A Return to Service

A RETURN TOService

Supporting a Sense of Community by Serving Your Staff First

COVID-19 severely curtailed service as we knew it for two years. As the pandemic wanes, hospitality companies are moving back to “normal,” but in a world where expectations and people have been fundamentally changed. In this altered reality, one thing is clear: restaurants and hotels can’t serve their customers

without also serving their staff. A successful return to service must incorporate both.

John Barofsky, owner of Beppe & Gianni’s in Eugene and the incoming chair of ORLA’s Board of Directors, emphasized this in his introductory address to members last Fall. “There are three

different buckets that I see when we talk about a

return to service,” he said. “The first is the classic: We’re serving our customers and doing the things we used to do for them pre-pandemic. The second is the return to service for our staff. For me, that means supporting them financially and emotionally because a restaurant is a community. When we were away

from service, that sense of community was lost because we weren’t able to connect like

we used to.”

Barofsky’s third bucket is serving the community as a whole. Hospitality companies participate in their community through charitable donations, food donations or providing an enjoyable place for people to be around others.

As service has picked up again, safety is still at the top of everyone’s mind. One of the things that came from COVID-19 and is unlikely to go away anytime soon is an increased sense of responsibility for providing a safe place for people to engage. “We’ve always done enhanced sanitizing, but now it’s not only engrained into us, it’s engrained in our customers,” said Barofsky. “They expect to have a clean, sanitary place to interact.”

People’s sense of the experience they want from hospitality companies has also been somewhat altered. Expanded facilities for outside dining—something that’s long existed in Europe—don’t seem to be going anywhere. Barofsky said his customers are spending more time on Beppe & Gianni’s patio. “In the past, if it got a little chilly, people wouldn’t want to sit out there. Now people are more tolerant of the Oregon climate and more willing to sit out there. It’s stretched out our season for the patio.” This so-called “streetery” concept has been embraced in Eugene, Salem, Portland, and many other cities. One thing that hasn’t changed is people’s desire for human connection through hospitality. “For a lot of the people who come here, this is the social interaction they have with other people,” Barofsky said. “They’re living alone and come down to interact with the bartender. That’s important for their mental health.”

After this long period of isolations and shutdowns, providing a place for people to connect with others is critical. “When a

customer comes to see us, they’re longing for something they’ve been missing in their life,” said Joth Ricci, CEO of Dutch Bros. “At the end of the day, we’re a community of people looking for connection.” And when people look for connection beyond their friends or family, they often look to the service industry. “One of the things that attracts people to our service is that it’s an opportunity to get away, to be taken care of.”

Ricci has developed a strong culture of customer service everywhere he’s worked, and it’s clearly evident at Dutch Bros, which is famous for its baristas who show a clear

interest in visitors.

Top-notch customer service starts with great employees. To ensure they can consistently meet customer expectations, Dutch Bros has a strong focus on hiring the right people. “We’re not just trying to grab employees, we’re grabbing teammates who want to be part of something,” Ricci said.

“When we were away from service, that sense of community was lost because we weren’t able to connect like we used to.”

- John Barofsky, Beppe & Gianni’s

“At the end of the day, we’re a community of people looking for connection.” - Joth Ricci, Dutch Bros.

This, of course, is harder than ever in today’s labor market. “Somebody told me the other day that we’ve gone from the Great Resignation to the Great Application,” said Ricci. Keeping employees around means treating them with the same authenticity and respect as customers. And, he adds, “If our teams have a great environment to work in, that will transcend into the environment we create for our customers.”

From the beginning of the hiring process, company hiring managers establish clear expectations about what it takes to be part of the team. They look for individuals who are adaptable, have high integrity, and demonstrate kindness. “Anyone who’s been to a Dutch Bros stand talks about how nice

and kind people are,” Ricci said. “There’s a general understanding that kind people can be great at service.”

Employees must want to be part of a team, which means they must demonstrate a certain selflessness and willingness to communicate with others. “To work in a tight environment like our stands, you have to be aware of your surroundings and participate in the back and forth that keeps things moving,” Ricci adds.

In sum, team members need to have a high level of emotional intelligence. “Every customer we’re talking to could be coming from a different place in terms of what is going on in their day,” Ricci said. “Our employees have to be great communicators and ask great questions as they show empathy with consumers.”

With the right people in place, Dutch Bros relies on authenticity, transparency, and good leadership to form great teams. Managers set clear expectations for what they expect from employees and what the working environment should be like. They reflect those values themselves, helping people move through the day with speed and grace and helping them solve problems as they come up.

Providing a high level of service is easier when employees are happy, which is another reason service to employees is critical. Addressing the needs of the whole employee has always been a goal for Patrick Nofield, president of Escape Lodging, which owns The Inn at Cannon Beach, Cannon Beach Lighthouse Inn, and several other hotels and restaurants in Oregon. His philosophy dates back to something his mentor told him early in his career: “Take care of people and the money takes care of itself. The money is a report card on how well we’re serving others.”

“What he was talking about is if you do something purposeful and bigger than yourself, the money will take care of itself because you’re doing the right thing and taking care of your employees, your guest, and your community,” said Nofield.

Escape Lodging’s employee review process is a two-way street. Employees receive feedback designed to help them become a better worker, but they also have an opportunity to rate the company and share any concerns. A software program called 15Five allows them to do so confidentially. “It’s a big help in identifying issues before they become problems,” Nofield said.

During the pandemic, the company strengthened its commitment to employee welfare by hiring an employee fulfillment manager. This advocate helps them through a self-appraisal process during their annual evaluation. “We sit down with them and learn what

their objectives and goals are and work with them to achieve those goals, whether they’re professional or personal,” said Nofield.

“Take care of people and the money takes care of itself. ”

- Patrick Nofield, Escape Lodging

This shows employees they’re not just a number to their employer. “They’re a person, and we’re trying to mesh their expectations and our expectations.”

The clearest example of how Escape Lodging supports employees in meeting their goals dates back a decade, to when a manager at one of the company’s restaurants in the Columbia River Gorge identified a lifelong desire to learn to blow glass. The company paid him a severance equivalent to six months’ salary so that he was able to support himself while he took classes and started his own studio.

If glass blowing didn’t work out, the nowformer employee had an open invitation to return to the restaurant. However, his new venture was a huge success. That individual continues to give back to Escape Lodging by making one-of-a-kind chandeliers for new properties at a discount.

When caring about and investing in others is so deeply entrenched in a company’s culture, it trickles down to employees, who now see compassion and service as their own purpose at work. “That’s how we help our guests create a memory or find respite so that when they go back home, they’re restored to the point where maybe they’re a better husband or a better father or a better person,” Nofield said. “When your employees can see they’ve made a difference to someone, they become a culture change agent.”

The need to support employees has become more acute in the face of a growth of entitled customers. In a recent survey by Todd Montgomery, executive-in-residence and director of the Oregon State University Sustainable Tourism Lab, 27 percent of hospitality workers said they encountered entitled customers—those who believe they deserve special treatment or privileges—on a daily basis. Over half of respondents said they wanted to leave the hospitality industry as a result of these negative customer interactions.

Entitled customers existed before the

pandemic, but workers believe the problem has gotten worse in the last few years, in part because of their struggles to impose unpopular mask mandates. Bias and discrimination

also seemed to play a role. “It was clear that minorities perceived they were being more affected by customer entitlement than others,” Montgomery said. “The customer is mad and, in that moment, that unconscious bias comes out.” This was true for people of color as well as people who identified as LBGTQIA. Very young workers and older workers, both of whom struggle with age discrimination, noted struggling with entitled customers too.

Particularly troubling to Montgomery was a question about whether people felt they were physically in danger as a result of customer entitlement. The number of people who said yes in this survey compared to previous, similar inquiries was substantially higher.

“These are already hard jobs,” he said. “They’re hectic and physical. Then you add in customer entitlement and the feeling that it comes from bias, and it leaves people feeling like they’re in danger.” It’s no wonder that for some, the decision to leave the hospitality industry has been clear.

“It was clear that minorities perceived they were being more affected by customer entitlement than others,” - Todd Montgomery, Oregon State University Sustainable Tourism Lab

Montgomery is watching the airline industry, which has its own problems with entitled customers, to see how it responds to the challenge. The airline industry has a few tools at its disposal that the broader hospitality field doesn’t. Through the Federal Aviation Industry, it has legal mechanisms like the no-fly list to block passengers whose behavior escalates to violence. Both pilots and flight attendants have strong unions, which have stepped up to serve as a voice for workers both with policymakers and airline companies. Clearly, though, there are a few things hospitality companies can do to help employees feel supported. “A lot of people have pointed to this idea that the customer is always right and said there has to be a shift in how companies view customers,” Montgomery said. “Service theory says you take care of your employees, and your employees take care of your customers. We have to take that to heart now and realize there may be situations where you have to kick out a customer or ask them to leave—not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because if you don’t, it makes the acquisition and retention of labor too difficult.” Both managers and business owners need to make sure they’re standing up for employees facing entitled customers. In the survey, a high percentage of people said they felt supported by their manager. Fewer felt the same way about ownership or felt that owners would be less willing to ask an abusive customer to leave. Survey participants also expressed frustration at inconsistent enforcement of policies. “If you tell the employees this is the policy,

and then when a customer goes to a manager and complains and the manager gives them a pass, that’s a huge blow to employee morale,” Montgomery said. As he continues to explore the growth of this phenomenon and what to do about it, he hopes to bring in the perspective of the consumer at some point. Gaining a better understanding of entitled behavior might “At the end of the provide some ideas on how to deal with it. night, we have a In the meantime, hospitality companies shift meal, so all will continue to nurture their staff so they of our employees can provide the best service possible to sit down and those who are dining, drinking, and seeking overnight stays in higher numbers. For eat their meal young people in particular, who tend to together. That’s have the most entry-level jobs and also place priority on relationships and mentorship, the time to debrief providing them with a sense of community is from the day,” important. Now that in-house dining is back in full swing, Barofsky has returned to many of his typical routines with staff. At the beginning of every shift, they do a check-in to make sure everyone is ready to go for the evening. “At the end of the night, we have a shift meal, so all of our employees sit down and eat their meal together. That’s the time to debrief from the day,” he said. People can complain, celebrate, seek advice, and enjoy being together. These relationships are key to serving employees so that they can go out the next day and serve the people who keep the hospitality industry going.  SOPHIA BENNETT

- John Barofsky, Beppe & Gianni’s

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