If your organization is open for business, acquiring and retaining talent is a perpetual concern, and the benefits, resources and experiences available to your employees all play a part determining whether they stay or go. In this episode of Honest HR, host Amber Clayton speaks with Rose Ann Garza, CHRO of Texas restaurant chain Kerbey Lane, about the practical approaches the restaurant group utilizes to attract and retain its employees. Also, hear from Kerri Nelson, SHRM Director of Mission Research, on SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends research for data-driven insights in the world of recruiting and talent acquisition.
If your organization is open for business, acquiring and retaining talent is a perpetual concern, and the benefits, resources and experiences available to your employees all play a part determining whether they stay or go. In this episode of Honest HR, host Amber Clayton speaks with Rose Ann Garza, CHRO of Texas restaurant chain Kerbey Lane, about the practical approaches the restaurant group utilizes to attract and retain its employees. Also, hear from Kerri Nelson, SHRM Director of Mission Research, on SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends research for data-driven insights in the world of recruiting and talent acquisition.
This episode is sponsored by Fidelity Workplace.
Earn 0.75 SHRM PDC by listening to this podcast; details provided in-episode.
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Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Fidelity Workplace. Fidelity Workplace helps employers, and their advisors improve employee well-being through a range of financial, retirement, and health benefits. Visit fidelity workplace dot com to learn more.
Monique Akanbi:
Welcome to Honest HR, the podcast for HR professionals, people managers, and team leads intent on growing our companies for the better.
Amber Clayton:
We bring you honest, forward-thinking conversations and relatable stories from the workplace that challenge the way it's always been done because after all, you have to push back to move forward.
Wendy Fong:
Honest HR is a podcast from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. And by listening, you're helping create better workplaces and a better world. I'm Wendy Fong.
Amber Clayton:
I'm Amber Clayton.
Monique Akanbi:
And I'm Monique Akanbi. Now, let's get honest.
Amber Clayton:
Now, let's get honest.
Wendy Fong:
Now, let's get honest.
Amber Clayton:
Well, hello everyone and welcome back. I'm your host, Amber Clayton, Senior Director of SHRM's Knowledge Center Operations. In our episode today, we're going to discuss the technical competency, HR expertise, talent acquisition. This podcast is approved to provide 0.75 PDCs towards SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification if you listen to the full episode. I have hosted an Honest HR episode on the Great Resignation in talent acquisition a few years ago, and I thought it would be a great time to revisit this topic because we've had new research released our new 2024 Talent Trends research. And because employers are still struggling today to find and keep employees, especially those that have the necessary skills to do this job, I'm pleased to be joined today by Dr. Kerri Nelson, director of mission research at SHRM and Rose Ann Garza, chief Human Resources Officer with Kerbey Lane Cafe.
Kerri Nelson:
Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.
Amber Clayton:
Sure. Now, before we get started, could you tell the audience a little bit about yourselves. Rose Ann?
Rose Ann Garza:
Sure. Happy to tell you about myself. Rose Ann Garza, Chief Human Resources Officer with Kerbey Lane Cafe. I've been with the organization just at 18 years and we are a 44-year-old restaurant group in Austin, Texas. We are the largest privately owned and operated restaurant group with a 10 locations in just over 750 team members in the central Texas area.
Amber Clayton:
Wow, that's great. A lot of employees there. And Kerri?
Kerri Nelson:
Sure. Hi everyone, my name's Kerri Nelson. As Amber shared, I'm the director of Mission Research here at SHRM. My team leads all of our research on things, work worker and workplace that we use to help business leaders, policymakers, HR professionals make important decisions and data backed decisions about the world of work. And our research is a big component of that.
Amber Clayton:
Great. How long have you been with SHRM?
Kerri Nelson:
I've been with SHRM five years now.
Amber Clayton:
Is that all? It seems like a longer time.
Kerri Nelson:
Right?
Amber Clayton:
No, that's great. So now that our listeners have gotten to know you a bit more, let's jump right in. I hear from employers often that they're still having challenges finding and keeping talent. And for a while now the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that the number of job openings are more than the number of available people with the necessary skills to fill those jobs. Today, Kerri is going to share the latest talent trends research from SHRM and Rose Ann is going to share her experience in this area and some of the things that she's done in our organization to overcome these challenges. So first, let's go ahead and start with Kerry. Could you tell our listeners what this research is, why we do it, and where or who this data comes from?
Kerri Nelson:
Sure. So this is a study that we actually started back in 2022 that we called Talent Trends when we knew there were so many different pieces of the world of work changing. And we were hearing employers share their stories of labor shortages, retention challenges, and all of that layered on top of the need to adapt to a really rapidly changing skills landscape. And so with this research in 2022, we really set out to explore a really broad array of issues in the talent space, not only to help HR professionals and employers, but again, like I mentioned earlier, policymakers understand what those current trends were, exploring possible solutions, preparing for what's coming down the road ahead. And that first study that we did two years ago really provided this wealth of insights on what was happening across the talent landscape.
And so it was really important to us to continue exploring those trends and seeing how they'd shifted and evolved over the past two years. And to do that, we surveyed close to 2,400 HR professionals across organizations of all different sizes from all different industries to provide us with a really rich data source of information on what's happening in the world of work and across the world of talent trends. And that's what the research I'll be talking about today.
Amber Clayton:
Great, thank you. So Rose Ann, what have you found to be the biggest challenge in the past few years as it pertains to recruitment and retention?
Rose Ann Garza:
Yeah, so again, we are a full service restaurant that is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 364 days a year. And the ability to staff each of those locations was always a little bit of a challenge, but it became incredibly more difficult after the pandemic. As we all know, the restaurant industry was one that was forced to close our doors, and I think that lost a lot of trust with the people who we entrusted working with us and for us. And so a lot of that was really rebuilding trust. And our biggest struggles that we've seen within the central Texas area are really just compensation and cost of living. We're seeing incredibly high cost of living within Austin.
And so we're having team members who are having to commute significantly further into the city because they're having to move further out of the city to be able to survive. Compensation again, really just kind of that number one driver. And so then you start looking at how that affects their quality of life and quality of life is a very big thing for us. And so really doing what we can to ensure that they can come to work and be focused on work and be happy.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's amazing the cost of living. My father used to live in Texas and he would always say, come down to Texas, it's cheaper living down here. And I think it probably is compared to Maryland, but I'm sure that it's still for people in that area, it's definitely understandable that they would need to move further out from the city and have a longer commute to work and be able to survive basically and live. So Kerri, what does the research tell us about employers challenges in these areas?
Kerri Nelson:
Sure. So I'll speak to both sides, the retention and the recruitment. On the recruitment side, back when we conducted the study in 2022, we asked employers whether they're having difficulties recruiting for their full-time positions. And we found that 91% of employers said they were over the past 12 months back in 2022. So that's over nine in 10 employers. And while that percentage has dropped, according to our newest research, the 2024 research, down to 77% of employers reporting that challenge, that's still pretty elevated. That's over three in four. And so those difficulties we're finding when we talk to employers are stemming from a variety of different issues that are interconnected, so related to supply and demand, skills challenges.
As Rose Ann was mentioning, compensation and benefits challenges. But when we particularly look at the top three reasons employers say that they're experiencing those recruitment challenges, what we're hearing from them are a low number of applicants, competition from other employers, so tied to who can offer the best benefits or the things that employees and workers are looking for. And then also an increase in candidate ghosting, which likely ties to some of that competition for the workforce. And that's followed closely by skills related challenges. Like I mentioned earlier, we're hearing from employers about one in four report that the full-time positions they're hiring for in the last 12 months have also required new skills. So on top of those current challenges, they're also faced with the shift in the skills landscape for what they need. And that's influencing difficulty on the recruitment side.
On the retention side, we're finding that that challenge isn't as high as recruitment, but it's still fairly elevated. So we're finding that about half, so 49% of employers say they've had difficulty retaining full-time employees in the last 12 months. And so they're facing this two pronged challenge at the front end and the back end of the employee life cycle. And when we ask HR pros to share the top reasons their company is experiencing those challenges, they tie very closely to what Rose Ann shared, is salaries and pay that aren't competitive for the market and inability to offer things like flexible work arrangements, and then also some components like poor people management or a lack of ability to advance within the organization.
So there's really this competition for the best talent and workers are seeking out employers who can provide those things and what they're looking for. And one thing not to overlook is that when we ask employers who aren't experiencing recruitment or retention challenges, why that's the case, while compensation and benefits are at the top there, we're also finding positive workplace culture is a key element. So workers vote with their feet and when they're experiencing positive workplace culture, that's a real factor that keeps them there. Maybe they don't necessarily have the highest pay, but they have the colleagues, they have the environment to grow, things like that. But on the flip side, when there's some toxicity happening, there's poor culture and ability to advance. We're finding that those are the top reasons that workers are looking elsewhere and leaving their companies.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned workplace culture. I was going to ask you if there was any data around workplace culture. This year for us, we are looking at the importance of civility in the United States. We actually have a new civility index that just came out recently. And basically it's about practicing civil behavior and how it establishes a safe and empathetic environment where individuals can contribute their best ideas and knowing that they'll be heard and they'll be valued. And our research is showing that civility and civil conversations is at a high. Our research shows that 171 million US workers collectively experience acts of incivility per day. And over half of the US workers believe our society is uncivil. Those are pretty significant numbers and civility is part of workplace culture. And if employers are not taking action and helping to facilitate civil conversations within their workplace, then they may have for recruitment and retention challenges. Rose Ann, any thoughts that you have around civility in the workplace?
Rose Ann Garza:
Of course. I'm so glad that SHRM is making this a focus for this year, and I think that it's something that is lacking in our society and something that we truly need to make a focus and ensure that we're creating a safe work environment for our team. And that includes civility. We always say within Kerbey safety at work is more than just slip resistant shoes. It is really the ability to feel safe at work. And that's the type of environment that we are trying to create for our team members, which is really what helps us for them to want to be here and to stay here. And it goes back to our mission, which is to be a place where everyone feels welcome. And I think when we think about a restaurant, you think immediately of the guest, right? You want to create a welcoming environment for the guests so that they come back and they frequent your establishment. But for us, it's about the team. And specifically for me, it's about ensuring that our team feels comfortable, feels welcome, and feels confident to be their true selves at work.
Amber Clayton:
And essentially, I don't know about you, but I would think of them as my customers. The employees are my customers. I think most HR professionals feel that way. That's great. So going back to recruitment, Rose Ann, what types of recruitment strategies do you currently use or have you used in your past experience that have been successful for you?
Rose Ann Garza:
Well, I use them all, Amber. Just kidding. I've been with Kerbey Lane for many years. As I said at the beginning, going on 18 years. And I think one of the biggest things that I've recognized over the last several years is really thinking outside of the box and being significantly more agile. In the beginning of my career and at my time at Kerbey, it was really about these experiments and these long tests and these commitments to things that we were doing for recruitment. And what I'm finding now is really more rigorous testing, more lightweight experiments, shorter partnerships, of course, looking to, where are our team members spending majority of their time? And for us, the majority of our team, one of the biggest shifts that we've seen is prior to the pandemic we had, I've done the math on this, I think it was like 19 teenagers that worked within the organization. And now we have over 300.
Amber Clayton:
Oh, wow.
Rose Ann Garza:
So it is a very large shift to a significantly younger workforce. And for us, the first time that we are ever seeing that as part of our demographic. So really learning where they live outside of work and making sure that we're focusing on that. And so a lot of social media and not social media like posting it on our personal social media, but really focusing on the marketing and the ads within social media, within YouTube, those sorts of things because that's what they're going to see.
Amber Clayton:
You do social media on TikTok and oh gosh, I don't even know them all. My daughter's 20 years old and she probably knows everyone. But I'm old school Facebook. So what's the other one? Snapchat. Yes.
Rose Ann Garza:
[inaudible 00:14:26], the kids love them, and so we do our best to show up there.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. It's funny, I came home yesterday and my daughter said, "Oh, I've been on my phone for eight hours." And I'm like, "I don't even know what to say." But that's our life, her life is her phone. So recruitment strategies. Kerri, what does the research say about what are the top recruitment strategies that other employers are using?
Kerri Nelson:
Yeah, sure. So I laughed when Rose Ann said all of them because back in 2022 when we did this research, we actually did find that, that employers were trying to use anything across the board. There was these elevated levels of every type of strategy just to see what would stick given those really high challenges of recruiting. But now employers are scaling back a little bit and trying to be more targeted in what they're using.
Amber Clayton:
Was poaching part of that, poaching from other competitors?
Kerri Nelson:
We didn't ask that directly, but I'll say competition from other employers was high and the reasons they were experiencing challenges and the ghosting piece came up. So I'm imagining there could be some of that going on behind the scenes.
Amber Clayton:
But we didn't ask them. Maybe next report.
Kerri Nelson:
We didn't, unfortunately not. Yeah. But on the most utilized strategies we're seeing from employers, very similar to what Rose Ann sharing, is number one is an increase in leveraging social media and then expanding advertising efforts to different and new channels. Again, other strategies. While these have come down in prevalence, increasing and improving compensation is still one of the very top strategies employers are trying to use. A lot of workers are now demanding higher pay. Promoting a positive workplace culture, again, that's a theme that'll consistently come up. That's something that employers can do for free. It doesn't cost a lot to have a good culture besides time and effort. And so that's a big thing that employers are pushing. Then interestingly, voluntarily including pay ranges in job posting. So I know there's been some legislation and policy around that in certain states, but we're also seeing a lot of employers doing that voluntarily as a way to attract talent to their company.
This aligns, like I shared earlier, with some research that we've done on workplace culture. When we look at the top reasons employers say workers say they either stay or leave their company, pay is always number one. But after number one, the top five, what rounds it out are all things related to culture. And so that's so critical. And on the other side of things too, when we look at those least utilized strategies, we're finding that not a lot of employers are using things like skills-based hiring for example. That's a particular strategy that through our research we find is really effective when employers do it right. Only about a little less than one in four say they're starting to eliminate things like college degree requirements in some of their job ads for certain positions. And then others, again, it's not a very high percentage, less than one in four are seeking talent from non-traditional sources of talent like veterans and retirees and people with disabilities.
But it's also important to note that we looked at not only what's most utilized but also what's most effective. And those two things don't always align. And so when we look at effectiveness, we do find in fact that improving compensation is the number one effective strategy employers are finding. But interestingly beyond that, although it's not necessarily at the top top of the strategies employers are using, we do find things like training current employees to take on hard to fill positions is the third most effective strategy. But it's only the 10th most utilized. And then we also find that while a lot of employers are starting to pull back on things like flexible work and flexible work arrangements, that's the second most effective strategy that employers report among those who use it. So there's a lot of interesting conversation to be had about the types of strategies employers are using and which ones are being the most successful.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, there definitely is. You mentioned ghosting a couple of times now. Rose Ann, do you have that issue? Do you have a lot of ghosting happening with your candidates?
Rose Ann Garza:
We do. Amber, I would say that we've really improved on this and we've changed sort of our strategy around it to focus on that not being an issue for us over the last several years. It used to be that a person could apply and you could let that application sit for three or four days. And what I'm really seeing now is you've got to get back to that person within 12 to 24 hours. Really, truly, the sooner the better because they have applied for many, many jobs and they've already worked through the process with someone else if you are delaying by a day or two. So it's really, there's an urgency there from the applicant side of things that we've had to modify the way that we coach and train and teach our leaders to get these applicants in.
And we used to have a very rigorous, "You've got to do two or three interviews and they've got to be able to suggestively sell to you." And while all of those things are still incredibly important to us, we realize we can teach all those skills. We've just got to find the right people and we've got to get them in the door and train them and bring them into our culture and make them feel welcome. And that's a really big piece of making sure that we're getting people and applicants in.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, absolutely. Years ago, I used to work for a big box retailer. We would actually do interviews on the spot because we knew once we had that person in there, we wanted to talk to them, see what they were looking for. And if we felt like they were a good candidate, we would pass them along to a divisional manager right then and there. We had signage that talked about on the spot interviews. So that really helped us and we definitely had a lot of people that we hired through that. The ghosting piece though is interesting. One of the things that I've heard is that people ghost because the employers ghost them. Sometimes they don't hear back from the employers. They'll apply for a job, they'll interview and then nothing. And they'll follow up and nothing. And employers who do that are really hurting their own brand and they're hurting their ability to be able to recruit and hire future talent because that person who has applied really is not going to be speaking very positively about them.
So the ghosting, and this is just for our listeners who are out there, there are things that employers, as Rose Ann said, that you can do to help try to decrease ghosting. And that includes getting back to those candidates quickly. And another thing that I do too is when I interview, I will ask them, do you have any other pending offers? Do you have any other interviews that are coming up? Because then it gives me an idea of how quickly I need to move this candidate along if it's somebody that I really want for the job. And the other piece too is if you think about it, I don't know about you, but I get a lot of reminders about my doctor's appointments and things like that because the healthcare, they're dealing with patients who are ghosting. So it's the same thing with employers. You have to really stay on top of communicating with the applicants for the positions right now.
Rose Ann Garza:
I would add, Amber, just this is sort of where AI can come in and help you as well, is when you have someone that is applying, having that set up to where you can immediately give them that justification of, "Your application's been received, we're reviewing it." And then also giving them the opportunity, making sure your applicant tracking system allows them the opportunity to set up their own interview immediately or to have a contact immediately. I think that that's a thing over the last decade within training, hiring, recruitment. We've gotten away from the human touch and the human contact and where I'm saying use AI because it can help you, also make sure that they have the ability to walk in and do those interviews or pick up a phone and talk to someone or have a window of time where they know they can come in and apply and get a job interview.
Amber Clayton:
No, that's a really great point. And I appreciate you bringing up AI because that has been the hot topic over the last year or so. And I think sometimes when you're working in HR, many people don't realize that we're already using AI. AI is part of those applicant tracking systems, those learning management systems and tools that we use on a daily basis. I think we just, as we've heard about ChatGPT and other AI systems, that's when it's starting to become more prominent and people are starting to think, "Wow, here, we need to start doing this more often because it's really going to help us with our roles." So thank you for bringing that up. Rose Ann. What have you found to be the best source of job candidates for you? And are there any that you've used that have been non-traditional sources?
Rose Ann Garza:
I definitely have. And I would say one of the things that has really worked for us and that has been tried and true is actually going back to former team members who used to work here and just keeping in touch and just reaching out and saying, "Would you ever want to come back? And if you did want to come back, what would it take for you to come back to us?"
And so again, restaurant industry, you've got a lot of people who are leaving you for 50 cents more, a dollar more, and they're staying in the restaurant industry, but they're going to your competitor. And what we thought outside the box was, "Well, why not, for those team members who left and are in good standing and who know our culture and who know our training, why not reach back out to them? They might be wanting to come back and they might just be scared to do it because they left." And so that's something that we really empower our managing partners to do is when you need people to work, look into your terms, which is something I don't think that we had ever done before.
Amber Clayton:
That's a really great point. We call them boomerang employees, I'm sure many people have heard the boomerang employees. And just last night actually my niece had texted me. And she had gotten a new job recently. She's only been there for a couple of weeks and apparently the workplace culture is not great. And so she contacted her former employer and they said, "We would love to have you back." And they gave her a raise, they gave her a better schedule. And now she's back with her previous employer that she had been with for years. And it is working out great.
And I know for myself, we've looked at retirees. I have retirees who work for us, people who have left SHRM, retired, and now they're working for us on an as needed basis or they're back to working a part-time schedule with us. So I think looking at your past employees is a great idea, even your past candidates too. I know we've had candidates who maybe have selected something else, but we really like them a lot and we call them back and see, "How's your job going?" because sometimes it's not great. And like you said, some people are hesitant to get back and talk to their former employer or talk to that company that they interviewed with previously to say that they're not happy where they are currently. So great, great idea. And Kerri, what does the research say about some of the non-traditional sources that employers are using today?
Kerri Nelson:
Sure. Yeah. So to one of the pieces you just mentioned, it was a less utilized strategy, but we do find that some employers are using candidate nurturing. And so not even just going back to past candidates, but digging deeper of people who've applied but maybe didn't get the job. And maybe they impressed you or you had a good engagement with them and you want to consider them for future possibilities. That's something that we're seeing in our research, but that it's not quite taken on to the extent it could. Beyond that, when it comes to non-traditional sources another thing we often explore in our research is how employers are engaging with what we call untapped talent pools. And we find in our research that that's actually, like I mentioned earlier, a fairly underutilized strategy. Right now, only about 23% percent of employers say they're taking full advantage of engaging with these non-traditional talent pools like I mentioned before, retirees, veterans, military spouses, people with disabilities, the formerly incarcerated or opportunity youth.
So groups out there who have the skills and talent that organizations are looking for, but might be overlooked due to maybe myths or stereotypes or expectations about what they might be able to bring to the workforce. But our research shows that overlooking that talent is actually to the detriment of employers, is that it's not just the right thing to do, right? It's not just something that's good for the community, but also that it makes a lot of good business sense. And we find in our research actually employers that hire from these pools are less likely to be experiencing the talent shortages that we're seeing in the research that are so high right now that employers are reporting.
And then I would say beyond that, we also explored in the research things like apprenticeships and returnships, so somewhat less traditional pathways to work. On the apprenticeship side and returnship side, those are things that not a lot of employers are using right now, but when they do are finding a lot of success in filling those talent gaps. And so I think there's also some expectations about what roles apprenticeships might be good for, but even expanding the idea of how you can train employees for the skills you need. We saw that was one of the most effective strategies as something to consider for non-traditional sources of talent.
Amber Clayton:
I actually heard this from somebody else. I do not remember the name of the hospital, but there was a CHRO that was speaking about this topic and how they trained their janitorial staff to become CNAs, certified nursing assistants. And I just thought, "How awesome is that? This individual's coming into the role. And now the employer is giving them this opportunity and training them to do something that's going to help project them in their career and help with increase in wages." And I just thought that was really cool that they had looked at their janitorial staff and helped to up-skill them so they can become CNAs. I thought that was great. You talked about nurturing. And Rose Ann, I did not realize you were on one of our HR Storytellers with Tony Lee. How long ago was that?
Rose Ann Garza:
That was 20... I'm like, "What year is it now?" Time is so odd. I think that was 2022. It was when we had annual in New Orleans, so we're coming up on two years ago. Yes.
Amber Clayton:
Yes. And in that one you were talking about caring for your employees. So when she said nurturing, it made me think about that. And what do you do to care for... I know you've mentioned some things already. But was there anything that you didn't mention about caring for your employees that you brought up in that podcast, that HR Storytellers?
Rose Ann Garza:
Yeah. I think one of the things that's always been special and unique about Kerbey, and one of the reasons that even I personally have stayed here as long as I have been here is just the way our culture and the way that we treat each other. We really focus on our three Cs, which is our core values. Our three Cs, which is care for the guests, care for the food, and care for each other. And where I come in is really care for each other and ensuring that our team members are taken care of from start to finish, from their first day in the building to even six months post when they leave us.
And we've got a lot of team members who are here for the summer working because they're back home from college. We have a lot of team members who go to other states and whatnot. And for us, it's really important that we ensure that they know that they are always a part of the Kerbey Lane family. And one of the ways that we do that more recently is we really just try to utilize what we have already at our fingertips. And it doesn't have to be crazy or expensive.
We are a restaurant. We feed people. And one of the things that we've heard the most from our team members is how difficult it is to think about dinner when you have children. And we have a lot of team members who have children. And so what we do is we enable our team, they get basically an allowance. They get Kerbey bucks that they always eat for free, but these dollars enable them to be able to take food home. And it's also a card that they are allowed to also give to a roommate or a spouse or a partner within their household. And you can feed up to six people at least twice a week. And so that-
Amber Clayton:
Wow.
Rose Ann Garza:
Yeah. It really, even for myself, when you've had a long day, when a lot of our team members are working two jobs, when you have children whether you're a single parent or not, making sure that you have food on the table is a top priority. And so one of the benefits that we brought in was making sure that they had the ability to feed their families and not have to worry about it.
Amber Clayton:
That's awesome. I love that. I can remember working in the restaurant industry and getting the free meals and everything. I didn't have kids back then, but that would've been awesome to be able to have free food to take home and not have to worry about going home after those long shifts and making food. That's awesome. I really like that a lot. I mentioned the skills gap or up-skilling that happened at that particular hospital. Is there anything that you do at Kerbey Lane to help up-skill or lessen that skills gap with your employees?
Rose Ann Garza:
Yeah, there's a couple different things that we do at Kerbey. We've got what we call Kerbey Academy. And Kerbey Academy allows them the ability to have a broad strokes understanding of each job code and the ability to cross train into other job codes. And when you cross train into other positions, whether you are a busser and you also want to be a host or a dishwasher, that enables you to get a raise in those positions. And so you are more valuable to us because you can do more things and so therefore we pay you more and it enables you to kind of stay within the organization. One of the other things that we do is we have continuous training. So obviously you come in, you learn your job that you were hired for and your role. But then after that, once you get kind of 30, 60, 90 days in, we are making sure that you learning our culture and our team and the different opportunities that we have for you at Kerbey.
We are a big organization that focuses on promotion from within. I'm going to give you a crazy stat, but 85% of our leadership is homegrown. So even as we've continued to grow in order to enable our culture to grow with us, we recognized we've got to hire those people within. They've got to start here, they've got to live here, they have to be a part of this organization. And that's how we multiply culture across more units. And so it's really just about making sure that they have an understanding that we can be their home from start to finish of their career. We don't have to just be a stop.
Amber Clayton:
I love that. I remember when I was younger, some people were like, "Oh, I don't want to work at McDonald's, for example, because that's not going to be a career." And I've always looked at wherever I was, that I could potentially have a career and I could continue to grow. And when I worked for that big box retailer that I mentioned, I started out as an HR assistant and they put me through an HR manager in training program. And then I became an HR manager, and I was the youngest one in the organization that became one. And I just think I grew a career really actually before HR assistant. I was actually working in their accessories department. I was a salesperson on the weekends going to college. So I had this opportunity to be able to grow in my career and it was just a really good opportunity. So I always think, look at every place that you work as a career path, a career growth. So I love that. And I'm sure that people in your organization probably share those stories with other people just to get them on board.
Rose Ann Garza:
Well, we hope so. And I love that you shared that story. It's very similar to mine. In college, I waited tables and I bartended. And so I've always done hospitality and hotels, and that's where it started for me is someone gave me a chance and someone trained me and I got to do something else. And then I got into training and then I got into HR and here we are today.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, that's great. So Kerri had mentioned that compensation and benefits are key in recruitment and retention. What have you offered as far as unique benefits or compensation. I know we talked about the food, which I love that. What other benefits or compensation programs have you done to help attract and retain employees?
Rose Ann Garza:
So I think one of the biggest shifts that we've seen is, I think going back four or five years ago, it was a robust... You needed to have a very robust benefits package, and that included anything and everything from gym to discount tickets to obviously healthcare, paid time off, all those things. And every single one of those things has its place and is important. But what we recognized as the culture within Austin changed and central Texas changed was if you can't afford to pay your rent or your mortgage, you don't care about a discount ticket to a Broadway show. It does-
Amber Clayton:
Very true.
Rose Ann Garza:
... not matter. You can't do that. So we really actually kind of scaled back. We decided to be a little bit radical and to scale back and to focus on what it was that our team members needed and wanted and were asking for. And so obviously compensation and healthcare, those are our two top tier... We want to make sure that every single one of our team members has the ability to have health insurance, should they need or want it.
And then we also, we changed the way that we do rewards a little bit. And the way we do that is we give them rewards via compensation, so contests. Or right now, we've got a huge push for them to create social media content for us. We gave them some topics and we asked them, which they love this, we asked them to create some content for us and gave them the parameters and we will pick people and they will get a gift card to a local grocery store and they'll get some free PTO. And so that's really where we started to make our shift was utilizing, what do we already have in our arsenal and how can we use that to our benefit?
That's what we did with the food, feed the families. It's what we're doing with work that we need help with. They know us best and are our biggest advocates or they're our biggest naysayers. And so we want to make sure that they're feeling taken care of. We've also put a really huge focus on mental health. That's been a really big focus for us. The last several years have been incredibly stressful for everyone, and I think it will continue to be unfortunately very stressful for us for a while. And so making sure that our team knows and understands that they have the ability to take care of themselves and have mental health days and have meditation apps and things that are taken care of for them through the company.
Amber Clayton:
I think that's great. You were saying contests, and I'm thinking to myself, "I am super competitive. I love contests," and I tend to do those with my employees as well. Little pop quizzes and any type of contests, I'm all about it. I love that.
Rose Ann Garza:
I think we had to relearn the system to some extent. I think that for us, the pandemic really wiped away all of these things that we had been building up and thinking we needed and we had to have. These were all the non negotiables to be the baseline employer. And what we realized is in doing all those things, we were losing sight of what the team wanted. At a certain point, it had become about the competition with other employers and the competition to have the better benefit or the cheaper this or the more expensive that. And we recognized we've lost the voice of the team in that, and we really made it a really huge focus for us coming out of that to listen to them and to be agile and to do things quickly and to cater to their needs. And I think that if we can all as organizations think about that, cater to what they need, I think we can solve some of these hiring, recruiting, retention problems that we're all having.
Amber Clayton:
Sure. And you have a lot of employees. So do you do any type of employee engagement, surveys, assessments, anything like that, state interviews that might help get that feedback from the employees?
Rose Ann Garza:
We do. So there's a couple of different ways that we do it. We do NPS, which is net promoter score, internally to determine how we are doing as an organization. We also do something that I do, which is called HR Office hours. And so I set a schedule where I'm physically out in the locations and I make a calendar. And, "Okay. On this day I'll be at this location for this many hours. Here are the laundry list of things that you can come and speak with me or the HR team about. You can complain, you can praise, you can do whatever you want. But this is your opportunity where we're physically out there taking care of you instead of you having to seek us out." I found that that actually helps immensely to curtail any problem that might be occurring, giving them the chance to really voice that and speak to someone who can help them.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, that sounds great. So what advice would you have, Rose Ann, for our listeners who may be struggling in these areas? And you've given a lot of great creative tips and things that you've done in your organization. Any advice?
Rose Ann Garza:
I think that my biggest advice is I think we all have the tendency to be our own harshest critics. And I think that some of us struggle from imposter syndrome. I know that I have at times. And so I just think it's really important that you surround yourself with people who are willing to try new things, to think outside of the box, that you are one of those people and that you're willing to fail fast, do rigorous testing, enlighten trial and error instead of feeling the need to be the subject matter expert on everything. I don't know the last time anyone here or anyone listening looked up a HR leader job description if you're applying for another job. I am not. But if you looked at those, you would see that a CHRO, a VP of HR, a director of HR, you are expected to know everything. If you look at that job posting, you are expected to be 100% perfect and have all the answers and all of the solutions, and you don't because you're human, and that's okay. But it's about trying and finding that special sauce.
Amber Clayton:
Yes. And the same applies to our advisors in the Ask an Advisor service. We are HR experts. We do a lot of training, a lot of education to keep up with everything that's happening with the laws. But we can't possibly memorize every state law, every local law. So a little bit of grace. We are human as you said, and if we don't know it, we'll research it for you. And that's the beauty of our service, that we can do that for our members. So Kerri, are there any other insights that you could provide our listeners from the research that can help them along in these areas?
Kerri Nelson:
Sure. So pulling on the train of conversation we've just been having, I really like what Rose Ann shared about this idea of sometimes we can get too in the weeds of trying to offer everything that's really unique and different. But it really comes down to, and we say this a lot in the research world and at SHRM, one size doesn't fit all. And so that ability to know your workforce, their needs. You might have a very different or more diverse workforce than another company. So past that competition is really understanding what are those key things that your workers need from you and really focus those benefits and efforts along those lines to make sure that those workers have what they need.
And I think beyond that, I know my colleague Darun was recently on the podcast with you talking about our mental health research. We also found in that research, and we called it Back to Basics, which was this idea that employers, when it comes to mental health benefits are thinking about, "What can I do that's new and innovative and different?" But when we look at research in a survey of workers that we've done that, a lot of employees are saying they don't even know or they're unaware of the benefits that are available to them, or even if they are available, they might be uncomfortable using them. And so I think it's kind of this stepping back to the basics, understanding when you have those really important benefits and key benefits, making sure your employees know about them beyond just the onboarding experience, right? Maybe they don't know that they need them now, but they might need them later when something comes up in their life, both personal or work.
And so that's really key, I think, so that employees are aware of what's available to them. And then beyond that, we find that lots of employees are even again voting with their feet when they see better benefits that meet their needs somewhere else. So with the mental health research, seeing that lots of employees would say they're likely to leave a company if they saw another one with better mental health benefits. And I think that applies across lots of what we've been talking about, both with mental health, but outside of mental health and how to ensure that you're building that strong employer brand, word of mouth to make sure that employees are talking about you like you're a good place to work. And that itself brings a lot of returns.
Amber Clayton:
I love when you say voting by your feet. I'm going to steal that from you. I love that, voting with your feet. That was it. I appreciate both of you joining me today as guests. And thank you. With that, we've come to the end of our show. For our listeners who are members of SHRM, you can find resources specific to this topic at SHRM.org. You can also contact SHRM's Knowledge Center and ask one of our HR advisors for assistance at SHRM.org/hrhelp. So thank you again, Kerri and Rose Ann for taking part in this episode.
Kerri Nelson:
Thank you.
Rose Ann Garza:
Thank you.
Amber Clayton:
And for our listeners, a reminder that this podcast is approved to provide 0.75 PDCs toward SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification if you listen to the full episode. After listening, you may enter this activity ID, 25-GNTY into your SHRM activity portal. Please note this activity ID will expire in June 2025. If you haven't already, please subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. And be sure to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn and X. And if you'd like to learn more about the Honest HR Podcast, about myself or the other hosts, or to get additional information and resources on what was discussed in today's episode, head over to SHRM.org/honesthr. And to learn more about other SHRM podcasts, check out SHRM.org/podcasts. Thanks again for joining us on Honest HR.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Fidelity Workplace. Fidelity Workplace helps improve employee well-being with benefits that support better decisions about finances, retirement, and health. Working with employers and their advisors, Fidelity helps build successful benefits programs for diverse needs. See more at fidelity workplace dot com. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member of NYSE, Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 900 Salem Street, Smithfield, RI 02917