0:05

Welcome to the business of Houston Hospitality, where we visit with and learn from the people behind Houston's vibrant and diverse hospitality industry. Each week we speak with owners and operators of restaurants, hotels, venues, attractions, museums, theaters, and more. Please welcome your host, president of the Houston Hospitality Alliance and founder of Convive Hospitality Consultant, Jonathan Horowitz.

Jonathan: 0:33

Greetings from Houston. This is the Business of Houston Hospitality. I am your host, Jonathan Horowitz, and today I will be speaking with Brian Neely from our HR office here in Houston. As always, we will talk about Brian's history in the city, how his business is doing, and what Brian thinks about Houston's hospitality industry and its future. It is my pleasure to welcome to the show, Mr. Brian Neely. Thank you for being here, Brian.

Bryan: 1:02

You bet, Jonathan. Happy to be here.

Jonathan: 1:03

Well, let's jump right in with a little bit of background. So, you know, tell tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, kind of where you're from and how long you've been in Houston and what it took for you to get here and what you've been doing and all that fun stuff.

Bryan: 1:19

Okay. We got 45 minutes, right? So so I moved here. I moved to Houston for a job opportunity way back in 1992.

Jonathan: 1:28

Wow.

Bryan: 1:28

So yeah, I've been here 32 years.

Jonathan: 1:30

That makes you almost a native

Bryan: 1:32

it does, it does. And I got here during the summer and it was pretty hot. But then when the winter got here. It was fantastic. And and for me, it still is, you know, I mean, I loved it so much. I started my own business here. Right. So start

Jonathan: 1:47

you were, you were coming from Chicago,

Bryan: 1:49

me. Yeah. From Chicago and

Jonathan: 1:53

in the winters.

Bryan: 1:55

man, a little bit different. And so then I came here, I was in the benefits business. I worked for a company and we, placed. Employee sponsored health plans and the small businesses. And did that for a minute, like a long minute, I had, I'd worked previous to that at blue cross blue shield in Illinois, in Chicago, specifically doing the same thing and you know, just started doing that and within the broker community and then. Right around 1999, I parted up with a, with a small brokerage firm to do the same thing, but then I represented small businesses so they could acquire employer sponsored health plans. And then in 2004, I went on on my own and started my own brokerage and then started attaining our own health plan clients. And somewhere around I guess it would have been 2007, 2008, when we met at the tasting room, that's when we dipped our toe into human resources, didn't really, didn't really know what we were going to do it quite honestly, it just kind of morphed into that as things do

Jonathan: 3:00

Well, those things are interrelated, right?

Bryan: 3:02

they all totally interrelated. Yeah. And then, you know, as I got further along in the HR world absolutely understood more how HR and operations. were really one of the same. And so between the tasting room and then managing benefits, and then later on managing HR at Legacy Restaurants, which is the holding company, or management company, I should say, for Original Linfas and Antones. That's how I got into the into the hospitality side of it and just haven't turned back.

Jonathan: 3:37

So, so let's take a quick step back before we get into the specifics of all of the business stuff. Did you go to school? What did you go to school for? How'd you end up in, in

Bryan: 3:46

I went to, I was I'm a political science major.

Jonathan: 3:49

Oh, that makes perfect sense.

Bryan: 3:51

Sure it does. So at some point I thought I was gonna be governor of Illinois, you know, and then

Jonathan: 3:55

that, that would have been fun.

Bryan: 3:56

wouldn't that have been fun? Yeah, especially now. And Realized I was like, man, that's just a lot of work, isn't it? You know, trying to get all these people to like you and vote for you. And so much, even just local politics, it was just a, it was a lot, but it turns out I like business better.

Jonathan: 4:13

You could have been a community organizer and you know, who knows where

Bryan: 4:16

organizer. Yes, Obama took my spot, but I was happy to give it to him. He gave me a call.

Jonathan: 4:24

Was this before or after you figured out you weren't going to be a professional baseball player for, for

Bryan: 4:28

That was before. Yeah, I learned that right after high school when I went to a couple of tryouts as a good memory, Cubs and Kansas City Royals and 18 years old, thinking I was really good. Our coach sent four of us there. So you're not going to send them. just anybody. And so, you know, we thought we were okay until we found out here's guys that are 23 and 24 years old who knew the scouts names. They knew them, you know, Hey, aren't your kids, aren't your mom and dad. And we realized it's like, Oh, if they haven't made it yet, there's no way. We're making it. But so it's a fun story to tell. But the story was we were never going to make it to even the minors.

Jonathan: 5:08

And, and all of a sudden college looked like a pretty good option.

Bryan: 5:11

sure did. Yeah. Yeah. Went to, went to DePaul, but didn't play ball there. I think I, you know how that happens sometimes. I just, I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm done.

Jonathan: 5:21

Well, yeah, I mean, speaking as somebody who thought he was going to play professional golf as a career and actually went to college on, on a golf scholarship and kind of looked around after a while and said, boy, everybody else is really good.

Bryan: 5:36

You're really

Jonathan: 5:36

is, this is going to be tougher than I

Bryan: 5:39

Oh yeah. Oh

Jonathan: 5:40

then similarly all of a sudden law school looked pretty good.

Bryan: 5:44

Done it? That's right.

Jonathan: 5:46

give that a shot? So let's let's go back a little bit to some of the beginnings of your entry into business in, in the hospitality world in Houston. And again, we are talking with Brian Neely from our HR office here in Houston. And so I, I know that You know, you kind of got into the benefits side of it first and then morphed over and added into it the HR side. I'm curious to know just what you've seen over the course of the past Let's say 20 years in how things have changed what businesses are faced with when competing for talent, what the employee pool, you know, what options they have, what, what things they're being offered, you know I've got to imagine and having been part of it, I do know from some firsthand experience, it's changed dramatically over, over that course of time. So you know, what are you, what are you seeing, what, what have you seen and what have you felt in terms of your business over the, over that period of time?

Bryan: 6:54

Yeah, it's pretty interesting because when you and I were at the tasting room, you know, HR was kind of like, Hey, you know, you hired somebody. You told them a little bit about the company. And then what we did is that we left it to management. Right. And leadership to kind of impart what the company culture was going to be and train them and so forth. And I gotta tell you, I learned, I learned a good bit from that experience for sure. And then you realize that HR is a bit more than that. It's about culture and it's about compliance. You know, we really weren't getting into compliance all that much those days, which was, you know, Unfortunate, but it was a learning experience in that there's not a lot of business owners today, especially those in hospitality restaurant operators that understand the level of compliance that you need to have from an HR standpoint. And, you know, the fines and just, You know, trouble that comes along if you don't even put, you know, a labor poster up in a common area or

Jonathan: 7:54

you know, that, that raises a question for me. If, if you're a, an independent operator or, you know, mom and pop small business, maybe you've got three or four employees at, you know, at best, how, how are they supposed to know about that stuff? I mean, how, how do they know?

Bryan: 8:11

You know this because the small business owner like you said the mom and pop and really the restaurant operator They're not on the they could be on the dol website Every single day to try and figure out what they need to do. All they're trying to do is make money Right. Like legitimately make money, pay themselves, pay their employees, pay their rent, you know, the old story. And then by the time they get done with that, if they're 7 cents left over at the end of the year, then it's, it's been a success. So they really don't know what to do. And that, that, and that's not because no one has a brain in their head. There's not enough bandwidth to understand the responsibilities that they have every single day from a labor standpoint and from a compliance standpoint. It's just not.

Jonathan: 8:52

You know, it's interesting. It makes one think, you know, wouldn't it be great if, and I know there are resources available, right? And, but, you know, you think, oh, wouldn't it be great if, if there were seminars or, or programs, you know, that are easy to digest. And these are the basics of what, what you need to do. I know those exist, but again, it comes back to who's got time for that, right? You know, everybody's trying to keep the lights on and keep the doors open and make sure everybody shows up on time. You know, when do they have time to sit down and learn all of these things?

Bryan: 9:27

They don't. I mean, think about it. So restaurants, just like retail, but unlike any other business, they're open seven days a week. Yeah, there's a couple of that are closed on Mondays. Right. But that's the outlier. Right. So in seven days a week, the operators generally getting in at eight o'clock in the morning and leaving at nine o'clock at night, maybe a little break in between. Right. Who has the time? Yeah. You know, you're trying to manage your vendors. You're trying to do all these other, these other things. And you, you pretty much, there's a knowledge base there, but you pretty much put that to the side because you just don't have the time. You know, which is the most valuable thing that, that any of us have is time, right? You don't have the time to to get in there and dig in and figure out what you need to do every day. From a compliance standpoint, you just don't,

Jonathan: 10:14

You know, it's interesting to me now that I'm thinking about it. It surprises me to some extent that businesses like that just don't get in more trouble, or maybe you just don't hear about it, but it's almost like, Nobody knows. Right? So if it, if you're not technically in compliance with something, let's use your example, right? You don't put up a poster. Well, if the employees don't know that there's a supposed to be a poster, then it's, it's, it's like a crime with no victim, right? Essentially nothing

Bryan: 10:45

that's right. That's right. You know, it's interesting. So there's been a few clients and non clients and you don't, by the way, get back to what you said. You really don't hear about it because sometimes they're kind of small. So there's a, there's a non client out there. That I know of who had some issues with overtime

Jonathan: 11:08

A very, very common

Bryan: 11:10

Very common. Yeah. And there's enough in the news. You just Google, you know, restaurants that have had overtime problems and all of a sudden it'll just. Give you a million, right? And by the way, they don't have to be the big companies cause the brinkers and the Darden's of the world, they've got it down. They have to. Right. So and so this particular restaurant twice, by the way, got fined over 25, 000 back wages and fines. Right. And one of the common issues is, and this was one of those, is that, well, you know, we have two restaurants. Can't Jonathan work 30 hours at one and 25 hours at the other? Absolutely not. Because that's more than 40 hours a week. And so the reason that that happens is, is that employee gets information that says, so wait a minute. worked over 40 hours, but my boss says, well, no, cause you, you know, you split these hours and that employee calls the local department of labor.

Jonathan: 12:05

and that's how it

Bryan: 12:06

And the next thing you know, and that's how it starts.

Jonathan: 12:08

Well, and, you know, I remember from years ago, and this was back in, you know, this is in Houston, but back when the Houston press was very popular and it was in print everywhere, right? You'd see the little newsstands all over the place. And, All over the back page were advertisements for labor, you know, plaintiff's attorneys, labor attorney saying, you know, do you think something's wrong with your overtime? Right. That was, that was the big thing. Everybody was concerned about that.

Bryan: 12:36

That's right.

Jonathan: 12:37

And that, you know, some of that hasn't changed. I think just the the method of, of attaining those clients may be somewhat different now, it's switched to social media, but it's still the same, same issue for sure.

Bryan: 12:48

Now the positive thing is, yeah, that's exactly right. The positive thing for operators is Is that compared to 20 years ago now payroll platforms and POS platforms will keep track of these things for the operator right now that that means there's that there has to be still someone that's taking a look at that. Right? I have to make sure it's like, wait a minute. Brian's like a 39 hours. Do we do we want to let him? Have overtime. He's really good. Why don't we, you know, let's, let's give him a few more hours. So technology has helped, but what happens with technology sometimes is that, you know, then we become complacent. Well, the technology has got to do it for us. We're going to be okay. But what the DOL doesn't care for, or the, or the defense attorney for the employee that says that they weren't getting paid overtime enough is, is like, well. We don't care that technology is supposed to track this, you still have accountability to do that. Right?

Jonathan: 13:50

Somebody's, somebody's gotta be watching.

Bryan: 13:52

somebody's got to be watching that. So then it gets us back to the, to the earlier posit that you had, which was who has the time. So, if you don't, if the operator doesn't have the time, then you want to put that on the GM or the AGM and he or she is. Doing what they should be doing, which is touching tables and making sure all these other things that you for the for the guest experience, and then you want them to go at the end of the day and make sure everybody not, know, getting 45 hours a week. It's tough.

Jonathan: 14:24

Sure.

Bryan: 14:24

It's a, you know, what I've learned is this is, you know, I've been in. I've had my own business now for 20 years and, you know, consulting businesses, whether nonprofits, restaurants or general business. The restaurant business is tough.

Jonathan: 14:40

Oh, there's no question about that.

Bryan: 14:42

It's, it's tough. I think it's tougher than, than any other business. And, you know, from a, from an altruistic standpoint, you know, I've got a nonprofit background as well. After a tasting room and with legacy, I was like, man, I'm going to help these folks. They, they really need the help. Right. And you know, jokingly, it's not bad that people in hospitality want to, want to feed you. So, you know, sometimes that, sometimes that feeding comes in, in, in, in deference to actual money, but you know, it's okay.

Jonathan: 15:13

There's nothing wrong with a barter system, right? I

Bryan: 15:16

nothing wrong with the barter

Jonathan: 15:17

If it keeps you fat and happy, then, you know, that, that actually works. But let, let's, I want to touch on two things that you've, you've kind of raised one is the nonprofits. And we'll come back to that. Cause I know that's a separate kind of part of your business, but I want to touch on that as well. But first thing really is the, the role of technology. And I've had many conversations with a lot of folks recently about, and this is, again, very personal. You know, particular to the restaurant industry, but I have maintained for the past couple of years that we have seen a generational shift in the entire business from the standpoint of technology through the COVID years. And You know, really a lot of that has to do with the online ordering platforms and the third party delivery services and people's desire as consumers for convenience and speed and value and all of those things. And, you know, the, as you know, the restaurant industry is very notoriously slow to change and to evolve. I feel like we've seen 50 years of evolution in the past five years. Because of COVID and the rise of technology. I'm curious to know from your standpoint in the world of kind of HR and benefits and those other things, has technology had a similar impact on, you know, the, the business as a whole, like it has generally in the hospitality industry.

Bryan: 16:50

Sure. You couldn't have said that any better when you, when you kind of mix in technology and COVID, right? COVID changed everything. It just did. So there was you know, one of our larger clients that you know, March 17 2020 we laid off 170 people in one day, right? Nobody knew what the heck was going to happen. Absolutely not. And it was, it was, it was tough. Like really tough. I mean, just emotionally, you know, you don't, you didn't know when it was going on. Number one, number two, there's people that you've known for a long time and they're just going away and they're crying and we're handing out checks. You're just like, I don't know what to tell you. Right. And so then. The business had to adapt. This is probably the fastest. COVID was probably the fastest, the fastest that the restaurant industry adapted because the next thing you know from state government, federal government is like, all right, so what can we do? So we've got, can we deliver food? Can we still touch food? Can we actually provide liquor and beer to people when they want to pick up their food? And then you have, you know, Uber Eats and DoorDash and all these things that really exploded, but then that brought down profit margins, didn't it? Because then you have all these people getting their food delivered. You're changing that, that operator's changing the way they manage because now you have people during COVID for sure that were just managing those pickups and orders, right? Today, when you go to a particular restaurant, there is still All the bags right with food is going to be picked up from from uber and so forth so now that means from a labor standpoint someone probably in that restaurant is the DoorDash Uber person that puts all those things there and make sure all the orders are picked up correctly because now there's another opportunity for failure, right? What if the order gets picked up wrong and you and I get our wrong order? They're not going to blame it on the DoorDash person. They're going to blame it on the

Jonathan: 18:47

that, that, that proved to be a big concern, particularly as those online platforms and delivery services were trying to scale up because everything happened so quickly. You know, they got inundated really, and, and, you know, we're doing everything possible to, to ramp up their operations and scale up to, to meet the consumer demand. But I, I know. from firsthand experience, how difficult it was for restaurants to deal with the fallout of operational breakdowns where things just didn't go correctly. And of course you can't blame the online platform that you'll never talk to a human, you know, et cetera, et cetera, you blame the restaurant. Right. And that caused a lot of, a lot of stress and, and a lot of issues. And I think to your point about Changing the labor model, I think we have seen restaurants in particular, but other hospitality businesses, whether it's hotels or related industries, have figured out through necessity during the COVID years, they could do more with less. And they figured out efficiencies that have, you know, You know, stuck around and, you know, I know we're not fully back up to staffing levels that we were pre COVID. And I think, you know, a lot of industries, a lot of businesses within this industry have figured out how to streamline things and how to be more efficient you know, going forward. So if there is a positive to be taken out of that, maybe that's one of them where, you know, there are businesses that have figured out how to be more efficient in their operations.

Bryan: 20:24

you bet. I take it back to the comparison is for those of us that are old enough, the great recession of 2008. And when we were coming out of that, businesses became more efficient because they said, wait a minute. So Jonathan and Brian, don't they do kind of the same thing? Couldn't Jonathan just do that? We'll pay him. You know, another five G's and, you know, Brian, he'll find something he's resourceful. Right. And so we lost a lot of The labor pool then and then that brought into that's that brought into the gig economy, right? There's a whole bunch of people that decided they're going to get get in the business for themselves to find other things to do, or three or four things to do. Right? COVID comes along from the hospitality standpoint, and it's the same thing, right? The problem is, I think, nationwide, we've got 19 million hospitality workers, right? And we're getting, we're getting back to that.

Jonathan: 21:20

Close. Yeah,

Bryan: 21:21

But the, the issue there is, is that the folks that you were losing the front of the house folks, the two 13 years to 13 an hour, the servers, right? They were losing their jobs because there just weren't enough guests. To support anymore. Now that helped the ones that were left behind because hopefully they're going to make more tips, but you know, you weigh it out, you know, who knows, you're working harder to, you know, hopefully make, you know, your, your 18 or 20%. It becomes tough. So it, there are some positives that come from that either from technology and also from running more efficiently. But then, as you say, from a, you know, You know, not every restaurant operator has someone that they can call the home office and say, hey, can you put something together for me? I need a matrix that says, how am I going to, how am I going to really get this labor pool efficient and bring my labor costs down, make sure that my you know, my cogs, my cost of goods sold, all of those metrics that run a business. I got to make sure all of those, those get taken care of. I have to say that five out of 10. Mom and pops and restaurant operators don't once again, it's a time thing, right? It's a it's a bandwidth don't have the time to sit down and go through that And those are the ones that really need to do it because we need to keep them open, you know

Jonathan: 22:41

Yeah. It's very difficult. In general, I mean, it's never been an easy business, but I think with everything that's, that's gone on over the past five years or so with the decrease in the labor pool, the increased labor expenses now, you know, inflationary pressures and just, you know, supply chain issues and you name it, rent has gone up, you know, everything

Bryan: 23:04

Yeah,

Jonathan: 23:05

It has put such a tremendous amount of pressure on the industry and the hospitality industry overall. And you know, you touched on something a while back that I wanted to come back to, and that is culture. And, and I was curious to kind of get your opinion on how culture is treated and the importance of culture has changed, particularly again, you know, kind of in post COVID. And then I would wrap into that the discussion about A, a new focus. Which really is on mental health in the workplace and how all that has Really come to the forefront again through you know The experiences of the COVID years

Bryan: 23:51

Right, right. It's culture is just vital right so We we have our operators out there either they were chefs or they were gms or what have you or and and and They know why they got into the business and they know what, what excites them about that. For them to engage with their employees that helps them understand why they did that is, is something else because not, not everyone is gregarious and what have you. They're just business people trying to, trying to make money. Right. And, and understand when I say trying to make money, it's, you know, there's not a whole lot of money. The average, the average operator out there makes about 75, 000 a year, right? The average independent operator. And so that's from toast, right? And so you're just like, okay, so that's not a lot. So how do you build a culture when you work in 60 hours a week, you're trying to pay our bills and everything else. That's where hopefully you hire a GM that you can impart your enthusiasm for the business, and then they can take that then to the other employees. None of that's easy by the way, but that's, but that's how you do it. Or you know, it's hard to hire anybody else to kind of come in and do that. You know, we've had the conversation before about restaurants wanting to train their, their front of the house staff and everybody else to be more efficient, that's tough to do. I mean, you know, maybe hotels can do it, you know, other hospitality, but not, not these independent operators. So trying to get. Culture to a point is difficult unless of course, then you have that. Let's say you have the business, you have a an operation that there's tons of guests that are always calling it, not calling in, pardon me, that are always coming in and you're excited that they're coming in. Maybe it's a, maybe it's a patio place or something. Right. Well, Your staff is like getting excited about the people that were coming in and then there's regulars that come in so they kind of build their own culture, right, with some of the regulars and so forth so that's how it, that's how it happens organically, a lot of times, but there's not really a focus on it because there's, I know it sounds so negative because It keeps saying there's not enough time to do it, but there's just not. The reality is, is that there's just not enough time to do it. So you hope that it's all going to get taken care of organically. And then you can dip your toe in a little bit here and there and say, Hey, how are we doing? Kind of thing. Right. And just see where it goes.

Jonathan: 26:15

Sure. Sure. So we are talking with Brian Neely in Houston from our HR office, which is a company that does outsourced human resources for the hospitality industry and also for nonprofits. And I wanted to talk a little bit about what you've seen with regard to not only the culture in the hospitality industry, but the focus on the mental health aspects of things. And that has really come to the forefront. And what are you seeing in terms of expectations from workers in the workforce, particularly in the hospitality industry? Because we know how difficult it is. And we saw how many of them left the industry during COVID to go do something else, whether that's, you know work in retail or go to grocery or go drive for Amazon or whatever it is. They just didn't want to come back to the hospitality industry. And a lot of them that have been kind of interviewed or asked about it, talked about the difficulty with the culture and mental health aspects of being in the hospitality industry and curious to see, to know how you've seen that change over the years and then what is being done to address it.

Bryan: 27:32

Sadly, I would tell you that not much has changed because the mental health aspect of Americans in general is it's It's not great, right? People are still embarrassed to say that they've got this problem or that problem as much as we see people getting on social media and telling us all of their information, right? It becomes tough because people are then worried about their jobs. If they happen to say, man, I'm really stressed out. Can I have a day off here and there? The industry itself, meaning the hospitality industry for front of the house, folks, if you're making 213 an hour and you're trying to get all the tips you can and you figure for working 60 hours a week, you're maybe going to make depends on the, on the operation, right? But you're going to make 40, 000, not, not like a high end, you know, fine dining, steakhouse, whatever, right? You're going to make 40, 000 a year. And what happened in COVID is, is that it's like, wait a minute, so I can work from home. This place said I can work from home. I can still have time to take care of my kids and get them to class and so forth. I might make 4. 85. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to get benefits. getting out, right? Now, what we don't know is there's no empirical evidence yet that tells us that there's any less stress where they went to go work, you know, from working from home, right? They might long for coming back to hospitality. Or how about this one? They come back part time because, you know, once you get hospitality in your blood, it's hard to get it out. So maybe they come back and they work a weekend, they work a shift a weekend here and there. There's not a restaurant in town that won't take you if you're good. You know, they don't care how many hours you work. And if you come in and you can work, then bring it on. Right? So what I've been trying to talk about with our clients is, because it's really pennies on the dollar, is putting an EAP plan, which is, which is stands for employee assistance program. So much far less than like, Health insurance and everything else. Sometimes it's like a dollar a month per employee. And then, so those folks that need counseling, right. Or they're going through some stuff at home where they need a lawyer, what have you, they can make three calls a month sometimes and say, Hey, listen, I got this going on and it's totally confidential. Your employer doesn't know that you called in to use it. There's data. If you want it to look at that data that says how many of our employees are actually benefiting from this. Great, but no names are associated, of course, right? And so, I'm trying to get folks to understand that this is still a stressful industry. And just because folks go out after the end of that shift, and they go out and have a few drinks and what have you, they're blowing off some steam, but that doesn't mean that they're solving some of the issues that don't, that, by the way, that don't even come from the industry itself, but it's exacerbated by the industry. And so hopefully we can get there. There's a couple of great nonprofits out there. One I think, you know Jess Desham Timmons and she's. Part of this nonprofit that's called I'll have what she's having great nonprofit that helps women in the industry with women's health issues and so forth, right? And so there's

Jonathan: 30:43

there's Southern Smoke, you know,

Bryan: 30:45

Yeah, and thank you. I

Jonathan: 30:46

and is

Bryan: 30:47

to mention southern smoke and that's right nationally as well that when there are pandemics or or The Harveys and everything else, helping those people pay their bills when they can't get into the restaurant. It's fantastic. Right. But I mean, we need more of it because they can only do those two organizations that we just mentioned can only do so much. So we need more of it. We need to, as leaders in the sector, we need to lean in on that more often and we can have a voice and we can, you know, the biggest thing for an operator is, well, how much is this going to cost me? Right? I don't blame them for asking that because they're trying to figure out everything else, as we talked about earlier. Right? But the benefit that can come from that is the benefits are exponential. Right. Because you're just going to have a happier workforce and that a happier workforce means everything, you know, now, can we pay people more? That's a whole nother conversation, you

Jonathan: 31:46

Well, I w I was going to ask you next actually, because I've seen some reports recently and some articles written about the competition and, you know, trying a lot of businesses in the hospitality industry, trying to attract You know, good talent and how difficult that is. And there's been a lot of reporting about some of the perks and the extras and the things and the accommodations that employers are having to, you know, implement into their hiring strategies just to compete for the, for the best talent. And maybe that's, you know, more flexible schedules or weekends off or, you know, beyond just availability of benefits, which is almost like a standard now, whereas it never used to be, but now it just has to be a standard that they're offering additional services or, or things like childcare, you know, in, in, in order to help, People manage their time or be able to come in and put in the hours they need to put in. What, what are you seeing in the industry, you know, particularly in Houston in terms of things that are being offered now that, that hadn't been offered in the past in order to attract that talent?

Bryan: 32:57

Yeah, great question. So 1 of them truly is a true PTO policy because that never used to be around, which is like, hey, you have time off. And 1 of the challenges for restaurants has been, well, I don't even know how you track that because when you have, you know, your front of the house people, what are you going to pay them for their, for their PTO? Yeah, well, what, what we do in many of our clients is, is that, okay, so you, you can do a couple of things. 1 is tougher because. Especially, especially for the front of the house folks, you take the average of what they've made over the previous year and you say, okay, this is what your hourly rate would be. And here's what you get for PTO. So it's, it's backward looking, right? Or what you do is you say, okay, so we're going to make that whatever the minimum wage is, which is more real time kind of tracking. And you say, all right, so 7. 25 an hour for 40 hours. This that's, that's what you're going to, you're taking a week off. We're going to pay for that, and that's how that works, right? So that has changed, right? Not great, you know, but it's something, it's not as great as what, what I'm going to call general business does, right? Outside of, outside of hospitality, but at least it's something that, that wasn't there before. Flexible schedules for sure. But the industry's always had that, right? It's just that we have to have, The leaders, you know, the operators understand that, Hey, listen, if Brian has to take care of, we know Brian says he's got to, he's got to pick up his son every day at three 30, right? Let's figure out a way that Brian and Jonathan can kind of trade their schedules off a little bit. Make sure they're still making all the tips they need to make. And we can, we can make that more viable for both of them. Then that's great. Cause you, you're taking a look at that. It's Other benefits like health insurance that have always been a challenge in the industry. For those restaurants that have over 50 employees, obviously they have to comply with the Affordable Care Act, and there's a number of different things that they that they have to do and that and that's an expense, right? That that really hits to the bottom line. Any of those restaurants that are under 50 employees, and you know this, there's a ton of those, they don't have to comply with the Affordable Care Act, which means they don't have to Purchase insurance, or at least subsidize it on behalf of their employees. But we've got to figure out a way to, to do that better. There's a lot of young folks in the restaurant industry. They're just like, would you just pay me? I don't really need insurance. I'll figure that out. Right. I feel like we could have this opportunity to have, you talk about trainings and seminars, right? We could have this opportunity to, to train. restaurant staff on the fact that, listen, if, if you're, if your restaurant doesn't offer insurance, you have opportunities of access to the affordable care act, also known as Obamacare, right? Some of these folks don't meet the threshold of not even having to pay for insurance. But even though it's out, I mean Jonathan, you and I know this, but you know, it's how much do people know? And I think by giving them that opening that says, did you know you could do this? Right. That also takes some pressure off the operator, but you're giving access to the employee that says, well, I didn't know that, you know, I make 38, 000 a year. My wife makes another 25, whatever. I didn't realize that I could reach that threshold to get coverage for my family for let's say 80 a month. Right. And so I think we got to be better at that as far as what are what are the options that people have out there that can make their lives easier and better. I think we can do that.

Jonathan: 36:40

Yeah. And it provides opportunities, you know, for organizations whether that's, you know, Hotel and Lodging or Restaurant Association or the Houston Hospitality Alliance, you know, to provide that type of information, not only to the owners and the operators, but also to the workers, you know, and the general labor force to, to make sure that they're aware of Those opportunities out there for them. So, you know, certainly, certainly something to consider in terms of programming and education because there's always room for more of that. We are talking right

Bryan: 37:17

just to jump in real. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Jonathan: 37:20

I'll I'll erase that on the back end.

Bryan: 37:22

Yeah, even just for like what some of the nonprofits do now, United Way of I shouldn't say, of course, United Way, it's financial training, right? For, for folks, you take a half an hour before shift and you have someone come in and says, Hey, you know, here's how to save some money and paying your bills. And here's how to, you know, sometimes, well, it's not opening it up. You know, Checking account anymore as much because everybody's doing things online, but it really is how much can you, how much can you say? Because the other part of the benefit conversation we're having is there's, you know, those small mom and pops and small operators, they don't have a 401k plan. So what are you going to do to help people? Number one, stay in the industry that the next thing you know, if someone's able to save a couple thousand dollars a year, like literally, you can take someone over a 20 year period and show them what they would have just saving a couple thousand dollars a year. And for that person who's making that smaller amount of money, that's life changing.

Jonathan: 38:21

Sure. Sure. Yeah. No, absolutely. And it doesn't take much as long as you're consistent and keep it going for sure.

Bryan: 38:27

That's right.

Jonathan: 38:29

So we are speaking with Brian Neely in Houston from our HR office, which is an outsourced human resources company that focuses on the hospitality and nonprofit industries. And Brian, you've been doing this 20 plus years in the Houston market. So before we wrap it up with our three questions, I wanted to ask you one final question about it. Yeah. Absolutely. The Houston hospitality industry in general. And what you've seen and how it's evolved and how it's improved and just kind of what you see on the horizon. There's a lot of, it's interesting because I feel like personally, there's been a lot of kind of haves and have nots. We're seeing a lot of growth. There's a lot of openings and there's a lot of things coming into the market, whether that's restaurants or hotels, related businesses whatsoever. And we've seen a lot of closures. So, And, you know, based on all of your experiences and your client work and all of those things over the past 20 years, I mean, what do you think, what's, what's coming next?

Bryan: 39:30

Yeah. I think, I think the future is, is bright. So when I moved here in 92 from Chicago, being a little bit of a restaurant snob, to be honest

Jonathan: 39:39

That hasn't changed.

Bryan: 39:40

no, of course not. There wasn't much here, man. There was barbecue. Right. And, and what a burger, both of which I love, right. Still today didn't think I would love a burger that didn't have ketchup and mayo on it. I, I, I taste the water burgers. Like, man, it's just mustard on this thing. What do you mean? Oh, that's pretty good. And the fries better than McDonald's. All right, I'm in, right? So I think the future is bright. So then, here 15 years ago, you know this, when we started being more chef focused and the dynamic change of how Houstonians started to eat, not necessarily high level gourmet, right? But just being able to understand that there was something just a little bit different. You know, you're making things a little bit differently. Oh, I never had this before, right? And, you know, the Chris Shepherds and the Chris Williams and all the names that we could mention out there. I'm sorry I mentioned two Chris's. I know there's more than Chris's out there, right? But those people who helped change the restaurant scene such that not only were you getting great food, but it was also a place to be seen. Instead of, we had Tony's, right? That was the place to be seen and it's still great, right? But still, now there's more places to be seen. And so that's where that's changing. And I think that our palates are changing as a, as a community. And I think that we, we expect more, which means that those people who are opening up restaurants have a higher bar to reach, because we're expecting a whole lot more right out of out of what we're getting

Jonathan: 41:17

yeah, and you combine that with the diversity of the city and the economy of the city, which is quite good, generally speaking, you know, compare it with other large cities around the country and we're doing quite well, even, you know, coming out of the COVID years. And there are so many. You know, folks that want to come here and open businesses and do business in Houston because it's so large, it's continuing to grow, and it's so diverse and cosmopolitan. I think, I think a lot of people from other parts of the country don't recognize or realize how diverse and cosmopolitan Houston is. Houston really is and it's not just all barbecue and steak houses and and Tex Mex and you know, we've got 50 plus cuisines represented here and just really and it's probably only been in the last seven, eight years or so that we've gotten the true national recognition, you know, that I think we always felt like we deserved. But it's really coming to the forefront now and so many great chefs and restaurants. But to me, it's just, it's the diversity of, of the overall community and the hospitality community in particular. And I agree with you that even though we're still To some extent, recovering from the COVID shutdowns and all of the difficulties and inflation and everything else that there is, you know, a bright future for the hospitality industry in Houston, we're seeing it even on the, you know, the hotel side as well, a lot of great new hotels coming in to the market to service, you know, people coming, whether it's for conventions or sporting events or whatever it might be you know, they're still coming here, they're, they're continuing. To come

Bryan: 43:02

they sure are. You know, I, you know, it's now 32 years ago. So it's almost like I'm, I mean, I'm from Chicago, but I'm really from here. Right. But 1 of the things I noticed when I got here was, you know, Chicago, you know, this Chicago is a convention city. We're getting there. You know, the thing is that, you know, the GRB 15, 20 years ago, I was like, man, why, why don't they have anything here? And now, think about infrastructure, how it happens. You have Discovery Green, you have Hilton Americas, the GRB, they got the ballpark there. Right on the other side of that is Toyota Center. It makes you want to have events here, right? And it's, and it's fantastic. And, you know, for the most part, you know, I still say between which is great for us from a, from a, from a weather standpoint, I still feel like 32 years in October 15th through April 15th is the best weather on the planet. Don't tell anybody else, right. Because it's the best and our economy is great. Right. So, and then think about the diversity as you so we are now surpassing Los Angeles relative to diversity. Someone's going to have to fact check me on this one. I think in this city, we have about 112 foreign consulates.

Jonathan: 44:15

Yeah. It's a huge number. I think second only to New York, maybe.

Bryan: 44:18

Correct. So how can your food diversity not happen naturally with all of those foreign consulates? Because let's face it, they're wanting to bring, well, first of all, they want you to learn about their, their culture, right? So I would imagine within those consulates that you're, that they're saying, Hey, let's find a way to open up some restaurants. Let's have people learn about You know who we are, what we do and what we eat and what's the best way to sit down and learn something from someone is to break bread with, you know, that that's where the future is not

Jonathan: 44:50

Well, I wholeheartedly agree. And I think that's a a great segue to bring us to our final three. questions, our standard questions for all of our guests. We are talking with Brian Neely from our HR office here in Houston. And so Brian, question number one for you, what is your favorite travel destination? If you're going to jump on a plane tomorrow for no particular reason, where do you want to go?

Bryan: 45:18

Portugal.

Jonathan: 45:19

Yeah. And why?

Bryan: 45:22

Oh, my goodness, from the north to the south. Right. So the south in the Algarve region, as it's called, it's just gorgeous and the beaches are. like you've never seen it. It's on the it is bordered on the Atlantic on one side and then Spain on the other. And then you go, you take, you take that train that goes 150 miles an hour and you go north to Lisbon. And it's the most glorious city on the planet. You know, Portugal, I'm going to sound like the the president of Portugal for a second. Portugal used to be, back in the 1500s, it used to be one of the richest, it was the richest country in the world. And so, so many of the streets and sidewalks, all that cobblestone, but it seems like it's all polished. It's just, the architecture is amazing. Then you go further north. To my favorite city, which is Porto, where Porto wine comes from, and there's this beautiful river that traverses through there and the food is phenomenal. And the weather in Porto would be, you would liken it to Malibu, California. It barely changes 7 degrees high to low throughout the entire year. And it's a wonderful place. It's a

Jonathan: 46:36

Well, I'm, I'm sold. I haven't been yet, but I with, with that description and recommendation, I'm ready to go. Okay. Second question for you, Mr. Brian, we've touched on some of these things, but if you were, let's say back in Chicago or some other part of the country and you are talking to someone who has never experienced Houston and feels like there's no reason for them to come here, they don't want to. What would be your pitch? What would you tell them? Why? Why should they come visit Houston and experience it?

Bryan: 47:10

The first thing I would say is it takes me back to our climate. Please visit October 15th through April

Jonathan: 47:18

Well, that's if you want them to come back

Bryan: 47:20

15th. Right. And hopefully we would want them to come back. Right. I would, I would mention the food scene to them. I would tell them that the diversity of If, if you just coming from a museum city in Chicago, I don't think people understand enough from the Holocaust Museum to the Museum of Fine Arts, to the African American Museum, to all of the, that's where the culture comes in. There's much more culture than people understand here. And in a week's time, you couldn't go. You couldn't go to enough museums, you couldn't go to enough restaurants, right? You couldn't do many things outdoors. You know, even if you said, listen, an hour away is the coast, right? And, you know, here's Galveston. And there's a historical nature to that. You know, the Great Storm of 1900, understand what happened then. There's so many things that get people to come here and say, well, I never knew that, right? And you know what else they don't know? It's the fourth largest city in the United States.

Jonathan: 48:18

That's true.

Bryan: 48:19

Nobody, nobody

Jonathan: 48:20

growing and continuing to grow.

Bryan: 48:22

That's right. That will surpass, surpass my birth city here in I think a decade.

Jonathan: 48:29

Yeah. Yeah. It's headed in that direction for sure. All right. So third and final question for you, Brian Neely,

Bryan: 48:37

Drum roll.

Jonathan: 48:37

you have been in this business for many, many years now, and I want to know what is the most important thing you have learned in your business career and that's helped make you successful. And if you were talking to A younger person who wanted to follow in your footsteps or wanted to get into the industry from, from a truly business standpoint, what advice would you give them? How would you mentor them? What is, what is the one thing that you would want to impart to the next generation to help them be successful like you?

Bryan: 49:14

It that's really easy. I, this one's easier than the first two questions. Listen,

Jonathan: 49:20

That's it.

Bryan: 49:21

So yeah, what the thing that I feel like, and if you were to ask any of our clients that they get from me is, is that. I'm learning right along with them. No, I can bring some experience to them. But from restaurant to restaurant even though it's the same sector, it's the same business, everybody's different. Right. Not just because they might have a different from fine dining to, you know the taqueria. Right. But. I learn every single day about their respective businesses and how we might go about making them better. And each one of those people I talk to is different, but the only way that I learn about that is if I sit and listen.

Jonathan: 50:05

Makes perfect sense. Absolutely. And I think you know, that translates beyond just business advice, right? I think that's that's great advice for any type of relationship you may have in your

Bryan: 50:17

It is. That's right. That's right.

Jonathan: 50:20

Well, thank you so much for that, Mr. Brian Neely of our HR office here in Houston. I certainly appreciate you taking the time to be on the show today. Of course, many thanks to the Houston Hospitality Alliance for continuing to connect, educate, promote, and advocate for the entire Houston hospitality community. You can get more information on the HHA from www.houstonhospitalityalliance.com. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the people and the businesses behind Houston's amazing and diverse hospitality industry. We'll see you next time. Thanks again.