in the boardroom, especially when you work in certain parts of hospitality, which is like, you know, I work in operations.

mainly operations and training. You find far more females head of HR and find, you know, in certain pockets, marketing, sales, HR. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of running venues and the actual operations and things like that, you tend to find that it's very male-dominated. And trying to get a voice in the room is hard work. And, you know, we do have groups that we work with and, you know,

all their owners, all their top senior management are all male. And trying to influence them to maybe try and get some diversity into their top management could really help their culture and really help them attract people and a variety of people and diversity in their teams as well too.

You know, it's interesting to me too, because as you guys are talking, I'm thinking, OK, I agree. It's an absolute red flag if you go into a bar and it's all men. That's a little weird. But the other red flag is on the other side. When you go into a bar and the only people working are really attractive women between like 21 and 25.

Chris Schneider (50:22.798)
Right? you'll see that and that's just usually as much of a toxic culture as one without women. And then too, you see most of the managers are men and it just gets a little creepy in a lot of bars, I notice. And for some reason, people think that's good for business, which I have never understood. Cliff, what are your thoughts?

Well, you have to hire good looking guys too. then it just offsets, you know, even Steven. So, yeah, I mean, listen, we have our cougar sitting at the bar, you know, I mean, it's we have our our young men sit. Everybody comes in for the bar, you know. And again, like I said, our most famed bartender was a smaller, chubby, blue haired.

Dude, so what was attractive about him was his service. He knew exactly what beer you wanted before you walked in the door. And if he didn't know it, you believed he knew it. And so that's what you want. I'll give you a real quick story about the women. We have in one of our locations, we have a general manager and assistant manager that are women.

our busiest location, assistant manager is a woman. And I happened to pop in there like around 10 30 at night. I was kind of like doing a little round just to check bathrooms and just screw around. And so I was there and she was closing up and there's about four guys and here's this 23 year old assistant manager of this store that does the biggest volume. And one of the guys has given her some lip and she's saying, you know, you should have plugged something in. And I forgot exactly the story. And, and he was just being like my

my six year old son on my sick or you know, my teenage son, he was just going back and forth with her. And finally, I just said, Look, dude, I said, just say yes, ma'am. Okay, just say yes, ma'am. And and so you know, if you're gonna have if you're gonna have women in the workplace, right, that in our leadership, you have to support them. And so at that moment, I think he figured out, you know, where I look what side of the aisle I was on, I wasn't one of the dudes that he was kind of hanging out with, you know, I was clearly on her side. So

Cliff Crider (52:33.996)
That gave her, I'm sure that gave her a couple of credits for the next near future. yeah, if you're going to have women in the workplace, you got to support them. you know, as far as the, you know, it's, it's, it's personality, you got to hire for personality. You know, you can teach anybody this trade craft behind the bar, but you got to hire for personality first. And, you know, looks have to be second, honestly.

Yeah, you know, it's a shame that we are, you know, hopefully we'll get to the point where the woman in the positions of hire won't need the support, you know, and we will just we'll just have this support, you know, without without that. it's great that you're, know, you're a supporter, Cliff, of having women in leadership roles within your business.

Yeah, no, mean, like it makes a huge difference. Yeah.

Sorry, we're saying something at the...

No, sorry.

Minakshi Singh (53:40.108)
No, was saying that, absolutely. I I think that the intent of hiring women is one and then going ahead and supporting and planning their career and showing up for the team because the minority sometimes matters. And I think that is where your culture, progressive culture, inclusive culture come in. You are being hired on merit no matter what. And I think when you realize and then everybody has to realize that, why you have

your foot is in the door but at the end of it, that foot has to set up. You have to still find your space and you still have to find your, improve your role that you were hired for. And a lot of times, if you have team members who are in leadership role, if you have women in leadership, it changes the attitude of the team as well. And we've seen that culturally as well. The way in the team, how...

shifts happen even within the guest behavior. know, again, in projects, will see if the Indian woman bartender who is in the bar versus only men, the men in front of you behave way better. They are more gentlemanly and they will be politer, you know. So it kind of shifts a little bit because of that as well. And we have seen that behavior and it was a change for the good, you know, not necessarily.

They are not there necessarily to misbehave with the women but to actually watch their behavior sometimes when people go for a walk especially in the bar.

We had, we were an all female management team in a group of seven venues and we were the busiest bar, we took them with money and we had the least issues.

Minakshi Singh (55:31.726)
What fun! I can believe you, I'm 100 % sure!

Yeah, it was was it was me and like to to well to my best friends now, but and they were from Sweden and so it was you know, the Irish and the two Swedes and we ran this bar and you know, we just we were the cash cow of the company. We were the golden the golden. Yeah, the golden guns basically like and and we never had any trouble and we were in, you know, an area in East London when it was like.

Golden gun

Aoife Haliday (56:02.816)
up in common, was very busy. There wasn't a lot of rules. Like, you know, the police were trying to find their feet with the influx of people to the area, you know, kind of thing. And we never had any trouble because when anything did kick off, because it was generally, you know, quite a small, small but feisty woman, you know, coming to sort it out rather than a big brawly, like, you know, I'm the general manager man. It sort of just, you know, tensions just went down, you know, and it was

Yeah, we didn't have any trouble compared to the other bars in the area. It's sort of cluster effect that we had in the area. But yeah, it was great. And then that sort of became their hiring policy at the company. It was like trying to get an all-female management team to run their high-powered sort of dodgy East London bars.

I think what you just pointed out cannot be like understated the fact that if you have two people about to get into it Right. dude. If I jump in the middle, I'm just getting punched I had a lot of women that worked for me a lot of whom were not younger, right? We're like in their 40s 50s and when they jumped in between a fight it stopped Right cuz two big guys they'll puff up at each other all day long. And if you're a dude you step in the middle you're done

Yeah.

Chris Schneider (57:24.236)
little woman steps in the middle, especially that's a older than them, they just shut down and they behave immediately. It's amazing.

you

That's what we had. It was great.

Dave, do you want to jump in with some comments? I saw you moving towards the microphone there.

No, look, we're just, I'm just kind of listening to the stories. We're just kind of going down a winding road, which I think is really cool. You'd asked about my notes. I wrote right here, measure, so to pull it back to sort of like employee turnover and that sort of thing for just a second, a boring one. A lot of people may ask, how do I know if I'm doing a good job or something like that? So most modern POS systems will allow you to have some kind of,

Dave Nitzel (58:10.384)
or your payroll company should be able to give you turnover information. And if you don't have that, it's a pretty easy equation. How many people have you hired? How many people have you employed over a year's time? You do some division and you're looking to be like 10 to 20%. So to Cliff's point, there's been so many good points. Everyone's been like spot on with everything. But in the end, you want to be able to quantify what being a good employer looks like. If people are constantly leaving,

and you don't know why.

then you're probably not in the category of good employer. Whoever's listening, don't take that too personal, but take it personal enough. Think about it. And if you don't, so if you don't know your numbers, then I would, I might argue that you don't care enough. Know those numbers. And when people are leaving, know why they leave. And also know this, people will tell you something like, look, I'm leaving to make more money. Most people don't leave to make more money. It's not in the top five reasons why people leave.

Significant money. Yes small numbers. No But they won't tell you that because that becomes a job for them to try they don't want to hurt your feelings on the way out They're not so spiteful. They're just not sticking around so knowing why people leave and measuring turnover and then actioning on those sort of Metrics because what gets measured gets done So if you aspire to have a life like Menochchi or E for a cliff or you Chris once upon a didn't know what those numbers are Find out why people leave find out what people love

It's not just all bad news. Like, what you love about working here? What you hate about working here? What would you change if you could? Like, three questions you can ask.

Dave Nitzel (59:52.288)
And see what people say. Don't let them get away with, I'm going to get more money. This is the greatest place I ever worked. I love everyone, but they're going to pay me 15 cents more an hour, so I'm leaving. That does not happen. That's not how it goes. So measure and validate and do a little research. And if you get that turnover down and you know why people are leaving and you adjust, you can fundamentally live a better life as a bar and restaurant owner.

And I want that. I want that for people. I want that for everyone. I want that for employees and I want that for ownership.

Just to jump on that, exit interviews is like what you're describing there. Sometimes people don't feel comfortable talking to the person that they're leaving. So we have been asked a lot to do exit interviews with people. Sometimes it's good to set up a process that somebody that they might be able to share the information with if it's not you yourself. And then to use all that information to help

put together for your sort hiring policy and you know who is it you're looking for and you know and what is it you're offering as an employer going forward so that you try to get that turnover down.

Yep, agree. Cliff, what are your thoughts on the finer points here of turnover and keeping employees?

Cliff Crider (01:01:24.726)
I mean, I think that's a great, you know, we're losing a young lady to, you know, her chosen career. She was a college girl and graduated, came in here and so she's off to, you know, position in her profession. So perfect example. I didn't really think about just, you know, pulling her side and saying, you know, hey, tell me, tell me the good, the bad, the ugly about working here. My God, the sun's just clips and over this building here. I'm going to get it.

Let me see if I can get out of this. But yeah, you got to look to yourself. mean, and look to your why. Ask why. think, Dave, that's perfect. Ask why and change things if you're not getting the answers that you want to hear.

I mean, imagine the value, Cliff, and the person who's worked for you for a few years, say, through college, this is a smart person, educated, going on to do things, is going to eventually become an advocate for your business, even though they're not in it anymore. What better opinion?

That opinion is worth its weight in gold. What would you do different? You're smart. You've been here. You know what it's like. I love that cliff. No, no, yeah, keep it on. That's perfect. It's like an internet meme. But seriously, that is a gift, right? To get that opinion from that person, I view as a gift. And I'd love to hear what they say. It'd be cool. Come back and share what they say. I'd like to hear it.

Chris Schneider (01:03:03.0)
So we're coming up short on time. So I want to do a lightning round before we let everyone go. I was thinking what would make sense this week. And I think this month for the lightning round, the question I want to ask is this. If you were meeting with somebody who was like a new owner in the industry and you had one thing to tell them about employees, what would it be? What is like your one single nugget?

that you think everyone in the industry should know.

Dave Nitzel (01:03:38.158)
Who's first? I would say treat your employees with the same care, with the same or more care and vigor as you do your guests. So we get super focused on the guest experience and then sort of ignore the importance of the people that need to deliver on that experience.

Dave, you can go first if you got your way.

Aoife Haliday (01:03:59.636)
I would say as an employer, trust your gut. We had a phrase that we used to use, which was, slow, but fire fast. So if somebody was, if you could spot it in the first week that they're doing something that you're not quite right, doesn't quite sit right with you, but we could get over it, it's a huge warning sign. So yeah.

Hire Slow Fire Fast.

Minakshi Singh (01:04:32.718)
I would say treat your team like your family. Definitely something in old school again, but going back to a lot of shifting environment today, I feel like we need to go back to some of the original ways of seeing those things.

Yeah, and I'll add, the family part is pretty good, but it's hard to fire family. you know, I think you've got to have like some tough empathy, basically. You know, they're here to do a job. They need to be able to do the technical. But if you're screwing up, mean, exactly. You got to give them feedback. So communication. So keep the lines of communication open, but, you know, have some empathy as well.

And mine would be that not all turnover is bad because we have some folks that are that are here for a transient job. They're in college. They're going to move on. And the best thing we can do to keep everyone else happy with us and to keep our parents happy is when those people matriculate out to be really excited for them and really supportive of them moving on when they have a better life, because then everyone else sees that we care more about people's lives.

than about just what we're doing inside the bar. So with that, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. This has been another great conversation. We are going to do this again next month where we will talk about something. If you're listening to this and you are curious about what we're gonna talk about or you wanna tell us what you would like us to talk about, drop a comment.

on this video and we will take a look at that and take all those into consideration. If anyone ever wants to reach out to us for any reason, us on YouTube. You can get any of the five of us on LinkedIn and we look forward to seeing you all next month.

Dave Nitzel (01:06:17.645)
or

Dave Nitzel (01:06:24.0)
Thanks Chris.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Thanks.