Seasonal staffing success with Jet Brown, Wilkinson Companies

 Daniel Blaser (00:06):

Hello and welcome to On the Clock presented by Workstream. If you care about hiring and retaining hourly workers, you're in the right place. I'm Daniel Blazer, and today I'm clocking in with Jet Brown, assistant Operations Manager at Wilkinson Companies. Wilkinson owns several hotel properties and convenience store locations in and around North Platte, Nebraska. Jet talks about a program they use to understand the communication styles of their hourly team members and how that's made a positive impact on retention and advancement opportunities. We also talk about seasonal hiring challenges, how to shift hiring from reactive to proactive and more. Jet is a member of our on the Clock community, and you're officially invited to join as well. Check out the show notes for a link to learn more. And with that, enjoy the episode. Now, you previously mentioned, I think this was in response to one of the community emails that went out, how you approach hiring as a year round endeavor. And I'd love to hear a little bit to break down. What does that look like for you in your company and then what success has been achieved with kind of this Always on strategy.

Jet Brown (01:21):

We've got a high turnover business a little bit anyway, and then our summertime is super busy here. We probably double triple our volume in our hotels easily. So the need for people during that time of the year is huge. So the other thing is needing those people trained, ready to work, knowing what they're doing, also huge. We want, when you've got that many people coming into your property, you want them all to be happy. You want good reviews, you want. So the more that we can have that staff ready to roll, the better. And we're always looking, I feel like for people to move up to a supervisory role, whatever that role may be. And it may not be, like I said, I mainly deal with our hotels, but we have other businesses. So okay, maybe you've proven yourself somewhere or the hotel business isn't for you, but you're a really great employee and we want to move you someplace. So I think one of the nice things is being able to go through those applications. If we find the right person, even maybe if we don't have the perfect job and we want to bring them on, we can maybe move them someplace else or we can start training and then when the timing's right, we've got someone to be in that supervisory role and just always looking to build that bench and build that workforce, that team that's going to work well together.

Daniel Blaser (02:59):

And I guess it's an advantage that you said you've got different options that you can kind of recommend to different locations. And so how have you maintained, I guess a level of efficiency while you do that?

Jet Brown (03:14):

Doesn't always happen. I will tell you, we had office staff making beds at the hotel two years ago because we didn't have enough people. So once everybody started traveling again and 2021, we were super short staffed. We actually even bring in some foreign students during the summertime, so they do a work program with their schools or with the country that they're in, and they come over here for four months or so, and we usually get about 12 of them during the summer, and they're a lifesaver because we need that kind of seasonal to fill in that seasonal gap. So that helps with that. It's just always a struggle to get the right people and trying to avoid that shortfall that we had two years ago. I can make a bed, but it's probably not my best use.

Daniel Blaser (04:21):

I think in one of the other responses that you gave, you talked about hiring fairs and I'd love to hear just a little bit about how you approach the hiring fairs, how you organize them or think of those and then what success you've seen from those.

Jet Brown (04:38):

Well, I will say the hiring fairs are a little frustrating. We've done some of 'em. We've done some jointly with other entities where they've done a big hiring fair in the community, and then we've done some on our own. We usually will advertise on the radio. We'll push some stuff out on Facebook that we're having them, to be super honest, recently, I would say work stream's been a much better contact point. We've maybe gotten just a couple of viable applicants through a hiring fair. So just sometimes we feel like, okay, we're really short. How are we going to do this? How are we going to reach some people again? But I don't see them as hugely successful, honestly. And we tend to run them, we try to do them in the evening so that maybe we're reaching some people that if they're working during the day, they could come in still. So we'll do it from four to eight on an evening. But yeah, they're okay and we've gotten a couple, but I would say efficiency and manpower wise, work stream's a better option.

Daniel Blaser (05:54):

Jumping back real quick, when you talked about getting some of the seasonal help through these foreign, is it like a foreign exchange program or how do you make those connections? Are you going through a specific foundation or association or something that helps facilitate that or how do you do that?

Jet Brown (06:13):

There is, and honestly I can't tell you the name of it. There's actually a couple of different ones, but our director uses one in particular and they just contact them, tell them how many students we want. We provide housing for them. They do pay some rent and they have to provide their own transportation. Although we've recently, we bought bicycles a couple years ago, so they had some transportation to get around. They are, for the most part, they're here to work and to make money. I mean, most of them will have, some of them have had three jobs when they're here. So they don't only work for us, they also, we've had them work in our hotel and then do a side job at one of our C stores. Some of them will work some other fast food places, but it is a cultural exchange also.

(07:06):

So one of the things that we're charged with doing is their host job is some cultural activities with them. So we plan some different things around the community to take them to do. So they get to know a little bit about our country and some of the traditions we have. We're in Nebraska, one of the things that goes on here in North Plad is Nebraska Land Days in the summertime, and it's this huge western rodeo celebration. So we'll take 'em to a rodeo and some different things like that. So they get some cultural experience too while they're here.

Daniel Blaser (07:35):

Definitely seems, from your perspective, at least those programs have been pretty successful as far as kind of being mutually beneficial.

Jet Brown (07:43):

But it is, like I said, it's only that for us, it's like a seasonal stop gap basically for that short period of time when we really do need that extra, those extra hands.

Daniel Blaser (07:54):

Can you talk a little bit more about retention and the things that you've done to better retain hourly employees?

Jet Brown (08:01):

It's tough and it's really hard when, like I said, you've got these entry level positions that they're starting at, but there's how do you see potential unless you see what they're willing to do and what their work ethic looks like and all those kinds of things. So a couple of things that we've done is we started some benefits packages. We offer dental to all of our employees as long as they're working full-time, which our full-time is 30 hours. So we offer a dental package, an accidental or a life insurance, a small life insurance policy. We do have health insurance available for them. We have 401k. So we try to offer as many benefits as we feel we can as a small company to hopefully get them to be tied in and stick around. One of the things that we've really tried to enforce is team and how big of a team we are in that.

(09:03):

Not just, okay, not just your property, but the whole company as a team, but especially within your property, if our front desk people aren't doing what they're supposed to do and our housekeeping people aren't doing what they're supposed to do, we're not a success anywhere. So to be a full success, you have to have those people supporting each other and having each other's backs and supporting one another. So we've really tried to instill that team concept in our people. And one of the other things that's huge of course is communication and how do you communicate, how do you talk about these team functions? So we started using a program called Culture Index, which is a kind of a personality type thing, but it's really a communication tool also.

(10:02):

How do you communicate with this person who sees things maybe differently than you do? Just because they go by inherent traits is what they call them. And what I think of something is different than how somebody else's inherent trait thinks of it and how they communicate. So to communicate effectively, to not be offensive when you're talking to somebody, because what I think and what they think are two different things when I'm talking about something, we kind of study those to make sure that we're at least talking on their level and understanding too when they're talking to us, where they're coming from. So it's been a huge help. One of the things it also does is you go in and you have your employees, your managers, some different people take what they call a C job to create the ideal personality for this particular position. So if you were in this job, what traits would you need to have to fulfill this job? And so we try to match when the surveys come back, you can say, oh, this person is this personality and they've match well with what we've said we need in this job. So here we go, let's try this person out here. Or, well, they applied for this, but their personality says they'd be maybe a little bit better at this job. So we have some options maybe to move them around.

Daniel Blaser (11:38):

What was it, sorry, what was the name of this program again?

Jet Brown (11:40):

It's called culture index. And I mean you can't just say, oh, nope, you are this and you can't be here. You have to use some common sense and some judgment, but it's more, okay, this person comes from this perspective, so I need to remember that, oh, they're shy, they're not talkative, so I need to draw them out more. Or I need to respect the fact that they want their personal life private and not get involved with those things. And just different little tidbits that help you when you're communicating.

Daniel Blaser (12:18):

You have employees go through that process after they're hired or at what point in the process?

Jet Brown (12:26):

So it depends on the location that we're at. The hotels, we pretty much do it after they're hired, mostly because we need bodies, we need people in places at times, so let's get 'em in. And then once they do that, we can maybe look at, okay, maybe this person would be good, moved up here or make a good supervisor or something like that. Our C stores handle it a little bit differently. They actually do them with the application or if they find an applicant they're interested in, they ask them to do the culture index survey before they're hired. Like I said, it doesn't prevent hiring for any reason, but it does give us a little bit of insight, I think, into our applicants.

Daniel Blaser (13:13):

That's interesting. I'm going to look into that a little bit more. That's not a common program I don't think from speaking with other customers, I haven't heard a lot of other people mention something like that.

Jet Brown (13:22):

It's been helpful, especially when you're looking at somebody, okay, can I put this person in management? Are they going to be good? Are they going to be comfortable there? But like I said, it's not a be all end all. My personality actually is I should never manage anybody.

Daniel Blaser (13:37):

Yeah, yeah. It's like you said, it's more about figuring out where someone might be more comfortable at that moment, but that can change all of us. We change over time.

Jet Brown (13:48):

Well, some of it's just also their communication level of comfort. Are you talking to them at a comfortable place for them?

Daniel Blaser (13:54):

I can see how that would definitely help with going back to the retention.

Jet Brown (13:58):

Well, and it gives us on the retention side some insight, like I said, of, okay, we feel like you're ready to be promoted in your job skills and we've looked at some other things and we think you'd be really good at this based on what we've looked at with Culture Index or whatever the case may be. So it's an investment definitely and an investment in our employees, but that's what we're a customer service industry, so we have to invest in those people.

Daniel Blaser (14:25):

This whole idea of kind of, there's reactive hiring and then there's proactive hiring. And I've spoken with a few people and that's kind of their goal for this next year almost is it's been too reactive. We want it to be more proactive. What would you recommend for someone if that's their goal, what sorts of things can make a difference there?

Jet Brown (14:48):

I think one of the things like we talked about, when you find that right person or you've interviewed that person, if you know that they're the right person for something in your company, hire them. Find a place to fit them in. If the position that they you really want them end all end up in isn't available maybe. I think growing that bench and placing trust in people. And one of the things that we've really tried to focus on recently, I don't think we've had a good game plan for this within our company and we're trying to focus on it now, is setting goals with our employees and saying, okay, okay, you started as a laundry person, but what would you like to do? If you could do anything in the hotel? What do you want to do? And then setting up ways to help them reach that goal. And so they have a plan. They're not going to be a laundry person for 10 years. We've got a plan for you, you have a plan for you. Let's see what we can do to reach that together and get you something that you want and something that we need. Lots of opportunities. We actually have, we do have a really good success story at one of our properties. The GM of our Best Western Plus started out in laundry and she's amazing. So it can happen and it's not unrealistic. It's definitely a doable goal.

Daniel Blaser (16:26):

That's really cool. Approximately, do you know how long it took her to go from laundry to general manager?

Jet Brown (16:32):

She got hired with us in 2016, I believe was when she first started. And she's been GM for a couple of years, so about four years, which isn't a bad timeline really, but she is just been really dependable. She's just stepped up wherever we've asked her to fill in and do, and she very much takes her property to heart and takes her people to heart. She's probably one of our best culture index communicators in the company. She knows her people and really talks to them on their level.

Daniel Blaser (17:08):

Well, I think I ran out of questions for you.

Jet Brown (17:11):

Alright, well thank you and I look forward to hearing from some others so we can share.

Daniel Blaser (17:25):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For more info, visit workstream.us/podcast. Look in the show notes for a link to join our on the clock community, and another link to connect with Jet on LinkedIn. Until next time, we're clocking out.