New Hampshire: How to Build and Maintain a Motivated Team for Success with Tom Boucher, CEO of Great NH Restaurants
This week on the Titans of Food Service podcast, Nick Portillo speaks with Tom Boucher, CEO of Great New Hampshire Restaurants. Nick and Tom discuss the importance of employee recognition and engagement within the food service industry. With over 40 years of experience, Tom emphasizes how a robust reward system has transformed his business, allowing employees to recognize each other and fostering a culture of teamwork and excellence. He shares insights into the operations of his restaurants, highlighting the significance of systems and controls to ensure consistency and quality.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:02) Intro
(00:26) Spotlight on New Hampshire's Food Scene
(00:42) Meet Tom Boucher, CEO of Great New Hampshire Restaurants
(04:17) Tom's Journey in the Food Industry
(11:10) Operational Excellence in Restaurants
(16:43) Innovative Employee Recognition Systems
(30:55) Giving Back: Community Impact and Charity
(34:06) Closing Thoughts with Tom Boucher
RESOURCES
CONTACT
Transcript
There are a million ways to make money in the food service industry.
Nick Portillo:You just have to find one.
Nick Portillo:On the Titans of Food Service podcast, I interview real life movers and shakers in the food game who cut through all the noise to get to the top.
Nick Portillo:My name is Nick Portillo, and welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast.
Nick Portillo:Let's jump right into it.
Nick Portillo:Welcome back to Titans of Food Service and thank you again for joining me here on my across american 50 weeks tour where I'm interviewing one titan of food service from every single state in the country.
Nick Portillo:And on this week's episode, I'm going to be highlighting the beautiful state of New Hampshire.
Nick Portillo:And to do so, I'm going to welcome Tom Boucher, who is the CEO of great New Hampshire restaurants Incorporated, to the show.
Nick Portillo:Now, before we jump in, I wanted to say quick reminder, if you're enjoying the show or if you liked the episode or enjoy the past episodes, please, if you could leave me a five star review.
Nick Portillo:Whether you're following along an Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast, that would mean the world.
Nick Portillo:Your support helps bring this channel and these stories to the greater food service and food industry.
Nick Portillo:So please, if you can leave a five star review, that would mean the world.
Nick Portillo:Now let's go ahead and dive in at Tom.
Nick Portillo:He oversees one of the most beloved dining concepts in the state of New Hampshire.
Nick Portillo:Included within it are t bones, cactus Jacks, copper door, and he employs about 800 people across his businesses.
Nick Portillo:In today's conversation, we're going to talk about the ins and outs of his business, the operations also getting into reward systems that he has set up for his team members to help keep motivation, engagement, and making sure that everyone's aligned to the seven core values of his business.
Nick Portillo:Tom is also a passionate advocate for small businesses and his leadership has earned him recognition on major national outlets, some like Fox, CNN, among others.
Nick Portillo:And under Tom's guidance, great New Hampshire restaurants has also made a significant impact on the community, on his community through charity, which has donated over seven figures back into the local area, which is incredible.
Nick Portillo:His dedication to his employees and his community is truly inspiring.
Nick Portillo:And that comes out here in the episode, a little background on New Hampshire.
Nick Portillo:So the food service scene in or food service industry in New Hampshire, it's growing and it's a vital part of the state's economy.
Nick Portillo:It contributes just over $2.5 billion annually in restaurant sales.
Nick Portillo:And the industry employs over 60,000 people, making it one of the largest job sectors in the state.
Nick Portillo:Again, if you could leave a five star review.
Nick Portillo:That would be amazing.
Nick Portillo:But without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome Tom.
Nick Portillo:All right, Tom, welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast.
Nick Portillo:I appreciate you taking time to come on here and meet with me.
Tom Boucher:It's my pleasure.
Tom Boucher:Thanks for finding us and looking forward to talking.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, I've actually.
Nick Portillo:I've never been to New Hampshire before.
Nick Portillo:I've been to many different states within the northeast.
Nick Portillo:What city do you physically live in?
Tom Boucher:I live in Bedford, New Hampshire.
Tom Boucher:It's a suburb of Manchester, which is New Hampshire's largest city, which is only 125,000 people.
Tom Boucher:But that's New Hampshire in general.
Tom Boucher:We're a state of 1.3 million people.
Nick Portillo:Were you born and raised in New Hampshire?
Tom Boucher:I was born just over the border in Massachusetts, but I was.
Tom Boucher:I was brought up in New Hampshire from age four.
Nick Portillo:Okay, nice, nice.
Nick Portillo:I'm sure.
Nick Portillo:I would imagine it's probably a pretty beautiful state.
Nick Portillo:I was listening to a separate podcast with, and the guest on that was Joe Decerna.
Nick Portillo:And he didn't live in New Hampshire, but he lived in Vermont, which I believe is pretty close there to New Hampshire.
Nick Portillo:And he's the founder of, like, Spartan Race.
Nick Portillo:He purchased tough mudder, and so he has this farm out in Vermont, and he does like, different challenges out there and host people and whatnot.
Nick Portillo:Really cool.
Nick Portillo:And I just thought, I listened to it last week, and I thought that'd be interesting.
Nick Portillo:I'd love to take more time to travel that part of the country.
Tom Boucher:I actually did a spartan race in Vermont, so it must have been one of his.
Tom Boucher:And that was back when I was a little younger, but super fun.
Tom Boucher:And actually, my daughter worked for a little while for spartans.
Nick Portillo:Oh, wow.
Nick Portillo:How funny.
Nick Portillo:Look at that.
Nick Portillo:Small world.
Nick Portillo:So tell me, how did you.
Nick Portillo:I know we talked a little off camera that you've been in the food business for 40 years, coming up on 40 years.
Nick Portillo:How did you get into this industry?
Tom Boucher:Yeah.
Tom Boucher:So it's kind of.
Tom Boucher:It's not a very unusual story, although when I share it, people are surprised.
Tom Boucher:But in the restaurant world, you either get into it from the ground up, or you have a lot of money and buy a restaurant or start a restaurant with a lot of cash.
Tom Boucher:I chose the former route where I graduated from college, Merrimack College in Andover, Mass.
Tom Boucher:With a degree in chemistry and had a full academic scholarship to get my masters at Villanova.
Tom Boucher:And I went for six months and just did some soul searching because, you know, at 22 years old, what do you know?
Tom Boucher:Not as much as, you know, now.
Tom Boucher:And I'm glad I did the soul searching, because I just couldn't see myself being in a lab coat, working in a laboratory, or being a professor or a teacher.
Tom Boucher:I loved the studying and the analytics of it when I was in college, but when I looked at the career path, it just didn't resonate with me.
Tom Boucher:So I left and came back home and started waiting tables at a restaurant called T Bones, which is now the company that I own.
Tom Boucher:That was 19.
Tom Boucher: I started waiting tables in: Tom Boucher: And in: Tom Boucher:And we had, since then, had opened our new concept, copper door, which is more upscales.
Tom Boucher:We have two of those.
Tom Boucher:And we opened another T bones, ironically, at the beginning of the pandemic, because we were already.
Tom Boucher:The steel was already up.
Tom Boucher:You know, we had no choice but to keep moving forward.
Nick Portillo:So you go to Villanova, you thought potentially maybe you'd be wearing a lab coat for a living, and here you are getting into the food business.
Nick Portillo:So you started T bones.
Nick Portillo:Had T bones been around for, like, how long had T bones been around at that point?
Tom Boucher:So, T bones, T bones, the original T bones was in Salem, New Hampshire.
Tom Boucher: It opened in: Tom Boucher: And Hudson T Bones was: Tom Boucher: And then I graduated: Tom Boucher:And that's when I started working for Hudson T Bones.
Nick Portillo:And at the time when you started working at Hudson T Bones, was there just one location?
Nick Portillo:I think there's.
Nick Portillo:Correct me.
Tom Boucher:There were two at that point.
Tom Boucher:So Salem was first in 84, and then Hudson was second in 86.
Tom Boucher:Bedford was third in 89.
Tom Boucher: and then came copper door in: Tom Boucher:Sorry, pardon me.
Tom Boucher: Dairy T Bones was next in: Tom Boucher: t bones and cactus shacks was: Tom Boucher: And then crop midor was: Tom Boucher: ave Salem Carpador, which was: Nick Portillo:When you were starting working at T Bones, I would imagine, as an employee of the business, how did you end up becoming an owner of the.
Nick Portillo:Of the restaurant?
Tom Boucher:Yeah, well, I got lucky, and I also worked hard, but I did get lucky that the two found the three founders.
Tom Boucher:Just.
Tom Boucher:I don't know, they saw something in me.
Tom Boucher:And I also wasn't shy about asking for more responsibility in a leadership role.
Tom Boucher:And I actually.
Tom Boucher: own with the three of them in: Tom Boucher:More leadership.
Tom Boucher: nd founder of Cactus Jacks in: Tom Boucher: And then in: Tom Boucher:As I mentioned, two of the founders were older than me.
Tom Boucher:One of them was 20 years older.
Tom Boucher:So they saw it as a natural progression to keep me engaged and moving into a greater leadership role.
Tom Boucher: In: Tom Boucher:I was running the company and making all the decisions, and I asked for the CEO position and they approved and the rest is history.
Nick Portillo:Wow.
Nick Portillo:How cool is that?
Nick Portillo:It's always interesting.
Nick Portillo:I've been doing this podcast now.
Nick Portillo:I think I've done maybe 80, 85 episodes at this point.
Nick Portillo:And hearing people's journeys of how they got one, they got into the food industry, there's so many.
Nick Portillo:It's funny that a lot of times people come in and then they can never get out.
Nick Portillo:Like they stumbled upon it by happenstance.
Tom Boucher:But then, yeah, that's essentially what happened to me.
Tom Boucher:And like I said, it's not an unusual story because many, many people that are in leadership roles or grew a company, they just got bit by the bug.
Tom Boucher:That's legitimately what happened to me.
Tom Boucher:You know, I was 22 years old.
Tom Boucher:I just loved it.
Tom Boucher:I loved the fast pace, I loved thinking on my feet.
Tom Boucher:I loved engaging with employees and guests.
Tom Boucher:And my first experience in a commercial kitchen was T Bones and Hudson.
Tom Boucher:I remember one of the managers came to me again, I was at that time 23 and said, you should become a manager.
Tom Boucher:And again, I'm 23 and I'm like, okay, sure.
Tom Boucher:I thought he was going to ask me a dining room manager because I was a food server.
Tom Boucher:Lo and behold, he says, you should be a kitchen manager.
Tom Boucher:And I said, okay.
Tom Boucher:And I learned, you know, I learned from the best.
Tom Boucher:My partner Mark, who was the third founder, he unfortunately passed away last November unexpectedly at 66 years old.
Tom Boucher:But, you know, he and I were partners for 38 years.
Tom Boucher:And he taught me everything I knew about running operations in restaurants, particularly from the kitchen perspective.
Tom Boucher:And then my other former partner, one of the founders, taught me everything to know about the business side of the business.
Tom Boucher:Learning what EBITDA means, learning how to write and calculate a profit and loss statement.
Tom Boucher:I literally learned the business side of the business.
Tom Boucher:Hands on.
Tom Boucher:That's probably my only regret.
Tom Boucher:I wish I had taken more business classes in college.
Tom Boucher:My only business class was economics 101.
Tom Boucher:But there's nothing like hands on learning.
Tom Boucher:And that's what I did.
Nick Portillo:When I've talked to other restaurant owners, restaurant CEO's, presidents, a lot of times the word operations comes up that it's a super important part of the business.
Nick Portillo:I mean, obviously, there's so many moving parts to a restaurant, and nowadays you've got Grubhub and I and Doordash, third party platforms you get to deal with.
Nick Portillo:And when you look at running the operations of your company, what are some of the things that are important to you when you look at the individual unit level in terms of operations?
Tom Boucher:Yeah, so it's a great question.
Tom Boucher:And ironically, there is a relationship between operations and chemistry, and I'll tell you how.
Nick Portillo:Okay.
Tom Boucher:One of the things that we're experts at, especially with 40 years of history, is we're really good at systems and controls, and that's important in operations.
Tom Boucher:For consistency in restaurant is paramount, especially concepts like ours where we're made from scratch.
Tom Boucher:So, you know, you've got a chef or a cook who is making an entree, and you have, you know, they go off memory, but they have to have the tools to be able to make that product or in prep room, you know, creating the, making the blue cheese dressing or whatever it might be, because it's all made from scratch and we don't expect people to memorize it.
Tom Boucher:We have to give them the recipes and the specs and the tools and places to find that information.
Tom Boucher:And the parallel that I draw on that with chemistry was, I remember very vividly at least two professors that I had where even though we were taught and lectured in the classroom setting, the tests and the quizzes were all open book.
Tom Boucher:We could use our notes, we could use our books, which sounds crazy, like, oh, that must be so easy.
Tom Boucher:No, it was still incredibly difficult, but they gave us the tools to be able to find the answers that we need.
Tom Boucher:And that's what I think we do really well, is provide the tools and the controls and the systems for our employees to execute at a very high level.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, that makes sense, especially as you've been doing this for 40 years.
Nick Portillo:So I'm sure there's probably so many different scenarios, especially on the operations side.
Nick Portillo:You talk about EbItda, the financial side of things.
Nick Portillo:I would probably venture to say there's probably many, many, many scenarios that you've seen, and there's probably a few that maybe you haven't seen.
Nick Portillo:You know, in terms of what about when someone, a new person comes into the business, you know, you're mentioning controls and tools, systems, processes, how do you train up a new person to come in and be able to fit into the culture and work within, you know, the systems and process and controls that you have in place?
Tom Boucher:Yeah.
Tom Boucher:Another great question.
Tom Boucher:You know, one of the things that we're really proud of, and I am certain that's what I contributes to our success, is that we have tremendous longevity, especially at the upper level of leadership.
Tom Boucher:Our leadership team, there's eight of us.
Tom Boucher:We have a combined experience of 250 years just in our company alone.
Tom Boucher:So that really sets the tone for our general managers, who also, every single one of our general managers has been with us for at least ten years, some of them 20 years, some of them 30 years.
Tom Boucher:So the culture is built in from the very highest levels, and it trickles down to the frontline employees.
Tom Boucher:And again, we have frontline employees that have been with us for 30, 35 years.
Tom Boucher:One of the things that we obviously have a training program, if you don't have a training program, what are you doing?
Tom Boucher:But one of the things that we found really exciting and very forward looking, is we've always had a reward system and recognition system in our company, like every company does.
Tom Boucher:Ours was before last year.
Tom Boucher:It was old school.
Tom Boucher:You know, you could recognize an employee for a great job done, and it was a monopoly looking kind of certificate that they could accumulate.
Tom Boucher:And over time, they'd be worth more money if they accrued more than, you know, 50, for example.
Tom Boucher:And if they returned in 50 of those, we called them merits, they could return them in for a $500 bonus.
Tom Boucher:And these are recognitions could be for anything from a customer saying, great service, or an employee going above and beyond and said, hey, I cleaned out the linen closet.
Tom Boucher:Just wanted to let you know, whatever.
Tom Boucher:As you just indicated, there's hundreds and hundreds of things that happen in a restaurant every day.
Tom Boucher:And we try to, as part of our culture, we try to find the things that people are doing right and coach them when they miss the mark.
Tom Boucher:Well, one of the transition that we did last year, and it is absolutely fantastic, we engaged a company that is now it's fully digital, where we can reward people on the spot via an app.
Tom Boucher:I just did it.
Tom Boucher:I just had lunch at one of our restaurants, and my steak came out amazing.
Tom Boucher:And I looked up the broiler cook who was working that day, and his name's Lido.
Tom Boucher:I said, hey, Lido, you nailed it.
Tom Boucher:Awesome steak.
Tom Boucher:And rewarded him with a ten dollar bonus.
Tom Boucher:And, you know, that's a game changer because that's been a struggle for this industry.
Tom Boucher:Is to recognize the kitchen employees, it's always the front of the house that gets recognized because they're front and center for the customer.
Tom Boucher:Right.
Tom Boucher:And so when a customer says, what an awesome steak that may not make it back to that particular kitchen employee or to the butchers that cut that steak.
Tom Boucher:And so now this has enabled, it's opened an entire door of recognition for these kitchen employees.
Tom Boucher:And certainly the front of the house gets plenty of praise as well.
Tom Boucher:But one of the unique things about how we reward people is you can only reward and give them a bonus if you attach it to one of our seven core values.
Tom Boucher:So one of our core values is executing greatness.
Tom Boucher:And so that's the one that I picked for Leto today.
Tom Boucher:And over time, Lido and our other 800 employees can accrue these dollars.
Tom Boucher:And then there's a digital store where they can go in and purchase Nike gift cards.
Tom Boucher:They can purchase Apple Music.
Tom Boucher:They can also purchase, trade from other local establishments that we've done with them.
Tom Boucher:So there might be a local retailer where we've given them our gift cards and then they exchange, give them dollar for dollar for us and we put those on the digital store at a 50% discount.
Tom Boucher:So employees actually can get 50% discount to go to a theme park, Canopy Lake down in Santa or whatever.
Tom Boucher:So it's been fantastic.
Tom Boucher:And I actually just got the report this morning.
Tom Boucher:In eight months this year, we've given out over $350,000 worth of rewards to frontline and manager employees.
Tom Boucher:These are not bonus or performance related for managers.
Tom Boucher:This is all peer to peer employee recognition.
Tom Boucher:And equally, employees recognize managers when they're doing an exceptional job.
Tom Boucher:So the real beauty of it is it's not employees aren't recognizing another employee for big dollar amounts.
Tom Boucher:Every employee gets dollar five a month to spend and recognize other employees.
Tom Boucher:It's because of the way it's set up.
Tom Boucher:It's like a Facebook page where there's a newsfeed so everybody will see that.
Tom Boucher:I recognize Lido today, and Lido's gonna feel fantastic.
Tom Boucher:He could have gotten zero for it.
Tom Boucher:But to have the CEO and owner call out how he cooked a perfect steak, that means a lot to him.
Tom Boucher:And that, and that's why I'm just, I'm so passionate about this, because it's been a game changer for us.
Nick Portillo:Amazing.
Nick Portillo:I read this book called the great Game of Business and it was all about kind of what you're talking about, where the, the person that wrote this book, he recognized that he wanted to gamify his business in a way, and recognize everybody within the company, that whether you're in this case, maybe in culinary or maybe you're a manager or one of the frontline employees or someone, a customer facing person, everybody has a unique and special role that they play in the overall health of the business, and they should be rewarded for that, because if everybody's moving towards the same thing, in this case, if someone aligns with the seven core values that you have, and I also love that they can reward each other as well.
Nick Portillo:If everybody's pushing towards the same goals, the same values, who's that benefit?
Nick Portillo:One, it helps the company as a whole, I'm sure it probably helps profitability, but then also just the overall customer experience.
Nick Portillo:And in the food business, it's all about repeat business.
Nick Portillo:How can I give someone a wow experience and have them come back into, you know, into my operation again and enjoy another meal?
Nick Portillo:And so I really love what you're doing.
Nick Portillo:And also, too, just on a human level, being able to get that reward and recognition, it just kind of feels good.
Nick Portillo:And I think 510 bucks, that's it just.
Nick Portillo:It really makes a lasting impact on people, for sure.
Tom Boucher:Yeah.
Tom Boucher:And there are other ways they can earn rewards.
Tom Boucher:We have something called five for ten, which, again, it's just something that we came up with.
Tom Boucher:But if an employee raises their hand and say, at the end of the shift or before the shift, it's not that busy, and they say, hey, you know what?
Tom Boucher:Can I clean that hasn't.
Tom Boucher:That's not on a normal cleaning list?
Tom Boucher:That's going to take me ten minutes or.
Tom Boucher:Yeah, ten minutes.
Tom Boucher:So maybe it's the coffee station cabinets underneath or something like that.
Tom Boucher:That just doesn't really get organized on a daily or weekly basis.
Tom Boucher:And so they'll do that, and they go to the manager and say, I just did this, come check it out.
Tom Boucher:And they worked on it for ten minutes, and then they get a five dollar reward.
Tom Boucher:So there's just, there's so many opportunities like that with this.
Tom Boucher:With this reward system.
Tom Boucher:And, you know, I'll also say that it really drives those core values, which we, every company has.
Tom Boucher:Not every, but most companies have some kind of culture and value system, but we really walk that talk.
Tom Boucher:And, in fact, prior to last year, we sent a survey out to employees saying, how do you like our six core values?
Tom Boucher:Like, do you feel like this is really driving our company?
Tom Boucher:Do you feel like you're part of these six core values?
Tom Boucher:And are we missing one?
Tom Boucher:And overwhelmingly, teamwork was one that they said, we really, I mean, the restaurant's not gonna operate unless everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing, right?
Tom Boucher:One chink in the chain.
Tom Boucher:If the dishwasher goes down, the whole place stops.
Tom Boucher:Right.
Tom Boucher:And so we took that real seriously, and we added that as a core value, and it's actually our number one chosen reward on the platform now is teamwork.
Tom Boucher:And I'll share one more thing with you.
Tom Boucher:Maybe some of your younger listeners headed towards the fourth quarter of my career, but one of the things that I've always dreamed of was, if you're a young person and you have passionate about the restaurant industry, and you've got five, six, seven friends that are also passionate about it, how fantastic would it be to recruit?
Tom Boucher:Call it 20 people, and you each own 5% of the business, and you do a startup restaurant, and all 20 of you have to work every single position on the screen schedule.
Tom Boucher:So it's rotating.
Tom Boucher:So you're the floor manager one week.
Tom Boucher:Next week you're on dish.
Tom Boucher:Next week you're serving tables.
Tom Boucher:Next week you're on window.
Tom Boucher:And I just think, I don't know if it exists out there, but I think that would just be such a unique proposition for any young person looking to get into the business and finding people that have that same passion and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty and work hands on.
Tom Boucher:I did it.
Tom Boucher:For 15 years, I worked in kitchens.
Tom Boucher:At the beginning of the pandemic, I was washing dishes in our busiest restaurant, trying to give a break for the employees that were working very hard, and.
Nick Portillo:By doing that as well.
Nick Portillo:I like what you said.
Nick Portillo:Get 20 people and everybody have to do all the jobs within the restaurant and really learn the business.
Nick Portillo:You can, you know, I know we talked a little bit off, off camera about, you know, why I started this podcast.
Nick Portillo:And my dad, you know, told me, Nick, there's no books to read.
Nick Portillo:You have to just get out there and do it.
Nick Portillo:And I'm in food service sales, so I would.
Nick Portillo:I literally would just go, I'm here in California.
Nick Portillo:So I'd walk down Pacific Coast highway, where a lot of restaurants are kind of grouped together and with a bag of stuff, and I had drinks and whatever I had at the time.
Nick Portillo:And you go one by one by one.
Nick Portillo:Now, did I sell anything?
Nick Portillo:Was I very successful?
Nick Portillo:Candidly, no, but it was a good way to.
Nick Portillo:What you're saying is I'm learning the difference positions, and I'm learning the ins and outs of the food broker world.
Nick Portillo:And here I am nine years later.
Nick Portillo:Am I an expert.
Nick Portillo:I mean, I'm always learning every day, but it kind of helped me with that continuous learning.
Nick Portillo:And now when I look at my team, it's, you know, when they have an issue or when they have a success, I can see the world through their eyes because I've been there, I've done it, and it's really helped me in my business for sure.
Tom Boucher:Well, and I think that's an important distinction that I've had the pleasure, and I'm blessed to be able to have worked in every single position through my entire career.
Tom Boucher:And one of my partners is silent investor, and he's great.
Tom Boucher:He's a great friend of mine.
Tom Boucher:He's been with us for 15 years, and he's never worked a day in the restaurant.
Tom Boucher:But he's very cognitive of the fact that he knows nothing about operations and literally stays away from making suggestions regarding how the restaurant operates because he knows, he just hasn't had that hands on experience.
Tom Boucher:And it's vital.
Tom Boucher:It is vital to have that experience so that you understand what it's like to be a dishwasher on a Saturday night.
Tom Boucher:And that's, I think that's one of the things that also has made us very successful.
Tom Boucher:We don't put the bartenders on a pedestal like a lot of restaurants do.
Tom Boucher:Oh, you're a bartender.
Tom Boucher:You're the, you know.
Tom Boucher:No, you're as important as that 19 year old hostess or that 30 year window cook in the kitchen.
Tom Boucher:Or we have a kitchen manager that's been with us 38 years, and he's a kitchen manager, and he loves it and he's passionate about it, and that's what he likes.
Tom Boucher:And he's as important to me and to our leadership team as is our director of kitchen operations.
Tom Boucher:I mean, of course, there's supervisory levels, but we don't put people on pedestals.
Tom Boucher:And that's, I think that that resonates tremendously with our 800 employees.
Nick Portillo:What it sounds like, too, I mean, it's your culture as well, you know, of retaining people and people coming to work every day and being proud of what they do as a business, it significantly hurts a business when you have high turnover.
Nick Portillo:But when someone can come in and feel like, hey, this is family, this is something that I enjoy doing for better, for worse in an american society.
Nick Portillo:We spend five days at work on average, and two days off.
Nick Portillo:Right.
Nick Portillo:I'd love to say I spend most of my time out enjoying sitting at the beach and.
Nick Portillo:But it's not.
Nick Portillo:It's at work with the people that I work with, I spend the most amount of time doing that, and you have to, people have to love what they're doing.
Nick Portillo:So I like what you're doing that, you know, whether everybody is important, everybody plays a role.
Nick Portillo:You can be rewarded for, for doing that as well.
Nick Portillo:And on top of that, you can also reward each other, too.
Nick Portillo:So I think that's a really smart thing that you're doing.
Nick Portillo:Could I ask, can I ask a question?
Nick Portillo:You don't have to answer this.
Nick Portillo:What app are you using for the rewards?
Tom Boucher:So I'm happy to answer it as long as your listeners let them know that they heard it from me.
Tom Boucher:It's called motivosity.com.
Nick Portillo:Dot motivosity.
Tom Boucher:Yeah.
Tom Boucher:And they have, you know, they have thousands of clients, and we're one of the very few restaurant hospitality clients that they have, which is surprising to me because it's a natural fit for the hospitality industry because we're all so busy working in our business that we're not sitting behind a computer or having two hour business meetings.
Tom Boucher:As you know, our kitchen managers get there at 630 in the morning, and they're straight out until 330 in the afternoon.
Tom Boucher:And so for them to take time now, all they got to do is pull this up and take 10 seconds to reward someone and recognize them.
Tom Boucher:And that's why I'm saying it's been a really great tool for us and it's perfect for the industry.
Nick Portillo:Kind of changing gears a little bit.
Nick Portillo:I was with some friends of mine that are also entrepreneurs, and yesterday we had a conversation topic, and I think you might be a good person to ask this question, too, because you've mentioned your control systems, processes and managers.
Nick Portillo:A lot of, if you look at, like, a lot of very large businesses, like, let's take like, a conagra or a Pepsi or somebody like that, they have very robust training systems.
Nick Portillo:That's not just for.
Nick Portillo:It's for employees.
Nick Portillo:It's also for managers.
Nick Portillo:They're constantly cultivating their management team.
Nick Portillo:A lot of times, businesses like my size, we've got about 30 employees.
Nick Portillo:You have your managers in place, but you're not cultivating their talent, you're not training them.
Nick Portillo:And, you know, I kind of, I did like a reflection yesterday about my management team of, yeah, we have them constantly cultivating their teams.
Nick Portillo:But are we training the managers in your business?
Nick Portillo:How does that work?
Tom Boucher:So we've done, we don't do it every year, but I would say, you know, every three or four years, we just did it about four years ago.
Tom Boucher:We engage an outdoor, an exterior third party company that is experts at this in training and teaching management skills, and we put them through that.
Tom Boucher:And, of course, as time moves on, you have newer managers and things like that.
Tom Boucher:So we had to get through the pandemic, but we're probably due for exactly what you're talking about next year.
Tom Boucher:We are having a training session for every front of the house employee in November.
Tom Boucher:So that's, you know, 400 employees that we're having a training session for.
Tom Boucher:But to your point, it's, it's, it's critical that you continue the management training because especially, you know, every single one of our managers started as a frontline employee.
Tom Boucher:So they, the training they got is from the manager that promoted them to an assistant manager.
Tom Boucher:So, you know, so that, that's all they know.
Tom Boucher:So we think it's important for them to get a perspective from outside of our company as far as how to lead and how to be a good leader.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, that makes sense.
Nick Portillo:When it comes to you have your management team in place.
Nick Portillo:Have you ever done a skip level, a skip meeting, essentially, where you go to the employees directly?
Nick Portillo:You know, the manager, I would imagine, would know, but go to them directly and coach them, or do you leave it mostly to the managers to handle that role?
Tom Boucher:No, the managers handle that.
Tom Boucher:And it's, again, it's just a training program that we've developed and perfected over decades.
Nick Portillo:When you look, I know you mentioned you're in the fourth quarter of your career.
Nick Portillo:When you look at the final quarter, what is something that you still want to achieve that you've not yet achieved?
Tom Boucher:Well, I'll share one thing with you that we did achieve, and it's something that I'm passionate about continuing.
Tom Boucher:And then I'll tell you the second thing.
Tom Boucher:One of the things that we created ten years ago was a charitable foundation.
Tom Boucher:It's called great New Hampshire Restaurants Charitable Trust.
Tom Boucher:And the website, the acronym is feednh.org.
Tom Boucher:and we really honed in on that acronym.
Tom Boucher:We're a fundraising organization, and when we raise funds, we then turn around and contribute to other New Hampshire nonprofits, specifically only New Hampshire.
Tom Boucher:And they have to fall in one of these four categories, which leads to the feed acronym.
Tom Boucher:They have to be a nonprofit helping families, elderly, education and the disadvantaged, and the families, elderly in education, education as it relates to hospitality.
Tom Boucher:Those are really focus areas for us because families and elderly, that's our customers.
Tom Boucher:That's who our customers are.
Tom Boucher:And for the most part, that's who our employees are.
Tom Boucher:Right.
Tom Boucher:They've got elderly in their family and of course, many of them have their own families.
Tom Boucher:So that was a really good initiative that we created that employees really got behind, because who doesn't like a company that participates and gives back to their communities, especially, as you know, I don't know how old you are, but I, the younger generation certainly is very cognitive of businesses that do good in their communities.
Tom Boucher:And I'm proud to say that over the ten years, we, last year, we hit the milestone of, we gave back over a million dollar, the exact $1.1 million to other New Hampshire nonprofits in ten years, which means a lot to our employees.
Tom Boucher:It shows them that, you know, it's not just a greedy company trying to bring wheelbarrows and money to the bank, that we're a good community minded organization.
Tom Boucher:And so that's something that, as I continue into the fourth quarter, I want to see that continue to grow and expand.
Tom Boucher:And we've got other.
Tom Boucher:We've got ways to do that beyond what we've already done.
Tom Boucher:And then I think something that I'm working towards is, and we already have kind of a hybrid model of this.
Tom Boucher:Many, like the people that are on our leadership team and then many of our general managers, they actually are small equity owners in the company, not profit share.
Tom Boucher:They have true shareholder voting rights and share in the profitability of the restaurants that they are an owner in.
Tom Boucher:And so I think we have about 20 employees now that own a small piece of the company.
Tom Boucher:And my goal is to continue to grow that and to hope maybe someday it's 100% employee owned like that.
Tom Boucher:That would be my dream.
Tom Boucher:Truly incredible.
Nick Portillo:Tom, I just want to say thank you for coming on here.
Nick Portillo:I always learned so much from this.
Nick Portillo:And also just your generosity and just the way that you view your company and your people, it's truly.
Nick Portillo:It's inspiring, I think would be the word I would use, because not everybody has that, that mentality.
Nick Portillo:You know, some people are just money hung.
Nick Portillo:You're really giving back to your people.
Nick Portillo:You're giving back to your community.
Nick Portillo:So thank you so much.
Nick Portillo:And again, thank you for, for coming on here and sharing your story.
Tom Boucher:I appreciate the kind words.
Tom Boucher:And I'll just leave you with this, that, you know, as the CEO of great New Hampshire restaurants, I take my responsibility incredibly serious, that the livelihood and happiness of 800 employees rest with me.
Tom Boucher:And I take that very serious.
Nick Portillo:Incredible.
Nick Portillo:Thank you, Tom.
Tom Boucher:Thank you.
Tom Boucher:Nice to chat.
