(04:56) Leveraging technology like Wisetail for training, while maintaining person-to-person interaction, is key to successful onboarding.
(07:33) Setting early expectations and fostering a driven culture at Fox Restaurant Concepts encourages growth and attracts like-minded individuals.
(9:38) First impressions during orientation are critical; a well-organized, welcoming start increases long-term retention.
(13:57) Despite the need for efficiency, the human component remains more important than technology at Fox Restaurant Concepts.
(15:43) Technology accelerates processes, but maintaining the human component is crucial to avoid becoming like everyone else.
(17:29) Encourage leaders to express appreciation openly; mentorship and shared experiences can positively impact team morale and career growth.
(20.00) The Council for Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART) provides a unique space for hospitality trainers to share ideas, learn from each other and grow by stepping out of their comfort zones.

• Fox Restaurant Concepts website
  
• CHART: An Association of Hospitality Trainers
• How to Rethink Engagement & Learning to Fuel Success

Evan Melick: I am very excited to be joined by Jay Hartwig, who is the Director of People Retention at Fox Restaurant Concepts. You've been there for 11 years, it looks like, with over 25 years of restaurant experience. So, Jay, I can highlight a few things that I know are on your resume, but then if you could fill in more details after I'm done, that would be great.

What I've got is, you oversee new hire training, compliance training, ongoing development for hourly employees, managers, corporate employees at 12 of Fox Restaurant Concept's 13 brands, including full service and fast casual and bar brands. So that's over 5, 000 employees and 450 managers. That's a lot. What did I miss there? Because that's a lot of stuff.

Jay Hartwig: No, it is a lot. I don't think you missed much. The fun thing is having been with the company for 11 years now, I started at Culinary Dropout at a location we had in Las Vegas that unfortunately is no longer there, but not by any fault of our own. And, you know, not that long ago, Flower Child became a brand that really grew to a level that it needed its own team to support.

And so I got the rest. And at the time we just called that full service. We had Flower Child that was fast casual and we had our full service brands. But since then, we've added the underground margarita bar called Pushing Daisies in Nashville, and we have a to go focused not only, but to go focused chicken and, pizza, brand called Flyby.

And so I don't even get to say I run the full service anymore. It's just everything except Flower Child.

Evan Melick: Wow. That's really, really impressive. So tell us a little bit about yourself. A couple of things that I know our listeners like to understand is who are we talking to? Why is this a valuable experience?

Jay Hartwig: Yeah, so, I get to lead the training function for those full service brands and the other variety, and like you said, I've been in restaurants for a very long time, more years than I like to admit because it gives away some details there, but you know, I started in the restaurant industry like most people as a server.

I needed cash and found I was really good at it. And based on the past experience I had prior to even joining restaurants, management experience and just naturally was always someone that the companies leaned on to do training. And so the training function just throughout my time in restaurants was just a natural fit.

And then when I joined Fox Restaurants and ran Culinary Dropout, it was a great opportunity that taught me so much, and, you know, FRC just is a different animal, especially with the different brands in challenging markets ... we kind of do it to ourselves, but we have a very unique, approach and unique situation in the restaurant industry.

And I'm very jealous sometimes of people that have just hundreds of units of the same thing, because they can just say, okay, we're rolling this thing out and it goes to everybody. And we, we've got to slow down and think about, okay, does this work for our burger joint? Does it work for fast casual? Does it work for the to go focused brands?

But anyway, the opportunity to join the training department just was very intriguing to me when that was posted. And so since taking that role almost 10 years ago now, I've had the various roles in the department of focus just on hourly team members, then management training, and then kind of everything, which is all those things you listed, including ongoing development, which is really, you know, I lean on my team to handle that hourly training and management training. And I try to spend most of my focus on ongoing development and leadership development.

Evan Melick: So one of the things I would love to understand a bit more about, you mentioned the brands have their own nuance associated with them. But my guess is you need to work on some consistency, because you have goals and expectations across the entire portfolio.

So as we think about learning and development specifically, How do you deliver on those experiences and how do you ensure that the right Information is being delivered appropriately?

Jay Hartwig: It's a great question. I think one of the ways that we have really leveraged technology and had great partners like Wisetail is to build training programs and build materials that still depend on that person to person interaction and if we can put a great framework up that will work for Zenburger, or Flower Child, or Pushing Daisies, the underground margarita bar, then we need those, educated and experienced people that are boots on the ground to be able to execute that training.

To your point of how do we ensure it, you know, some of it is done through the technology, whether it's observation checklists, or you know, using the different functions of the LMS, but for the most part, it's been designating specific people that, from time to time visits. So we have our regional managers that are on site and ensuring that things are followed the way that we intend them to be done.

But as well as that material is always, it's evergreen. It's always there for them and available. You know, there's certain parameters we put in place to protect paying people while they're training and that sort of thing. But the beauty to me of the WiseTail platform and how we use it is, like I said, that information is always available to them.

So we give them access to their handbook. And we have lots of just additional learnings posted there, whether it's a lot of things that we've homegrown and just, you know, beverage training or, furthering wine education all the way to like soft skill, how to have difficult conversations and how to manage your time, things like that, that's always there. It's not a required training of people, but to me, if you join our company and you're looking to improve yourself, or you're looking for more, there's always more where. We're constantly adding and it's always there, to be used and, you know, from Sam himself, our founder, all the way to our operations, we speak very highly of your career is in your hands.

 We have all kinds of opportunity for growth in our organization, especially as we're continuing to open new locations and grow rapidly. and we provide all the materials that are needed to get there. But at the end of the day, the person's got to take hold of it and say, okay, I want this and this is what I'm going to do. And, I think we provide an environment that kind of encourages that.

Evan Melick: So I, have dubbed that. Lovingly. Choose Your Own Adventure endings. I use that. But I'm really curious, something you said about the integration of that human to human component in technology. How do you work to build that culture of that choose your own adventure ending, or taking their own careers into their own hands?

What does that look like for you?

Jay Hartwig: Well, for one thing, we specifically outline it in the training. The very basic thing. Onset says here's the platform you're going to use and you're going to read some things here, but you're going to be taught by someone standing next to you. I think we set that expectation early as well as, you know, use the buzzword culture.

I think everybody, you know, has a culture, but to me, I get to talk about our culture a lot with, especially with our leaders. And, there's no coincidence that the root word there is cold, right? It's a bunch of people thinking. A same way and usually for some kind of a common goal. And at FRC, kudos to Sam and I'm just proud to be part of it.

We have this culture of just a bunch of driven, smart people that always want more. And so that naturally, because we really have that culture encourages people to be that way, and it encourages people that are not that way to go find somewhere else and that's okay. You know what I mean? We really care about the people.

I think because we have that type of a culture, when someone is the right person that joins us and they want more and they're asking those questions, we have the people in place that can provide what exactly what they need in that environment. And so it just kind of, it's this cycle, right? We bring more people because they're attracted to our culture and our culture develops.

Evan Melick: It is, it is so self perpetuating for sure. And I am so appreciative of. Having an intentional focus on creating that sort of, that, that workplace to be, right? And restaurants are notoriously a very high churn industry. and, you know, some accounts are 115 to 130 percent in some arenas.

How do you get people into Fox Restaurant Concepts, whatever the brand might be? In fact, I'm really, really excited about this Pushing Daisies. I'm going to have to go to Tennessee just to hang out there. but how do you ensure that people are up to speed quickly for that retention piece?Because we know data shows that the quicker we can get them onboarded and invested, the more likely they are to be retained and to stay with an organization. so what do you all do for that?

Well, I'd be lying if I said we don't have our own goals and struggles with when it comes to turnover or retention It's something that we're incredibly focused on and as I said earlier, too We at some point have to be okay with certain people not staying, right? And that is what keeps us healthy but obviously the best thing for the business and for the brands is to find those right people initially and then get them to stay. I think the way I impact that in the company and the one of those focuses for me is really talking about our orientations with our leaders.

So we frequently bring our GMs and executive chefs, to what we call the big kitchen, which is our corporate office in Phoenix. For And we have little mini conferences and we, workshop best practices and we talk about what's difficult in their operations and we put them in front of different brand leaders so that they're not so siloed that, well, I work at Zimberger, so I only get to see my particular regional.

I like to talk when I get that opportunity with the audience to talk about our orientation, which is really the, any new employee's first couple hours working for us. And my philosophy, which I think is adopted from FRC and then and vice versa, is that first impression is so important, right?

When we hire someone, someone's looking for a new job and they go through whether they're applying online or going to Indeed or they walk in and ask for an application, that they have some interest in working for us, right? And obviously that's the, there's the need for money and they need a job and all that.

But I would like to think at some level, there's a reason they picked that restaurant to walk into and want to work at. And so to me, it's a very big responsibility that general managers ultimately own, but that the managers have of delivering on. If we hire that person and we say, okay, you're good enough.

 We like you. You seem to have values that are aligned with what we do. And usually you have some experience that matches what we're looking for. We're going to bring you on the moment that person shows up for their first day and walks in and the manager or the host goes, Oh, I forgot we had you coming or, oh man, is it two o'clock already?

Let me figure out where to set up. We've, to me, we've lost that person and, you know, statistics show that however somebody feels in the first week of working somewhere is the same as it is at six months. And so I really stress to our leaders. That, what that means to me is, if I have a bad impression, first impression, and think you're unorganized, six months later, I still think that, if I'm even still with the organization.

But the opposite of that is, if I show up, and you know my name, have the booklet out, have some appetizers on the table, are super excited to see me, And then introduced me to this very organized training program. Six months later, I think, wow, this place really has it together. And this is a kind of place that I can thrive.

And so that's really the culture that we press and we try and do it as early as possible, because to your point, it's people decide quickly if they're going to say or not, and there's plenty of other choices to be honest. But at the end of the day, I can wholeheartedly say I've worked for many restaurant groups and it's at least the greatest one I've ever worked for, if not, more than that.

Evan Melick: So one of the things that I am really excited about hearing you say is the recognition that there's still a human component. And so we hear a lot about A. I. taking over everyone's jobs and technology being the bane of everyone's existence. But it sounds like, just based on some of your previous, previous sharing, that technology and that human component should work hand in hand.

Jay Hartwig: It's critical to me. I mean, it's if at the end of the day, I had to pick one or the other, no matter how large we get, and no matter how efficient we have to be because of the world being so fast now, it's still, I would still 10 times out of 10 pick the human component because that's how it makes a difference.

I think we all experience it when you call customer service and you get the robot or you get the person, you know, there's just a difference there. And I've got nothing against the places that have figured out a way to have you walk in and order at a video kiosk and that's great for them, but that's not who we are and I don't see us ever being that way.

And so, like you said, the most important thing to me in recent years has been combining and really leveraging, figuring out a way to make those two things cooperate as, as best as possible. While there has to be efficiencies in the technology, especially when you're talking about thousands of employees and onboarding and keeping track of all that, The human component is more important than the technology. And so, to me, it's been important to find, number one, technology that works well in that framework, and two, how to make that technology work for what we need it to do, rather than trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

Evan Melick: So it sounds like you can use it as an accelerator or an it being technology, to support that human component, but really that is the key component to ensuring that technology supports and instead of supplants what you're trying to do.

Exactly. And, you know, we do have to be faster. We have to be more efficient. It's just a requirement of the world that we live in. If you lose that human component, then you're just like everyone else.

Evan Melick: So what would you say, we talked a little bit about orientation, we talked a little bit about onboarding, but I know there are other focus areas that you have.

We talked about manager training and leadership training. Do you think that there is a more important component to everything or are they all equally prioritized?

Jay Hartwig: That's a great question. Honestly, I don't know that there's a silver bullet, golden ticket answer there. I think it's very nuanced and it really depends on the person and where they're at and the thing I'm proud of and why I feel like we've got most of the bases covered is we just offer all of it and it's kind of a cafeteria.

The person can take whatever they would like and not use things that maybe they don't find necessary. we do definitely focus on. Having programs in place and identifying those people so that we can encourage them to make those right choices. but at the end of the day, it's simply a matter of we need more people to be able to do what we're going to do and most times those people already work for us. We just have to help them get to that position.

Evan Melick: As you think about the success that you've seen with FRC and the growth of the brands and the concepts and everything else, what would be a recommendation for maybe our listeners of something they could implement and take away from this conversation and either lead from where they are or influence the direction of their organizations?

Jay Hartwig: Sure. One of the things I learned early in my career is, for one thing, say things out loud, you know. I always challenge our leaders, do you have that best line cook, best server that you can't live without, and they are, you see them on the roster, and you're so grateful because you know it's going to be a great day, and they always emphatically say yes, and then I ask them, have you told them that they are that person, and generally people will say, oh yeah, they know, I've told them, they know.

But I'm like, no, have you sat them down and said, do you know that you are my number one rock star grill cook? And that I am so excited when I see your name on the roster, that's a much more powerful conversation than just they know. So if I had one thing to encourage people to start doing immediately, as soon as they heard this, it's to say those things out loud.

We all have things that we can offer to each other. Maybe someone else has more experience than I do. There's some experience I have that is valuable for them to hear or maybe sometimes it's just to reaffirm how they're feeling about something. And I'm a big fan of mentoring more than coaching, really taking someone under your wing.

I mean, that's how I got to where I am in my career and I'm grateful to those people. so I think it's an easy opportunity for anyone in some way to positively impact other people by shared experiences or deciding to take them under their wing, and I think That's really something anyone in any position can do.

I think some positions it holds a heavier responsibility than others. A manager is a leader and they need to be doing that. A general manager is leading other managers so that they're, that's people's careers. You really need to be investing that in them. But again, at any level, a server can do that for another server or, you know, any, it doesn't even have to be restaurant. Let's just be people, right? So anyone can do that for anybody else.

Evan Melick: Let's just be people. I love that. I want to just highlight for the listeners that this conversation is taking place at Charton, Chart 106 to be specific, in the grand city of Chicago. And so, Jay, I know you have been part of CHART for a very long time, and you hold, a great position within the organization, I'd love to hear just a little bit about CHART, because I think my experience thus far, as my first time here, has really been about that human to human component, and if you want to share anything about CHART, we'd love to hear it.

Jay Hartwig: CHART is awesome. it's the Council for Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, I remember the going to my very first one in Colorado Springs and, it was immediately clear that I was in a room full of like minded individuals and not just a bunch of trainers and teachers and people that present, but people that do that in the hospitality space.

And so it's so tailored to us. That it's an amazing feeling to be amongst a bunch of people that have the same stresses as you have the same problems and anxieties, but also you can workshop and you can share ideas. And one of our, values is to shamelessly steal from each other. And so we're all on board with that thought process and it's just really great to be able to number one,  stop and put everything else out for a couple days and just really focus on me or my own development or ways that I can go back and better impact my company in my role. and the cool thing over the last six or seven years of attending is, you know, there's people at all different kinds of levels.

There's senior VPs of HR and there's training managers that have been doing it for a week. And everything in between. And so Whatever you're looking for, whatever, if you're, you need an LMS or you need to figure out a ongoing development program, there's people here that are number one, working on the same kind of projects or have successes in those things that are willing to share that.

In addition to that, they always provide awesome keynote speakers and activities and. ways to give back to the communities that they're in, and, let's face it, you get a chance to I'm in Chicago right now, that's pretty cool, and they always pick A cool city,  many times, I think it's three or four times I've gone to places that I've never been before through CHART,it's just a great organization and as you said, this is the first conference where I'm actually on the team and helping, execute the conference, as well as speaking, and it kinda pushes you out of your comfort zone as well, which I'm a big believer that's how we grow, right?

Evan Melick: If you're just chillin in your comfort zone, you're comfortable, and that doesn't look very good on a chart of your life, right? It can just get a little better each day, that, that looks pretty good, and that's what I'm always shooting for, and it sounds like your own personal feeling about growth is something you take to your teams, is something you take to your organizations. And so I really like that as a tie between who you are and what you do.

Absolutely. I mean, in the last keynote, she provided a worksheet where peers gave each other advice on how to deal with situations and I literally took a picture of it and emailed it to myself to implement it as soon as I get back. there's plenty of invaluable resources and the networking opportunities are endless and it's just a really great experience.

Evan Melick: That is so fantastic. So this is my last question and I ask everybody this. if you were to design your own bumper sticker, what would it say and why?

Jay Hartwig: I don't want to give away my proprietary idea, but, I definitely have like a borderline, I don't know if inappropriate's the right word since appeal word, but smart alecky snarkiness. And so it would definitely be something that I think a third of the people would look at and it would go right over their head and they wouldn't know. A third would be offended by and a third would get a good belly roll laugh, so that's what I'd be, shooting for.

Evan Melick: I love that and you can break it down statistically and measure the success metrics based on who you talk to. Yep. Well, thank you so much, Jay, for taking the time. I know that this is a very busy conference for you, and I truly appreciate it, and I'm sure we'd love to have you back to talk more specifically about all of the amazing things that are going on at Fox Restaurant Concepts and everything you're doing.

Jay Hartwig: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.