The Four-Pillar Framework for Talent Management in Hospitality: Sarah Diehl on Culture, Values & Leadership

When Sarah Diehl’s corporate HR role was eliminated, she called it “the best thing that could have happened.” Out of that setback came Empowered Hospitality, a consulting firm dedicated to helping restaurants and hotels build resilient, people-first teams. 

In this conversation with Dean Arun Upneja, Sarah shares her four-pillar framework for talent management and explains why culture, onboarding, and employee experience are the true engines of success, whether you’re leading a small neighborhood restaurant or a billion-dollar resort. Her insights remind us that in hospitality, strategy isn’t just about operations or service standards, it’s about how you lead, how you listen, and how you create workplaces where people want to stay and grow. 

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lu Lan
Editing: Isabella Laikin
Sound Engineer: Andrew Hallock

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

Welcome & Guest Introduction: Demetri Tsolakis and Xenia Greek Hospitality

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Imagine this. You've risen from being one of the youngest journal managers at a $10 million restaurant to a corporate HR director role. You are on a clear path. And then suddenly your position is eliminated. For many, that's the end of a chapter. For Sarah Deal, it was a revelation. She even called it the best thing that could have happened. Welcome back to The Distinguished, where we learn from leaders at every level of the hospitality industry. I'm Arunupneja, Dean of the BU School of Hospitality. Here at our school, our guiding principle is experience innovation. The idea that hospitality isn't just a service, it's a strategic mindset that can solve problems and build loyalty. Our guest today, Sarah Deal, is the living embodiment of that idea. When her corporate role was eliminated, she uncovered a critical flaw in the industry. Small independent operators desperately needed senior human resources, but couldn't afford a full-time executive. So she started turning her own job interviews into impromptu consulting sessions, diagnosing problems, and designing solutions on the spot. From that insight, she built Empowered Hospitality, a firm designed to be the exact answer to the problem she discovered. Her work is a masterclass in experience innovation applied to the most critical component of any hospitality business, its people. Sarah is a Yale graduate, a 2021 Tory Birch Foundation Fellow, a voice for the James Beard Foundation, and a guest lecturer right here at our school. Sarah, welcome to the Distinguished Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for your kind words. I'm very flattered.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

You've built an amazing company, and we are very happy that you're here. Okay, so let's jump right in. And you've written that employees are in the driver's seat like never

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SPEAKER_01 2:14

before. Many operators see this as a crisis, but you see it as an opportunity. So can you expand on how this power shift acts as a forcing function that ultimately benefits our industry?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Of course. So one thing that's really interesting about employment in our industry is the shift that resulted from the pandemic. We have the largest shortage in talent of any industry in the country. And what that has done is really put the onus on employers to take care of their employees, to retain them, to make a place where they can be happy and thrive long term. So whereas before the pandemic, we often saw a revolving door of talent. Now we see a lot of employers awakening to this obligation they have to care for their team, to provide basic benefits, to provide a livable wage, to provide a predictable schedule. Some of that is mandated from a regulatory perspective. So we we have to evolve and keep up with the laws as they're changing around minimum pay requirements, scheduling, et cetera. But a lot of it is more of a cultural shift and things that employees are more empowered to demand of their workplaces than they were before.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Okay, so we're gonna get into a whole lot of these things, but let's just start off by um telling us where do you see the biggest disconnect between what employers think they're offering versus what employees are experiencing or even need?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I think the biggest disconnect is the fundamentals, actually. I think very often it's buzzy and kind of a current theme to talk about mental health, about creative benefits like pet insurance or some of those more esoteric things that might attract employees to a job. What employers don't talk about as much, but I think are much more important, are the basic things like paying people on time and accurately. Having an HR department. So someone has a resource to talk to if they run into a challenge or an issue, providing a clear roadmap for how someone progresses through a company, some of those really basic things that are just a matter of the nuts and bolts of HR, I think are holding a lot of employers back without them even realizing it.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

So if employee needs have fundamentally evolved and they're very different from what they were before, so what does that mean for the traditional top-down management that characterizes our industry, which has historically been true? And what does a modern adaptive leader look like?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, such a good question. I think it's actually less that the needs have changed and more that employees feel empowered to ask for whatever those needs are. So I think a modern adaptive leader is one

Hospitality as Emotion vs. Business

SPEAKER_00 5:25

who listens, most importantly. What employees need or are demanding today from employers will not be the same in three or four years. So, how do we keep up with that as leaders? We have to

Rethinking the Guest Experience: No Host Stands, No Interrogations

SPEAKER_00 5:37

be listening consistently and genuinely to what our employees want and need and delivering on those requests. So a lot of the work we do is conducting surveys. It's hosting one-on-one interviews, it's really trying to drill down into not what employers think employees want, like pet insurance, like some of those buzzier benefits, but what employees actually need that they're not getting.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Okay, so I'm gonna uh come back to this in in more detail, but let's just talk about, and I think you briefly mentioned it earlier, which is um, you know, people just think, okay, compensation is the way for retention, and you know, retention is a big issue. You mentioned it at the beginning. So, what are one of uh just say a couple of handful of practices, very impactful practices that can uh boost retention for particularly for small restaurant operators?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, so I think the first I would say just to reinforce is doing the fundamentals well. So paying people accurately and on time, having basic benefits, offering health insurance, for example, at a minimum, should be a requirement of every business, no matter how big or small. Things like having a culture that encourages transparency and where all people feel welcome.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

So let's move on to. I know you recently wrote an outstanding article for the Boston Hospitality Review. So thank you for writing for our magazine. It's titled Cultivating Thriving Hospitality Teams in the Post Pandemic World. So, in that article, you've detailed a clear four-pillar framework for talent management that can serve as a practical playbook for hospitality leaders. So I want to dive into those four pillars. Let's start with the first one. So, can you describe, briefly describe the first pillar, which is sourcing and selection? And my first question on that is you advocate recruiting for cultural fit by being transparent about companies, quirks, and challenges. And the question is, how do you coach a leader to identify and articulate their authentic employer brand, especially if you're worried that it might scare some candidates away?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Right, right. I think that the pressure to appeal to all candidates is very real. And managers are they're often in the position of being a salesperson for their business, trying to get desperately find someone to fill open shifts. So it is difficult. I think the key is really to articulate at a leadership level what those core values are, what your purpose is as an organization, make sure that's disseminated throughout your team, and then also identify what traits really actually predict success within your team. So, as an example, someone who would be incredibly high performing in a large corporate restaurant group might not do as well in an independent chef-driven restaurant. What are those core competencies or personality traits that really makes them fit within one environment and not another? The best way to do that is to look at your current top performers. So we all know within our team who is who's really crushing it and who is not. And what is it, what are those common threads that unite all of those really high-performing individuals? It may not be the things you expect. It might not be skills or competencies, it might be something softer, like their values or their sense of hospitality. So really putting a finger on those things and then in my mind creating tools and processes that make sure you can't miss any of those details. So questions oriented around each of your core values, for example, or an assessment tool that measures those key traits that predict success within your organization. I think there's an art and a science to it, but the science is once you know what those attributes are, how can you make sure that any manager can sit down with that interview guide and ask the right questions?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

So I'm curious to see with your experience, what percentage of employers actually go out with the idea that they're going to determine what the brand is, and they can articulate what they want and what it is versus those that let nature take its course and then they have an employer brand. They may not have created it, but they end up with one. And how many people can actually even articulate whether either way they

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SPEAKER_01 10:22

got to the employer brand?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I think the majority of businesses fall somewhere in between where they realize at some point early on that they haven't done the work to define who they are, and they backtrack to attempt to do that based on people, frankly, that they got lucky with. So they're backtracking to say, all right, who are the people who have come to embody our brand who we feel embody our brand? And then can we define what that is? Um few start with a clear idea of their employer brand and fit people into that. Because I think also that isn't built off of reality. And what you find when you actually go into the market and start hiring restaurant employees is what you think you're looking for might not be as available, right? There's a reality. We have to staff our restaurants, we have to staff our businesses. So we have to make sure that what we idealize as our employer brand, we can actually deliver.

unknown 11:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Um, so there is another landmine here that I want to sort of bring out so that we we discuss it, which is uh when you talk about cultural fit, um, unless we are very careful, um, cultural fit could imply people who look like me or look like, you know. Um, and so then you're gonna end up with. So let's define what do you mean by cultural fit so that we don't end up with, you know, this age-old problem of hiding everyone who looks like me.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yes, that that's right. Culture can be synonymous with homogeny, and that's dangerous in any business. I think the key is to understand

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SPEAKER_00 12:03

that culture in the context of someone's personal life often means their their their historical culture, right? Their their origin or their ethnicity or the the kind of mores and values that they were raised with. Culture in the context of a business is very different. Culture in a business means what

Balancing Hospitality with Financial Reality

SPEAKER_00 12:26

do we collectively value as a team, and that has nothing to do with where someone comes from. So I think as long as we're distinguishing between those two, I think that's why the use of the word family is also problematic when it comes to a workplace, because we're not we're not a family, we're not all from the same place. We choose to come together because we believe in the same things. And clearly defining what those values are is the first step to that. If they're not clearly defined, you fall back on I want to hire someone like me. I want to hire someone from the same background, right? Not I want to hire someone who believes the same things I believe in. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Okay. So let's move on to the second pillar, which is onboarding as a strategic imperative and the first 90 days. So let's set the stage and briefly describe what you mean by onboarding.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

So, yeah, onboarding is everything from the engagement with a candidate once you've offered them the job prior to their first day. So all the paperwork you're sending them, all the communications that you share with them through their first day, filling out paperwork, meeting with their trainer, going over their training schedule, all the way through, in my mind, when you've finished setting them up for success and they're ready to run solo in their first shift. So onboarding is not just on day one sitting and filling out your paperwork with HR. It's much more complex and it involves a lot more key stakeholders from within the restaurant team as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Now you've also talked about the small personal moments during the onboarding process. Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yes. So we've found we we've been part of a program in New York City that has onboarded and trained over 250 line cooks who come from no experience and learn how to work in a kitchen and then get placed at some of New York City's best restaurants. What we've learned through that is predictors of success are things like having a tour of the restaurant on your first day, knowing who your manager is. As silly as that sounds, but meeting your manager on your first day, knowing who an HR can help you if you have a question about your paperwork or if you have a concern about someone you're working with, having a buddy during training, someone who will is a colleague, so not a manager, but a colleague who will help you if you're having trouble finding something, or if there's terminology you don't understand, or if you're having an interpersonal challenge with someone. So those are four specific examples of some of those really simple things we've found statistically really contribute to someone's longevity at a company.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So when you talk about these personal moments, uh at the same time, we have a very highly structured onboarding process. Uh, the moments can be spontaneous and unplanned. So, how do you reconcile those two ideas? Can

Fun as a Business Strategy

SPEAKER_01 15:33

structure and genuine connection really coexist in onboarding?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, oh, that's a great question. I mean, the the personal connection to

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SPEAKER_00 15:43

me is the easy part. Like that's what weaves all of those more technical components together. It's the interaction that they get from their trainer. So the person who you've chosen as a representative of their position and the care that that person takes in training them. Um, it's the initial hello that they get from their manager when they're first introduced. It's the culture of welcoming people in pre-shift or celebrating, you know, positive guest reviews in pre-shift. So some of those, those niceties, those like, again, those small interactions, but that reinforce that someone's welcome. I think those are kind of innate to us in hospitality and often less of a challenge than living within that system and being disciplined about checking all of the boxes. Um, but those are certainly things to be very mindful of as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

But then aren't you afraid that they're going to take some of those habits which are causing these people to be good cultural ambassadors for the organization, but not the most effective. You want them learning from the most effective. So you have to somehow balance these two perspectives, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, you do. It's rare to find that combination. But um, those of us who have managed restaurants know you can identify that person on your staff who both is passionate about the culture and is passionate about the details and passionate about executing the process correctly. Um, I think the best way to go about that is to have a train the trainer program. So if you have your training, you know, let's say your two or three-week training program for a line level staff member, you aren't good, you aren't going to just hand that to an employee and say, here, now you're responsible for teaching someone how to do this. You need to teach them how to teach that person. So some of that is giving them the technical know-how of what boxes to check when, the toolkit. So here are your menu descriptions, here are your steps of service, these are all of the technical things you need to follow. Some of it is also ensuring, as they're being trained to use those resources, that they're excited about it and they're they genuinely want to do it. I think the key is take a cue from

Hiring for Personality, Not Résumés

SPEAKER_00 18:03

them. If they don't seem like they're really naturally excited and gravitating towards that responsibility, they're probably not the right person.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Right. So in addition to teaching about the processes and the structures and the job, you're also making sure that they, the, the, the new employees feel an emotional connection to the organization.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Right. I would say too, there's a check and balance in terms of who, aside from the trainer, is that new employee interacting with. So making sure that the manager or whoever that employee will ultimately report to is also spending time with them, reinforcing, going through the checklist, reinforcing the culture, speaking to those same things, which we hope that the trainer has covered. But just in case, this is our extra insurance to make sure that all of those key details have been reviewed. Yeah, one thing I would suggest that we use at Empowered is we have some of the interview process that is scripted, not all of it, but there are key things we want to make sure every candidate understands about our business, specifically what makes it challenging. And we actually write those out in our interview guide to make sure that whoever is conducting that interview reviews those key points. So that's one thing you can do in any business, in any industry, is making sure that the talk track about your business and about the job specifically is consistent and that every candidate is hearing some of the same key points, basically.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Right. So you have, since you are working with so many different restaurants, there's obviously a difference in the organization culture of each place. And what you're suggesting here is that everyone who's interviewing is sort of, you know, speaking from the same template. But how much of a discrepancy do you find between what people say their organization is and everyone is reading what it actually is?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yeah, that's an exercise we do with a lot of our clients is going back to their core values. It's amazing how many organizations have not revisited their core values in years. So, you know, as we know, culture changes. Culture to me is the sum total of the belief systems of all the people you have on your team. So if you're not constantly checking against that culture and making sure that's still really what your team is invested in, you may be saying one thing and doing another, to your point. So the key is to not think that your values are static. When we come in, sometimes the first thing we do is we ask the team, what do you think your core values are? Do you know what they are? Do you see that those are the values that are actually being lived on a day-to-day basis? And often the answer is no. So, how do we close that gap? Either we adjust the values to better reflect what the team currently is prioritizing, or we have to look at where our actions fall short of our values and how we better align those, which can be about a lot of different things. It can be about leadership, not practicing what they preach. It can be about hiring people who maybe don't ascribe to those values in the way we would like, or it

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SPEAKER_00 21:26

could be simple things like one of our values is hospitality, but our employee dressing room is a mess, and we're not showing hospitality to our own team, and therefore they're not passing that along to our guests. So there are a lot of different kind of levers to pull to influence culture, but I think the biggest thing back to listening, the biggest thing is to really understand whether the values that you say you believe in are actually the values that your team is living by.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So let's move to the third pillar, which is learning and development. So it's gone from being a nice to have. Perk into a central engine of a high fair and a high performing culture. So just to set the stage, uh talk about LND. What is, from your perspective, learning and development?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, so to me, simply put, learning and development is how an individual progresses and grows within an organization. So that's about both the resources that you provide to them to increase their capability, to increase their knowledge and their skills, and it's about that roadmap that tells them how to get from where they are today to where they want to go professionally, which is the development part. So, you know, what we see often is there's a very casual, unstructured approach to learning and development. It's

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SPEAKER_00 22:50

voluntary, it's largely driven by an individual employee's desire to learn and to stretch and to seek out those learning opportunities. When you make it really easy for employees to learn, you make it accessible, you build a structure around it, that means that not just your most motivated employees will benefit. It means that anyone who sees themselves potentially developing and staying with an organization understand how to get from one step to the next, and then what are the resources that will help them get there.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

So you uh so you are trying to link um essentially um learning and development to competency pay bands, and you say you learn these things and this is where your compensation goes to, right? Yeah. Um but you've chosen probably one of the most difficult industries to work with. If you're looking at small restaurants, there is very limited avenue for if you're hired as a server, um, you know, and and you know, your managers are staying put for a long time, there's not a whole lot where you can go.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Right. Yes. Sometimes, sometimes development internally can be limited in a very small company. There are some benefits as well, though. Cross-training is a lot easier in some sense because you have a small team, you can jump in and help. It's a lot more fluid in that way. It's not bureaucratic. It's easy for you to, hey, if you're really capable, you're going to naturally get more responsibility. That's just how it works. Right. That was how I grew in HR. I started as the director of training in my restaurant group. No one was in HR, and I just started doing it. And that was the beginning of how I transitioned in my career. So I think those positives are important to highlight in working within a small independent organization, but also understand that growth outside of the company can sometimes be a natural next step, and it's not something to be afraid of. So a lot of particularly cooks who come into the industry, they look to bounce between, you know, one restaurant to the next to hone their skill set and get exposure to different techniques. That's not bad. I think, you know, if we're afraid of that and we're trying to discourage that, we're doing them a disservice. And we're also doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring that this is how it works. So I think another way to look at development is some external development is natural and it's positive. Can you bring that to your team rather than acting like it doesn't exist?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Um, so the what you're describing is a population of employees that are working in restaurants and they are eager or hungry for learning and they want to progress in life. But then there is also there is a core group of employees who've been doing this for decades. And what kind of first of all, in your client, what percentage are these hardcore people who have been doing this for a long time? And you talk to them about cross-training, and they're they're like, Where are you coming from? You have no idea. I'm just gonna want to come work and go home. Yeah. So I'm just curious, what is the percentage of those kind of employees?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

A small percentage.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

A small loyalty.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

A small percentage and and growing smaller because I think the generational shift is really playing a role in loyalty, what loyalty means in the industry. Gen Z in particular are very growth-oriented, like any new generation coming into the workforce. We were too as millennials. I remember hearing how entitled we were because we wanted to be managers in a year or two. But um, but truthfully, that's kind of a normal evolution as people come in and grow

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SPEAKER_00 26:45

and mature within their careers. I think that the biggest thing to me is just ensuring that there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to development. To your point, a senior server or manager who has chosen this as a career but is very happy doing what they're doing might not opt in to all of the developmental opportunities. That's okay. That's not necessarily for everyone. But providing those growth opportunities for individuals who are really motivated by that is important. Is it? Yes. Same thing with benefits. Not everyone's going to want traditional health benefits, but providing those for the employees who do, and then providing other benefits like uh tuition reimbursement, or um, you know, again, training or learning and development-oriented benefits for those who are younger in their careers, it allows both groups to feel satisfied at work in very different ways. They're kind of choosing what fits their own lifestyle best.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

So the model that you're describing seems to create a very clear and equitable roadmap for advancement. Um, does it lead to reduction in unconscious bias in promotion pays, raises?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yes, I think what we could see if there were not a system like that in place is favoritism and managers gravitating towards people who remind them of themselves. So I do think that really looking at it almost like a menu of different opportunities, benefits, perks that people can choose what best fits their own lifestyle and their own goals is a much less um, it's much less prone to bias than some of the traditional ways that we looked at development.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Okay, so let's move to the fourth pillar, which is the employer center, employee-centric approach. So let's just briefly define it before I start asking my questions.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah, so to me, it's actually exactly what we were just talking about. It's the fact that having a great experience and thriving at work does not look the same for everyone. And whether it's a generational difference or a cultural difference or a difference in a career trajectory that someone is aiming for, an employee-centric approach says we're not giving you a set prescriptive menu of all the things you need to follow. We

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SPEAKER_00 29:27

want to make sure you're aligned from a cultural perspective and that we believe in the same things, but it's kind of a choose your own adventure. You decide what direction you want to go, how fast you want to progress, what benefits you want to enroll in. And we're gonna listen to you also in case what you really need is not something we're offering. So it's that constant iteration of listening, introducing kind of new solutions, new perks, new benefits that your employees value, and allowing them to opt into whatever they value.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

So you also talk about um moving past the leave your issues at door philosophy that has long permeated our and traditional workspaces for a long time. So, how can a leader begin to create psychological safety where employees seen heard and supported and safe without crossing professional boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, that's a really interesting one and a big shift that we've seen since the pandemic because the social movements that people lived through during the pandemic that have continued since, some of the political anxiety and unrest, it's very difficult for people to leave that at the door. And in fact, especially the younger generation in the workforce, they want their employer to be more than just a professional relationship. They actually want that psychological support, the emotional support. So it's uh, I think a little bit of a fallacy to think that we can really separate the two. Um, I was speaking a few months ago at a conference on uh mental health and benefits in the industry specifically, and I told a story about a server who came to me when I was a new manager. I was maybe a year or two into my career, and she pulled me aside and she told me she was an alcoholic. And I had no idea how to navigate that. I obviously felt for her. I didn't have any personal experience with substance abuse, so I couldn't really advise her effectively. But what I could do was listen and support her and say, you know, if you need help, we'll give you the time to get help. And I think that we can do a lot as employers. We kind of underestimate sometimes the impact of just listening and being a genuine emotional support, just expressing that support to someone who maybe doesn't hear that from other parts of their life. And then knowing the limitations, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a mental health professional, but let me connect you with someone who can help you. So I think it's important to always have a toolkit of other professionals who can get more involved with things that are beyond your expertise. But the first step is not disregarding when someone comes to you with a challenge. I think one other thing we can do as leaders is just be open about our own struggles and our own challenges and making sure that the team knows that it's not easy to come to work every day with a positive attitude. Sometimes it's a struggle, and that's all right. But once we're here, we have to support each other and make sure that we're delivering on our promise to our customers.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Okay, so you talked about two different things. One is um, you know, the global situation, the political um developments that are taking place, and and employees want to come and see some resonance with the employer about those. Um and we have seen so many instances in the past where employees will try to force their employers to take a stance on some, you know, won't go into specifics, but um uh you know, Google is there one, there's a lot of employees, um, and many other big companies is an ice cream company I can think of, where the company is taking a stance or not taking a stance. So but some companies might say, look, we are here to do business and we are not gonna take a stance one way or the other. So, how do you then help those employees see that it is not, you know, the role of the company to take, but

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SPEAKER_01 33:56

the employees are expecting it. So, how do you sort of balance those perspectives?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

I don't think you have to be political as a company. Okay. Um, this is a balancing act for us at Empowered because we support so many different companies with so many different value systems. We are very careful about what we say, especially on political or kind of uh social topics. But I think you do need to know it's a decision. So if you're an organization that is strongly aligned with a particular social or political purpose, you'll likely attract employees who share that belief system, and that's not bad. It just means that your talent pool is influenced by the values that you put out in the environment. Same thing with you being politically impartial. And if you say, hey, we're not wearing, you know, t-shirts with political statements, we're not talking about politics at work, not everyone will agree with that. And those people might leave, and that's okay. Again, there are other organizations that they might be better aligned with that would be more political. Right. So I think the key is it again, back to the core values is really understanding what you want to take a stand on and what you want to be neutral on. And it's really okay. It's just that that will determine the type of people who gravitate towards you as a company.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

So this is excellent advice. But I'm gonna flip the script a little bit and say, how do you prevent the personal problems and issues? Since we are now inviting them saying, look, you don't have to leave your personal issues at the door. They come in, they bring them into it, then how do you um stop those issues or uh prevent those from overwhelming the professional situation you're in?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, so there is a time and place first to have those conversations. I think it is while it's important to listen and to be empathetic, your first commitment as a manager or leader

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SPEAKER_00 36:02

is to your entire team. So a really good and helpful anecdote that I heard recently from a restaurant operator was a similar incident. It was an employee who was struggling with substance abuse, and she really wanted to help them. And the gut check for her was is this person being present within our team damaging our overall dynamic as a team more than it is helping them? And so I think to your question about where is the boundary and how do I figure out kind of where it's appropriate to have those more personal engagements? The biggest measure or barometer for that is how is that impacting the greater team and our ability to run a successful business? Because that's not just about one person, it's about the collective good. And if one person is dragging the team down or bringing toxic energy or being unreliable in a way that's negatively impacting others, you have to hold them accountable to the same set of standards as well.

unknown 37:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

So how do you make culture and belonging quantifiable? I mean, there are such feel-good, subjective kind of, you know, yeah, I feel good about this organization. I I feel I fit in, but how do I now go about quantifying it?

SPEAKER_00 37:27

So I so we do a lot of employee surveys, and I find that very helpful to quantify

Rapid Fire Questions

SPEAKER_00 37:34

the different dimensions of culture and how employees are actually feeling about those. So some of the the a useful guideline is Gallup's 12 question survey. There they've kind of patented this methodology and these 12 questions that best predict engagement. Things like, I have a best friend at work, things like my leaders, you know, regularly recognize my performance, things like someone at work cares about my professional development. So asking about those underlying questions can tell us a lot about culture and how effectively that culture is really disseminated throughout the team.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

So, you know, culture is a very interesting uh subject because there are not a whole lot of employers that actually actively, proactively go talk about so, okay, this is the culture that we want in our company and go um and sort of invest in it. So usually what is the point or the pain point in which operators say, okay, enough is enough. I need to now focus on this on culture.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, it's when the it's when the misalignment becomes damaging. And that can mean a couple of things. It can mean turnover is high. It can mean there's a lot of interpersonal conflict within departments or within teams. It could be that employees are telling you they're staying, but they're not engaged in work. It could be managers saying they feel disempowered. It could be harassment and discrimination, more serious issues like that. Those are all things that tell us that culture isn't healthy. And then the question is, how do we go in and actually fix that, which is a much more complex question.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Right. Um, have you seen examples of restaurant operators who did not invest in over time discovered they have a lot of problems and now have become believers? Do you see that transformation happening?

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Yeah, I do. And I I actually

Closing Remarks & Credits

SPEAKER_00 39:38

think more often it's companies that had a healthy culture just by accident or naturally, particularly when they were small and the owners could touch and feel every part of the business. They then grow to a certain point where they can't be actively involved in every uh team or touching every restaurant regularly. That's where culture really starts to unravel. So I would say today, more than ever, businesses are aware that culture is important because it's harder to find staff. And so if someone leaves because culture is unhealthy, you're not finding replacement for them as easily as we could in the past. But I think really back to your question, leaders who see those indications that people are unhappy or that the business is suffering because culture is not healthy, they are more open to exploring what's happening and really defining culture, some of them for the first time. Some of these are very, very long-standing organizations. I just spoke with one last week that's been around for over 30 years. They said, we've always had a great culture. And all of a sudden, in the past couple of years, coming back from the pandemic, we're starting to see that interpersonal conflict. People who are working remotely now feel less dis less connected to our mission and our values, and that's creating a lot of problems. So that's more often than not how these things are coming to our attention.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

What advice do you have for students who want to become and show up as strong professionals, protecting their values and knowing what not to tolerate?

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Well, having a clear idea of what your values are first is important. And I don't know that we often sit down and go through that exercise to say, what are my deal breakers? Like what are the things that I actually would require of a workplace? It's especially hard to know that when you're a new, you know, new worker entering the workforce for the first time. How do you know what those standards are? You haven't really been exposed to the different alternatives. So I think that to start, it's really looking at the environments you've experienced in your life. It could be school, it could be a sport that you've played, it could be a volunteer activity, and identify in those what were the things that really enabled you to thrive. And then look for those in your workplaces moving forward. Um, and the other thing I would say is just not being afraid to leave because you may love the idea of a company or the values of a company, but if you get, for example, if you're working for a manager who doesn't ascribe to those same values, doesn't live those values day to day, it can be a really, really harmful and kind of detrimental experience. And more often than not, I think people don't feel empowered to leave those situations quickly.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Yeah, so we require our students to do a couple of different internships and then we have extended discussions about what they've observed in those companies, what they liked, what they didn't like, what their own personal values. So hopefully we are doing some of that. Uh but yes, it's important to do more. So you know, um you mentioned you at some point a few minutes ago, you mentioned that sometimes leaders discover that their culture is no longer working or you know the problems start accumulating. So, how do leaders recognize that the culture is not working? Um, what kind of question should they be asking themselves to know whether they are they've established that culture and it is working in the way they're intending to?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah, you know, it's actually very hard as a leader, I think, to have an accurate understanding of how your culture is feeling to your team. So that's why I think listening to your employees is such a critical part of that. You can look from the top down. And say, I think things are going well. I think that our culture is coming across the way we want it to, but your perspective is always going to be skewed based on where you're sitting and based on the type of information people are willing to share with you. So I very often we'll come into a business that thinks that they have a wonderful culture. And the first thing that happens is employees come to us and pour out all of these complaints or concerns because they don't want to be perceived in a negative light by leadership. So they don't feel as empowered to express how things could be better. That's really what HR is for. We're that intermediary that employees can safely talk to about what could improve or what their challenges are day-to-day. You know, I feel very strongly that culture is not just what we say it is, it's our day-to-day actions that define that. And so as a leader, I know for myself, it's a constant effort to look objectively at my own actions, at my own way of working and measuring that up against the standards that I hold our team to, and really being honest with myself about where I'm falling short. And um, that's not, you know, it's it's not always a comfortable exercise as a leader to say, you know, I am not embodying the values that I talked about perfectly, but being able to be your own harshest critic in some ways, I think, is incredibly important as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

It's such a hard thing to do for a leader to introspect and say, okay, I'm falling short in these elements.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yes, it's very humbling. And that's where asking the team is helpful because they see much better than you do how your actions influence them. Um so we actually do 360 reviews at Empowered, and I have our whole team uh review me as well as I review them. So some there are ways to gather that feedback anonymously and transparently that can give you a really accurate picture of how you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Sarah, before we wrap up, a few quick don't overthink it questions. Simple a sentence, a phrase, a couple of sentences. We just want to get to know you a little bit. So what's your favorite comfort meal? No judgment, just joy.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Uh eggplant parm.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Eggplant palm.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

My mom's eggplant palm.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Okay. Um, what's your one hospitality-related pet beef?

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Many, okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Oh, so many. And it's hard to turn your brain off once you've worked in the industry, but yeah, mine is um when a server asks if you're done with your plate before everyone at the table is done.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Okay. What's a hobby or an activity that helps you recharge?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

For me, it's exercising. It's uh right now it's the Peloton bike and also yoga.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Oh, fantastic. Um, what's a unique or a surprising job you have had?

SPEAKER_00 47:13

My first job ever, I was a librarian in a children's room.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Oh wow. Okay. That's an almost well, not exact opposite, but restaurants are pretty busy as well. Um any sports team, pastime, or competition you secretly or not so secretly are obsessed with.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Oh. Um my gosh, that's such a good question. I'm not big into sports these days. I have two kids under two, so I'm my time is a little limited.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Clearly.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Um, but I would say I I personally love soccer, and I'm really excited because my two-year-old is actually starting to play soccer now, which is adorable because they don't know how to focus on anything. But um, but I think playing soccer with him and watching him learn the sport has been really fun.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

So, Sarah, thank you so much for incredible explanations and your insight, thoughtful insights into culture and post-pandemic workplace. Um, very, very appreciated. And I also want to thank you for your continuous engagement with our school. You come in, give so many lectures. Students and faculty really appreciate it. And thank you for coming on my podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

To our listeners, whether you're heading into your first interview or leading your third concept, this conversation is your reminder that hospitality starts inside. Strategy isn't just what you do, it's how you lead. Join us next time on the Distinguished Podcast as we continue learning from leaders who are reshaping hospitality from the inside out. If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at sardine at bu.edu. That is s-h-a-de-e-a-n at bu.edu. This episode was produced by Mara Littman, marketing by Rachel Hamlin, and production by Jason Jose of Cocoon Media. Special thanks to Professor Makran Modi and the entire team at BU School of Hospitality. To keep up with Distinguished, be sure to subscribe. To keep up with the Distinguished Podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. You can also learn more about experience innovation in our undergrad and graduate programs by visiting BU.edu slash hospitality. I'm Arunupnaja, Dean of the BU School of Hospitality, wishing you a great day.