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Talk to me through the journey that you have had and the current role and responsibility at your organization.
While I was going to college in California, I was in a retail environment and got a flavor for the retail space. I got my degrees, started getting experience in distribution, manufacturing companies, union, public, private. By 1999, I got introduced to the restaurant industry, joined a coffee concept. When I joined, we had about 24 restaurants. And then by the time I left chapter about eight years, we had close to 250 restaurants. So I really got my taste for the restaurant industry at that point.
Following that, I worked for a couple other restaurant concepts, including the one I’m currently working with now, the Villa restaurant group. My current role, I’m the vice president of talent and culture development. I’m responsible for everything HR human resources, training benefits, recruiting and talents assessments. So, we are currently, we have 85 restaurants in about 1500 members across the country. We’re in 11 different states right now prior to COVID we had about 225 restaurants and almost 3000 team members in 38 different states. So we look a lot different than we did pre COVID.
In light of your experience that you have worked in the industry for so long now, what are some of the challenges you have witnessed in the leadership development field?
As far as leadership development, right now is especially coming out of COVID, really having our leaders develop a sense of empathy for your team members, for your team and your employees, as far as what everybody’s been going through. Building that connection to what their needs are, our team members needs, and then how we, as leaders can help support them, develop them and grow them within their current job duties is responsible. I think our biggest challenge as leaders right now is finding talent and being able to develop talent to grow them into the next level position.
What, according to you, is one of the secret sauces of being a good leader? what are some of the best practices a leader should have in place in order to develop a good skill?
Well, I think the first thing is relationships whether you’re dealing with your team members or you’re dealing with a vendor, or you’re dealing with strategic partner, I think it’s very important that you have strong relationships with everybody you’re interacting with. Your social relationships that help you grow and help you develop as a leader, as well as help your organization down the road there too. And I think with your employees, it’s very important to understand where they’re coming from, what needs they have and how we can better get the team and assess their needs as far as what they’re looking for and how we can place them into your next role. We should always be looking for our next level manager. Again, talking with the restaurant space, the restaurant has a general manager, we should always be hiring an hourly entry level person with the intent that they could grow into the next general manager.
How would you say digitalization and technology have impacted on leadership development space?
It’s impacted quite a bit, because we’ve been able to take training from a classroom type style or on the job training to more technology where your employees can look at training materials on their personal devices, on their laptops and on their computers, whether that be remote or on sites in the restaurant space.
“I think the first and foremost success recipe for being a well-established leader is relationships, be it with team members, vendors, or strategic partners”
We’ve been using iPods quite a bit to help our team members understand our recipes, our guest service requirements and then just our restaurant operations.
Is there any project or initiative that you have recently worked on at your organization in the field of leadership development?
In leadership development, say four years ago, we put in a learning management system that was based on interactive video content that we did to help get our information down to our hourly team members. So we developed classes on core values on recipe management, dough management, restaurant operations, and then safety, harassment, discipline, and things along that line. So I think that was very helpful, as far as what we put in place.
In the next 12 to 18 months down the line, how do you envision this space?
I think it’s very important as we’re coming out of COVID in the restaurant space, one, we make sure that our guests feel comfortable in our restaurants from a safety standpoint. And two, our team members feel comfortable from a safety standpoint, that it’s safe for them to work. We’re doing everything we can to make them feel good as far as the working, but also making sure that they’re taking care of our guests. We need to take care of our team members and take care of our guests. So, we have happy gauge, productive team members. The guest experience will also be good.
Is there any piece of advice that you want to give to your fellow colleagues out there?
Really, it’s sure it’s more about the right thing rather than doing the thing right. That’s something I say all the time. Don’t focus so much on the process, but focus more on doing the right thing. And that’s how you take care of your team members. And that’s how you need to look at your organization so that you know what you’re doing is working towards that desired goal, that end goal, and not necessarily just checking the box to get something done
