00:00.00
vigorbranding
Everyone today I’m joined by my friend Zach Anderson he’s brand partner at seasoned a system that we’re going to dive into here in a bit but before we do Zach say hello give a little bit of backstory on yourself.

00:11.91
Zach Anderson
Thanks Joseph hi next meet everyone. My name’s Zach Anderson my like Joseph mentioned I’m a brand partner over it seasoned I’ve been in the restaurant space for about 15 years across a mix of both operations as well as on the vendor and supplier side working in. Various capacities across things like ad media to voice ai kiosk hardware and most recently I’ve been over here at season working on our mission to help bring the service industry together by offering a community-based product for restaurant workers to engage each other and find great jobs.

00:45.49
vigorbranding
That’s amazing. Yeah I’m really excited to pry in I’m I’m kind of holding myself back because we will get to it but I do want to talk about the the big l word right now which is the labor issues that we’re challenged with in the industry. Um, from my point of view. It’s kind of a long time coming. Um, anybody that thought we you know restaurants could continue to operate the the way that they had for as long as they have just really was blinding themselves in a lot of ways. So I’m going to use the pw word now I’m getting sick of saying it. But since the pandemic you know the pandemic had this historic impact I think it’s slingshot at all of us. Ah. Past the laziness or apprehension and just forced us to change and 1 big change is the labor market not just the availability of people but the people willingness to work the work ethic and the passion for the industry that used to be there. Um. And and it’s persisted so. It’s not going away behaviors have successfully changed I would say so what do you think is leading this to be permanent. Um, and how do we start to chip away at rethinking the employee experience for restaurant brands.

01:58.33
Zach Anderson
Certainly the the recovery from where we were at from staffing hasn’t hit to where we were um, we’re still probably somewhere between I think last time black box intelligence had some data around this 2 to 400000 jobs short most recently of being where we at pre pandemic so like February of of 2020 ah, yeah, when folks got you know, laid off and we were in this crunch of like hey we just can’t open dining rooms. It caused a lot of folks to reconsider the things that they want to be involved at and what they want to be working where they might have said hey I’m just going through the motions today is this getting food on the table. But now I have this opportunity to go consider something else. You have competition. Of all sorts of industries that are looking for hourly talent. Um that provide different types of benefits than what is frankly, a really tough job to do which is working within the 4 walls of the restaurant high demand high stress. Um, you know you see it in Tv shows like ah you know. They’re covering like what if the experiences of working in the restaurant and folks are thinking hey is this what I want to do long term and then they’re making some decisions so you have you have gig economy or gig economy type of platforms out there. Doordash uber you have Amazon factory work. You have you know. Ups I mean all sorts of folks are trying to find ways to compete for this talent and they can do that in ways with with margins that are at a greater capacity so spend more to attract talent. The restaurants can at the ground level. So it’s provided kind of this perfect storm of like challenges that are there which I think is slowing that recovery. Um.

03:29.30
Zach Anderson
Still,, we’re getting closer and closer and brands are getting smarter and smarter in terms of how they’re attracting retaining getting people to show up. But um I think generally the understanding of from a lot of workers is that there’s There’s a lot of opportunity for me I can choose a lot of direct. Different directions that I want to go what’s going to entice me to want to make that decision to take this really challenging job inside the restaurant versus some of the other areas where I might have complete flexibility to do things that I want to you know, make my own hours working as a gig economy worker or something like that. So a lot of questions I think up in the air that add to where we’re at.

04:04.30
vigorbranding
Yeah I think a lot of um leaders in the industry. It’s it’s starting to decline though. But at first it was like oh we just need to pay them more. Um, but you started tapping into some of those other variables which is where am I going with my career. Ah, when I when I enter into the restaurant workforce and and the heft of the job I mean it is not easy work. You’re on your feet you’re going and you know a lot of a lot of restaurants for good reason. Live by um, you know the the old school. Adage of if you have time to lean you have time to clean so it’s just there’s no stopping. Um how how can restaurant brands overcome some of the perceptual barriers. Um, but also I think communicate better that there is a path forward. There is a career here that can be not only lucrative financially speaking but emotionally culturally um and and all the components.

05:01.32
Zach Anderson
Sure I think that the story just needs to shift a little bit right? So how you present the job. Yeah, think if you look at kind of the stigmas around restaurant work like there’s it’s it’s hard work. It’s hard to grow um feel like you’re just doing this this role. Ah. Those types of pieces. But if you look at the actual things that you gain from working inside of a restaurant. There’s incredibly attractive qualities that come from that. My first job was as a team member at Kfc and then I worked in various pizza Qr type of concepts I worked in find dining as a buser I look back at those. Formative skills that I built from teamwork to nasty ah customer service. All those types of things that you have to have ah critical thinking like moving quickly. You know finding a way to yeah spin a positive out of something that’s really challenging or negative. Those types of things that you pick up those soft skills are essential to what you can take into any capacity. Um, and what we don’t seem to be talking about much in the industry that I see as today is the skills that you build in a restaurant are going to help you in career wherever it goes. Whether it’s in within the industry within restaurants whether it’s you go somewhere else. You’re just not going to get the same thing you know working as a retail worker at a footlocker waiting for people to come in and buy shoes for me like you’re not going to get that type of experience so that area of like attacking the stigma of like hey here’s where we’re going to help you grow as a person is a huge area that.

06:32.10
Zach Anderson
We can see this develop I think you start to see that more and more with with with many brands as they’re starting to shift the focus from ah how they think about like their hr front so brands like inspire brands or first watch restaurants. They’ve shifted the playbook on terms of how they look at. Talking about a career within their their industries there with by a focus of more of kind of a servant leadership type of mindset instead of like you work for us. It’s hey we work for you. We’re you organization we want to help you to develop and I think that shift is is really impactful. Outside of other things like the types of benefits or the things that they’re doing to meet people in the marketplace for what people actually care about as they come into work in those restaurants so that type of shift I think is essential to get away from this you know I guess you call this kind of old school mindset of like hey we just need you coming? You’re gonna work hard. You’re gonna. Do this these are your times all that sort of thing that the flexibility and the the leaning into the family aspect I think is it’s really crucial for how we see this develop over time.

07:34.86
vigorbranding
Yeah I like the way. Yeah, you put that initially as well. Um I hesitate to make this correlation because maybe I should ah disclaimer that. I have the utmost top respect for our service people as it pertains to the armed forces of this nation and and then the guts and the sacrifice and all of that that out of the way. There’s a lot of correlation there I mean you’re on the front quote unquote front lines. Um, you’re working together like you said you’re finding that teamwork you’re finding ways to work with people who maybe have completely different personalities than you do because it is one one team 1 dream and you’re right that does become applicable after after your tour of duty in the restaurant industry if you choose to move on. Um, but like.

08:20.15
vigorbranding
The arm services this industry has so much upward mobility a potential for those who fall in love with it and find passion in it I mean going from buser and timeout. Could we talk about how soul suckking that is by the way like. I was a buser for six months and whenever I’m having a bad day I think to this day I still like ah least I’m not busing tables and it and it was at a diner by the way so it wasn’t even it wasn’t even a good one. Ah, ah.

08:35.11
Zach Anderson
That. Right? Yeah in fine dining I referred to myself as a crummer because I walked around with my crummer. They crumbed the crumb the table so I felt I was doing more of that than you know, busing in refilling waters and clearing tables.

08:57.89
vigorbranding
Yeah, yeah, if I never have to clear a plate of like dippy eggs again. Ah it’ll be too soon. But um, you know that.

08:58.45
Zach Anderson
Such.

09:04.70
Zach Anderson
Um, yeah, so.

09:08.98
vigorbranding
I think especially when we look at these larger brands. There is so much more upward mobility I mean we’ve worked with brands here at Vigor. Um, who started to realize that some of these folks who are the hardest workers become some of the most fantastic franchisees and so they’ve found ways to um, essentially bankroll their foray out of. Workforce into franchisee and owning their own franchises within the brand I think it’s brilliant. Um, which which brands in your experience. Do you think I’ve really started to Ace and figure out this formula of attracting solid talent and the other layer retaining them. So.

09:45.51
Zach Anderson
I mean couple that come to mind I mean certainly ones like Starbucks and Chipotle chick -fil-a probably probably the most notoriety of of doing great job of tracking talent the benefits that they put out there. The mobility pieces you think from from moving up within the organization. Um. The yeah, the the unique franchise as model that chick-fil-a has of you know, creating great ownership within the restaurant and having these folks want to be facing to their to both their guests and their employees. You know that level of care and attention I think is a big piece that helps to both attract people as. But was having you know a great offering that people are going to drive demand and keep the restaurant busy all the time and people coming back for that. Some of those things make a big difference what they layer in from from benefits certainly adds into that as well. The starbuckses you know had. Benefits in place for a long time that have been attractive to people to even people that will leave their careers and and you know retire and come back and say you know this? Ah I can great. Great health insurance work is a barista at starbucks and and doing things like that. So some of those pieces I think have been on the forefront whereas historically other brands might have taken some time to get there. The more centralized ownership has some greater capacity for that that that larger you know, overarching hr theme whereas you look into the the franchise concepts much of that falls onto the the individualgible ownership at the franchise level to determine kind of what those are and they’re oftentimes a smaller entity so they have.

11:17.40
Zach Anderson
You know, greater struggles trying to figure out hey what does this mix look like to to attract the people locally to the markets that we service. So yeah I think yeah, many of these. It’s it’s really about finding those pieces creating a great and work environment leaning to this family aspect of what you’re gonna experience in the restaurant and providing great benefits that are attractive to what. People care about today are really some of the key pieces.

11:40.56
vigorbranding
Yeah, so in your experiences have you seen ah franchise ors do a good job of equipping the franchise groups with the ability to um, create a better employee experience or is that still considered. Almost like the Berlin wall because of the the pendulum of who own you know, ah legally speaking of who owns these employees and who doesn’t like are are brands still a little hands off with that because of that.

12:06.42
Zach Anderson
Um, certainly yeah joint employer laws across states and that sort of thing there does tend to be generally speaking a you know a separation between you know,? what’s going to be people focused components of operations. Be it the certain. Straight up hiring through to the types of benefits packages and those sort of things so those are still left wholly up to franchisees to determine strong brands that have built a great support mechanism for their franchise network will typically be really forward in the types of recommendations or the groups that they partner with and. Ah, to suggest things that they should do to optimize for it and then they’ll test really well within company ownned stores and markets to say hey here’s what’s been really successful to us and then communicate those out to the franchisees that are within their system from there so helping with that vetting process I think is definitely something that’s instrumental to. Lean into those those value pieces to help the franchise be sees be very successful in their business too.

13:05.95
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s great and and so you mentioned Starbucks before um for good reasons. But what’s interesting to me about Starbucks is I think for how much good they do in this world man they get a lot of flak. Um and and and the biggest piece of flak that I think they get um.

13:13.56
Zach Anderson
That.

13:20.36
vigorbranding
Is the threats of unionization and and things like that. So. It’s like they’re already doing a lot more for their for their employees than a lot of other restaurants brands do. But it’s not enough um in the eyes of some groups of employees and so um, how how are you seeing Brands. Ah. Are you having those discussions with brands about unionization What that could mean how do you ah kind of hate to say stave it off but kind of want to um, you know we see what happens to Union shops and across the nation and it’s not necessarily a good thing. Um for the consumer. And then I think if you really start to scrutinize it. Um, it becomes more of a benefit to the union itself and my uncle’s going to hate me if he listens to this because he is a teamsters organizer so but him and I do not see eye to eye on unions so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

14:08.26
Zach Anderson
Yeah, typically any sort of additional layers that you’re adding into these industries ultimately lead to drive up cost in some so some respects no matter where you pass the cost forward. Be it California instituting a. You know $22 minimum wage for for fasts who work or something like that the the rippling effect is it ultimately hits the consumer so in order to stay in business which has to be profitable in order to do so you’re ultimately going to find yourself in a position where you have to raise prices. Um. Potentially to the detriment of the business where consumers will no one could come pay for that product if you have to raise it too high in order to just fund operations. Um I would say the we’re in the early stages. It seems around the conversations around unionization you have handfuls of stores within Starbucks who’s. Spotlights on them is the second largest operator in the in the country. So that’s I think where there’s a lot more eyeballs on onto them and the specific effort that’s taking place I think it’s too soon to say I don’t hear too much of folks whispering around hey what are we going to do or how we can handle this at least from specifically around. The conversations that we hear from mini brands Today. It’s more of hey let’s take a wait and see cautious approach to what um is is taking place from there. Hopefully it’s not something obviously from either a franchise or a company own entity that they ideally want to see because of the added complexity and the downstream effects. It could potentially have on the business.

15:42.82
Zach Anderson
Um, so yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how this continues to play out over time um to understand hey how’s this going to affect the industry as a whole.

15:51.60
vigorbranding
Yeah,, that’s a good response and some good insights too. Um I think you know we start to look at headlines. Obviously it seems bigger than it than it may actually be but um, you know there’s There’s all these economic forces happening and I think the. The unionization of things the desire for increased minimum wage. It really starts to sound great when economies are strong and flying high but we are in a position now. Um, arguably measurably in this throw of high inflation threat if not already in Recession. We know that people’s credit Card. Um balances are higher than they’ve ever been and that their savings are dwindling I know it sound like a ah ah rain Cloud right Now. Um, and but what I’m getting at is do you think all those things start to I hate to say bode well but bode. Well. For folks coming back to the workforce with restaurants. Um, you know, maybe maybe those side gigs or those passionate hustles aren’t paying anything out and they’re starting to see the bottom of the bank account. Maybe it’s time to come Back. Do you do you see any kind of indications that that could be happening.

16:56.39
Zach Anderson
Yeah, a decade Plus bull run of of the market and incredibly cheap financing led to a spur of massive growth across all sorts of Industries massive investments In. You know technology and that sort of thing that is attractive for folks to to jump over to all of a sudden you have a a somewhat of a riding of the ship as interest rates go up that means that the the debt findings come debt financing coming from that it’s being utilized by the. Venture capitals and everybody else is putting money In. They’re starting to Panic. You have heavy investment in you know, but you call Meme stocks within crypto and that sort of thing that starts to negatively affect those groups and they start going bankrupt and all of a sudden the big panic happens across the the larger tech space where a. Focus on Burn as much cash as possible shifts to tighten up and operate as efficiently as possible and then because of that you get these pressures that say you need to reduce headcount and then we have all these layoffs that are happening across these these different organizations that are out there. So. That does flood the market all of a sudden with new talent that may be reconsidering and could potentially be going back into restaurants and staffing up and helping to provide some more experienced talent than what’s been there for probably the last year and a half what we’ve seen from on on the season side from at least.

18:23.25
Zach Anderson
What has been comprising the workers in the space they’re they’re younger and less experienced and they’ve been the past I mean most folks are just kind of aging into the industry is how we’ve been helping to backfill a lot of these positions because of so many people that left so you’re looking at 50% that are under the age of 23 industry’s always skewed younger for the for the frontline workers but but more so now than it has historically and many of them have less than 2 years work experience anywhere. So there’s a lot of training people into the jobs which also may not necessarily be a bad thing right? So you have a lot of folks where what you’re hiring for is is attitude and reliability. And coachability. So if you you can teach anybody to do the job within the restaurant but having those attributes of hey you want to be here. You want to learn how to get better and and you’re gonna have a great attitude and you’re gonna positively. In fact, impact the restaurant we can teach anybody to be great at the job. So. That’s what we’ve been working with. But now we may start to see some folks come back as they’ve gone and maybe gone through a layoff round or 2 and either the technology or just kind of the enterprise space outside of the restaurant and be like no this is more attractive for me to go back to I did like working in this industry I have great mobility. There was stability in the place that I was working at. Um, so we may start to see more of those folks come back as well.

19:37.98
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s good to know and and as they come back? Um, you know what better place to start that journey than was seasoned right? So I think it’s a good set way to talk about what is seasoned. Um, what are you guys doing what what led to the creation of it and um. What’s getting you ah Zach specifically very excited about the platform. So.

19:57.93
Zach Anderson
Sure so season’s mission is to bring the service industry together to succeed and work in life. Our goal is to empower every hourly professional to achieve financial security health and happiness and life and and in the impact the industries and societies that they’re that they’re in. Um. The main focus point of what drove this mission was the fact that there isn’t a community aspect to this 13000000 plus ah workers in the us for them to go where they can really engage with each other one on 1 on one and really look at what this industry is which is a family in a lot of respects so the. You look at kind of where people can go today for professionals. They can go to things like Linkedin to go find jobs or talk about their workplace for just broader social community you have you know all sorts of different channels Facebook Twitter Instagram etc where they can go talk about their personal side of things. But for restaurant employees there isn’t anything none of those really touch what they needed specifically. Um, and additionally there’s kind of numbers of at a number of issues that would come up with you know how they can engage. It’s hiring is essentially a 2 sided problem. Um, which I don’t think is a secret to most for the ah for the hourly professional that wants to go find a job It’s kind of hard to figure out where to go. Um, when you. Go to look for jobs. It’s like okay what used to be taking that on the paper and putting a help wanted sign in the window is now then moved over to these aggregated job boards where you have all sorts of different jobs on essentially what looks like a web dotto layout onto the.

21:28.53
Zach Anderson
Site that you click through and you go apply to all these different things. It’s it’s not a great easy way to figure it out other than just maybe walking into the doors around what’s the right process to engage. Usually they need to find oftentimes places that are close to where they live transportation can be a challenge for many folks so finding some place that’s open and hiring at a wage and a rate that they. Can align with is is challenging beyond that there’s also things like what you know, asking questions and finding out information from the community. There hasn’t been a great resource for them to go do that so we strove to build a platform that would help them to be able to do that so seasoned is a community-based. Platform for any restaurant worker that wants to go can sign up for a free account to go engage with people within the community you can think of it kind of like ah the Linkedin for hourly restaurant workers so they hop on. There’s a feed of questions they can ask from community members like what type of non-slip shoes should I wear to my first day of work or. Here’s an issue I ran into my manager. How would you handle this and other folks within the restaurant community can can lean in and help weigh in and we see hundreds of responses to these questions. So folks will ask. Additionally, we have a area where they can go search for jobs typically locally to them. Um, that have posted their positions on to seasoned. Um, and they’ll sort through and quickly and easily be able to schedule an interview which is really the key piece right now. 1 of the hardest parts for for restaurants on both sides of it is just getting people in the door to have a conversation with them. It’s the.

22:54.56
vigorbranding
Yes, right.

22:57.57
Zach Anderson
Fill out something online and then you’re calling and texting and emailing. You know sometimes sixteen year olds that don’t have when how many sixteen year olds really have an email address on decide of what school gave them right? So it’s it’s really hard to figure out how to get in touch with them so moving this into our app. Environment is something they’re used to and they’re comfortable with because they’ve had you know the phone in their pocket. So they find that job. They can give a little bit of information about themselves their availability to work and then they’ll select a specific time. They’d like to come in to speak with somebody and those times are selected are given to them by the operators for what they can select. All the operators have to do is accept the time to come into them and then we help remind these folks to get them in the door so we make it very easy and and low lift from saying hey I’ve got this community that I trust and I feel like I know thats workers are on here now I can go find restaurants that want to be a part of this and I can easily figure out a time that I can go talk to me about this role that I might be interested.

23:46.65
vigorbranding
Yeah I Love that idea I mean all all the components really start to culminate into a fantastic experience with enough stickiness to keep them engaged now when when you get to the listings themselves are these listings. Unfortunately maybe exclusive to larger brands or.

23:47.13
Zach Anderson
And taken from here.

24:03.34
vigorbranding
Are they very approachable for local brands too like take the local mom and pop shop that’s looking for a new buser because Joseph didn’t want to do it anymore. Um, is is this something where you aggregate them from other services and bring them on or how does that work necessarily.

24:16.85
Zach Anderson
Sure Any restaurant can come on so we are industry Exclusive So You’re not going to find Retail jobs going on there. So again, our focus is working on just servicing this community of restaurant professionals that want to find opportunities within restaurants any business can go on and go create. Um, their their own page and write out their own descriptions and set things up on their end. We focus much of our efforts in terms of the the groups that we work with and more of our kind of go-tomarket capacity and working with with larger restaurant Concepts is is where most of our. Focus sets from there but any restaurant can go on and go post those jobs. Um, and you know lean into any of our premium services to for exposure and that sort of thing from there.

25:04.66
vigorbranding
Yeah I love that and then um, how about ratings of employers. Um I know that’s something that you see in other industries we have it in the advertising and in design creative industry. It’s called um fish bowl.

25:15.42
Zach Anderson
My.

25:16.69
vigorbranding
Actually just launched. It’s a new one and then there’s the course. Ah I keep on thinking next door. But it’s not that um, that’s going to kill me anyway where you can go On. You can actually see reviews about the employers. What was it like from Firsthand Employees. Ah. Good bad ugly everything in between so are there features like that for maybe the larger employers.

25:36.99
Zach Anderson
Um, not today in terms of like actual rating their experience of working there. Um I think there you know there is potentially a ah world where we could get into that but not currently like in our in our near term focus that can be challenging for for some folks right for.

25:44.14
vigorbranding
Um, trip.

25:52.58
Zach Anderson
Ah, it’s something community may want for their pieces but we have to also determine hey what’s the best mix of that for for for the brands as well and how we get that exposure but there are things that we do collect to to help the restaurants as well. So we we use it kind of a 2 sided feedback mechanism for folks when they go and.

25:56.19
vigorbranding
True.

26:12.12
Zach Anderson
Have their interview after an hour after their interview. We actually prompt them to tell us how it went from the candidate side things I’ll say thumbs up. Thumbs down, we cover things like hey I showed up to my interview and nobody was available to talk to me I sat there for 20 minutes ah no one came over. They were too busy or um, the the manager wasn’t in there today or. You know, try and find out these pieces to help close that loop of hey maybe there’s some coaching opportunity that the above restaurant leaders can bring down to their operators like hey maybe we need to get more people trained on this or maybe there’s ah some availability pieces or we need to shift somebody from another store during this day to go help you out so you can help hire into these pieces so there’s. That side of it as well as you know we get feedback from candidates as to hey, why’d you maybe no show for that for the interview that you came in you booked this with them. You confirmed, you’re going to show up what caused you to not be able to come in a lot of times. It’s things around transportation related concerns or other things that come. Came up so we can understand like hey was this because you don’t want to work here or you changed your mind about this or is there something else that we can understand so we can better inform folks like hey what is what is this space and what can we anticipate from what workers are are wanting and what they’re needing today.

27:22.85
vigorbranding
Yeah I Love all of that. Um, especially the training up ah of the people who are doing the interviews um as well as finding out what you just said I mean sometimes it is transportation Sometimes it’s oh I actually accepted another job and they just forgot to cancel this.. It’s just. Those insights I think help so much for both parties. All parties involved. Um So what’s the future hold in your opinion. What’s the future hold for the industry attracting attracting better talent retaining the talent. Um, are there more challenges coming down the pike in your opinion or is is it looking like we’re coming into the promised land.

27:57.91
Zach Anderson
Ah I would say there’s definitely some some of the overarching themes that I’m seeing in hiring in general is a lot more predictability and and and smarter allocation of how we tackle this problem so on the technology front. There’s. Ah, investments being made by various restaurants and brands to make the job better for the employees that are in there taking away some of the the tasks that are challenging and repetitive that they have to do um you invest in technology to help automate some of those things away so that becomes more attractive to make the job more exciting. Ah potentially it can be. Ah, piece where it saves on headcount that you have to have by having some of these tasks be automated on your on your behalf within the restaurant I mean I remember my my first one of my first pizza jobs I was a phone answerer. That’s what I did I picked up the phone and I took the order with things like voice ai helping to take orders on behalf of restaurants today that. Essentially can eliminate much of the need for having somebody there to answer the phone so things to help with that piece of the job to help and improve the experience for employees is is one area that they’re leading into additionally brands are starting to think more. Historically it’s been and. Kind of at will need right? You used to have a stack of applications in the back room and somebody got like go the bus or job I got and find dining like I was the next name on the stack. They told me so I filled it out over the summer and they came in in September and they’re like hey we got an open position. It looks like you had some experience. Let’s talk to you about this and then I end up getting the job.

29:27.50
Zach Anderson
That went away that application stack just like dwindled over time then there was nothing so then it’s kind of guesswork like hey we’re in desperation mode to figure out. How do we do this and say go spend on these job boards I think that makes sense. Well they start to go spend on these places with competing against other businesses outside of restaurants that have bigger budgets and higher and better. Have higher margins that they can operate and spend into and then you’re looking at essentially a bottomless pit of cash that you can put into this so that they’ve had to reel in once you start to get to like six hundred and fifty dollars and cost per hires just to get somebody in the door to start on day. 1 So they’re starting to think about hey how do we find the most effective mechanism. What areas have we tested that seem to be a good fit for us and then let’s start to think about our seasonal needs right? So we have you know various times of the year where there’s a slowdown and there’s various times where we need to higher up so really starting to get more predictive around. How are we going to actually tackle this problem when it’s just been kind of a. At will and as needed type of component previously. So you know a lot of things are in play restaurant brands are they think quickly. They act quickly. They’re super creative. Um, but. And I think we’re seeing much of the fruits of that over the last couple of years start to play into really smart decisions on how they tackle this.

30:40.50
vigorbranding
I yeah man I love it. So it seems like Sky’s the limit right now is seasoned. Um I’m excited to see how it continues to grow. Um, this may be the hardest question I ask you today. Ah if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat where would you eat it and why.

30:58.29
Zach Anderson
I had something holstered for every every question I feel like that you had this one sounds a little tough this kid goes in so many directions. Um I how about my favorite meal I ever had I would definitely go back and have it again. Um. I visited Japan in 2015 and I was fortunate enough to go to sushi bar ya sua you suit as a master sushi maker. He was a friends with Anthony Bourdain I think he’s in one of his episodes there. So. It’s fortunate enough to be able to get a table and experience a full omakase dining experience at his restaurant. Jaw -droppingly incredible beyond any other type of dining experience I’ve had and so personal and casual and and entertaining I I definitely go and do that one more time if I had the opportunity.

31:42.80
vigorbranding
I Love it man. That’s a great one hey thanks for sharing all of your insights. The things that you’re seeing thanks for sharing a little bit about seasoned How can people get in touch with you and connect with seasoned.

31:56.28
Zach Anderson
Sure seasons website is season.co so Ceo um, ah, anybody can go on there. You can also find our apps both our recruit app which is used to for for operators to find information or they can certainly and anyone can download the seasoned community app to get involved in the conversations that are having there. Um, or head over to our website to get more information. Um, you can find me on Linkedin Zach Anderson’s my name so I’ve I’ve actually got the Zach Dash Anderson I got locked in for ah for the the naming convention on there. So folks can go find me there happy to connect and have conversations about what what’s happening with staffing in the industry.

32:20.53
vigorbranding
Nice.

32:29.43
vigorbranding
Fantastic hey thanks for being so liberal with your time and again all the insights are so fantastic, especially with this major challenge that we continue to grapple with in the industry. Um, we’ll hopefully see you real soon. Maybe catch you one of these upcoming trade shows.

32:40.66
Zach Anderson
Absolutely thanks Joseph take care.