Podcast

Transcript

Joshua Miller  0:14  

All right. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the five minute 20 podcast by remarkable academic foods. I'm your host, Joshua Miller. And today we have our guest, Greg Gargone. And he is going to cover with us a topic that kind of blends between operations on the labor and training side of things with technology, believe it or not, so if that sounds interesting to you, stay tuned and get some great valuable knowledge bombs here. So Greg has vast experience in the hospitality industry, including health care, restaurants, Hotel and Resort management. Greg is also a former executive chef and Chef Instructor at Johnson and Wales University is an experienced coach and consultant whose goal is to improve the experience for not only employees, but also process improvement for the deskless workforce. Today, he is president and co-founder of Pineapple Academy. Greg, welcome. And thank you for joining us for this episode. And to kick things off, tell us a little bit about what is your guilty pleasure foods. Great time. We just got off the holidays. So this is I'm sure you had some enjoyed.

Greg Gorgone  1:31  

So there's been a few things. So first of all, Josh, thank you for having me. You know, I It's a real pleasure to be connected with you and really appreciate this opportunity to talk to you like this and continue our great conversations. Thank you. You know, I had a really nice holiday. I you know, I have a number of guilty pleasures, I have to say. But I'll start with you know, I grew up in an Italian household. And my Sundays were always about, you know, me at my grandma's house. My grandma was from Sicily. And so and I had a number of aunts and uncles and cousins, and it was Sunday's were like a zoo to me it was just like, there's kids and adults everywhere. But the one thing that we were all there to do, besides have fun and hospitality and family was eat my grandma's food. And so you know, needless to say, spaghetti and meatballs were a big pleasure thing. And it was so funny over the holidays, you know, to make meatballs from scratch and do everything the right way. You know, it takes time, and it's time-consuming. And so I was able to spend some time I went to their, their nice grocery store here, I got some Italian sausage and some really nice ground beef. And I found a really nice grind that I liked. And I made meatballs from scratch. And I was trying to channel my grandmother. And I'm happy to say that I nailed it. Very proud of myself. Yeah, spaghetti and meatballs. That was pretty nice. That was a lot of fun to make.

Joshua Miller   3:33  

So President and co-founder of Pineapple Academy. Let's start by telling us what is pineapple Academy?

Greg Gorgone  3:42  

So yeah, so thanks. So yeah, so um, pineapple Academy came about six years ago. You know, I've been a consultant, you know, I was traveling around the United States, and doing projects in hospitals and senior living communities. And before that, I was in the hospitality industry and did a lot of these similar type projects. But you know, what I would go in, and I would, you know, get to do assessments and see what's going on and, stand in the kitchen and be with the staff and really see what's going on. And the thing you realize is the problems that you see at one location, many of those problems are replicated everywhere across the board. It has to do with skill sets. And it has to do with time management, and has to do with with the flow in the schedule. 

And so, you know, when I look at an operation, not only you know, I see the physical aspect of it, and then I look at the products and I look at the tools that are in use and then I look at the people. And so because when you stop and think about foodservice, what is it? It's people, it's a facility and supplies. Those three things added up equals an operation right? Yep, and you have to look at it holistically. And you got to look at all of it. And so you might end up with just an amazing kitchen and dining area, you might end up with amazing food products and all that that you're using as supplies that you're using. But then it falls flat because of the skill sets. And because of the knowledge base of both managers and the frontline staff. 

And so, you know, and then conversely, what's interesting is, if you have a really dialed in kitchen, and staff and people that are motivated, you could have a lousy kitchen. And you could have mediocre food, in terms of supplies and stuff like that. But you could put out amazing products, right? Sure. So it's really interesting how, you know, some of us try to compensate by having the latest gadgets or combi ovens, or this and that's and we're buying great food. Well, that's all fine and dandy. But if you don't have a team there that can execute and use those tools and get the most out of it, you're wasting a lot of time and money, right. And so and so what I realized is we need consistent training on the fundamentals. And so, you know, I started out in this industry as a pot washer, literally a pot washer. And you know, and I was in my early 20s, I was in college, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, right. And I ended up doing pots and pans. And then I got promoted to dishwasher and then from dishwasher I got promoted to prep cook. And then from prep cook, I went to school, I left the school I was in and I went to Johnson and Wales, because I finally identified what it is that got me excited in what I can see for my future. And so the thing you learn is, it's it really is the fundamentals this is this industry is stepping stones, right? We all have to put our time into the dish pit, we all have to do our time in getting our knife skills. 

We have to understand the clacher of foodservice. What do these terms mean? Is everybody talking the same language? I mean, I don't know about you. But you know, I'll go into kitchens. And then I’ll ask for a hotel pan or you know, a half pan six inch or 600 pan, whatever. They don't even know what I'm talking about. Language. It's a foreign language. They think Oh, you mean the soup pan? Yeah, well, you know, the six inch hotel pan half pan is what they typically put soup in on the line. They think that's a soup pan. Well, guess what? It's not a soup pan. It is a hotel pan. And so you know. So if you're trying to manage and lead a kitchen, then everybody has to be leveled up. Everybody has to be set to have basics, they have to understand sanitation, they have to understand how to take care of themselves and their personal hygiene. Those are non-negotiable in a foodservice environment. 

And yet, we don't spend the time to train new hires on what these things mean, and why they're important. You know, we just say, Oh, you got to do it this way. No, no, no. There's a reason why we do it this way. We're trying to keep you safe. We're trying to keep the customer safe. And we're trying to keep our coworker safe, right, we have to start with the fundamentals. And so really, knife skills was like the kind of thing that launched this company. And so what you find is we first started with pineapple. You know, we formalized it and launched it five years ago, December 1, this past December 1, so we've officially been a business now, but like five years and two months. And the first thing we did was knife skills in CMS core competencies, you know, the basic fundamentals for senior living. And for hospitals initially, that was our initial markets. And so, because everybody needs to know these things, to work in these spaces, whether you're the manager, or you're the pot washer, there are things that everybody needs to know.

Greg Gorgone  9:24  

And so that's how it started, started out with small, get a library of videos and when I say small means short videos, because that was the other thing we realized, is like, you know, Hey, Josh, we need you to go train on something and we stick you in a room with a computer and you're sitting there, you know, looking at PowerPoints and things like that for 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour, and you're asleep by the end of it. Right? Well, that's just not very productive. Right? You know, you should be learning things on the job that are public when you need it. Right? How many times have you been in a kitchen and one of your team members comes up to you ask you a question like, chef, I need to know how to do this, you've assigned this to me, I don't know how to do it. It happens every day, it does happen. It's because the staff are intimidated to ask or they feel embarrassed to ask something. So we want to make this education and knowledge should be free in the sense that it should be readily available, right? There's nothing in foodservice a team members shouldn’t know about if they want to know about it. But let's start with the fundamentals, the non-negotiables. And then let's focus on the job they were hired to do, let's teach them how to do the job professionally. You know, just because you're an hourly staff member, doing pots and pans, it doesn't mean that you can't have a professional viewpoint on doing pots and pans. Because that's going to help you get to the next step. And then the next step after that, and the next step, you have to have a professional viewpoint. When you when you look at a job, regardless of its, you know, you're sweeping the loading dock, there's a right way and a wrong way to sweep the loading dock, you know, there's a right way and a wrong way, you know, to prep vegetables or whatever. So let's be professional in our viewpoint. But in order to do that, we have to have our fundamentals, and we have to have the ability to learn it, and watch someone else do it, and then be able to duplicate that. And so short, quick videos, is really the solution to all those.

Joshua Miller   11:38  

Yeah. That leads to a term that not everyone may not know, which is microlearning, and that's something that I've been seeing a lot of more recently. So why don't you give us a, you know, what is microlearning? And why is it important?

Greg Gorgone  11:56  

So what's interesting about this is, I think we all know this intuitively, in a sense, you know, it's like, you know, the average length of a song is like three and a half minutes, right? And it sticks in our head, right? And we can remember it decades later. Same thing with short videos. I mean, look what's happened with our culture between with the social media between YouTube and Tiktok, and Instagram and things like that short, snappy videos, our brains seem to like that. And there's tons of research that has been done on this that show that if videos, or presentations are too long, people slide off. So we kind of like peak off at about five, six minutes, then after that, it just starts, it's going in one ear and out the other. And so we built our entire platform, with the premise that all videos have be five minutes or less. Because think about it, if you're if you're in a commercial kitchen, these are very active environments are very busy. And so to think that you're going to have to spend more than five or 10 minutes of learning to do something, it's it's a little bit unrealistic to meet those expectations. So not only is there science behind the individual, watching shorter videos for better retention and understanding, but it's also just practical. In the day to day life. What happens in the commercial kitchen. 

Joshua Miller  13:30  

Yeah, and I can't tell you the number of times that it's happening everywhere, all over the industry, people are coming into our kitchens, they've never picked up a knife before. They don't know those pans that you were just talking about earlier. What's what's a hotel pan what's and, and you know, I wish I could have had this solution because, you know, someone, something as simple as salad bar prep, right? Someone that has never picked up a knife, how many different things that they need to learn. What normally happens is a chef goes over and they say this is how you hold a knife. This is how you cut this vegetable. This is how you cut that vegetable. So that's right, where if you get have a solution such as this, where it's a quick short video, they could learn whether it's right then and there, or whether it's in an office. I think that is that's what I find so impressive about Pineapple Academy, which leads me to another question here, which is time of need, right? So what is time of need training?

Greg Gorgone  14:31  

So how many times you've been in your career, somebody says, Hey, Josh, you need you need to go handle XYZ. And you're like, Okay, I've maybe done it once before, or maybe I'll watch somebody do it. Well, wouldn't it be nice as a confidence builder and just to check the box. I'm going to watch a quick video before I go execute this right? And so let's say I say to you is your day to Clean and sanitize the ice machine, which a lot of places don’t clean and sanitize the ice machine. But if you look at the code, and you talk to the health department, they want to know that you're sanitizing that ice machine on a regular basis. look at those gaskets, look at it, look at that.

Greg Gorgone  15:19  

But you know, so how do you clean an ice machine? Well, great. So there's a QR code on the side of that ice machine. You take you take a smartphone or a tablet, you go click on that QR code, you put in your own employee number, and you watch a quick video shows you okay, this is what you do to clean and sanitize an icemaker. So I didn't have to go to my boss and ask him or feel embarrassed, I didn't have to go find anybody to tell me what to do. I'm self sufficient now. And I can do the job. And not only that, I just watched the video, which has now been documented that I watched the video. So from a manager's point of view, now we know that you have watched the video on how to clean and sanitize the ice machine. Now it doesn't mean that you can't watch it every time you do it. I mean, fine. Some people need that reader refresher. Yeah, yep. Not Not a problem. I mean, I same thing happens with me. It's like, you know, I've been doing a lot of this stuff for years. But, you know, maybe it's been 20 years since I did something. Well, I'm gonna watch a quick video on how to do it. Right. Yep. So not only is it applicable for the the new guy, right? You have new people that are coming on board, but also our more senior people, our people have been around. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard, both from new hires, and people been around for 20 years, watch these videos and go, I completely forgot about all that. Or Gosh, this is so great. That I'm relearning this. And also the new people are having to watch it to do the same way to do it.

Joshua Miller   17:02  

Yes, exactly. And like I said, they're singing the same song. Right? Yeah, I think that's huge. And also having the consistency. Yes. What's the saying, which is, if you have to do it twice, you should have an SOP or standard operating procedure for it. Yeah, this is one way where you can have that in the form of content that is relatable to everyone. Right, exactly. It's not just you know, the professionals with the jargon that can understand quick things. You're a new person, never walked in the kitchen before and you can start to learn these things quickly. 

Greg Gorgone  17:34  

Yeah, we take the approach, you don't know anything. And so. So we try to present it in a respectful way that doesn't, doesn't judge you. It doesn't. It's not, you know, assuming anything. And it's okay, just to be, you know, just to listen. And if you already know the information, great. Get through it and go to the next one. Because at some point, the education is going to catch up to your base of knowledge, what your fundamentals are, where you're at, you know, yeah, and so and so it, you know, these are building blocks, right, in refreshers are always good. But as importantly, it just gets everybody speaking the same language, because once everybody's seen the same video on how somethings are supposed to be done, then that becomes SOP. And now there's no conflict. There's no, you know, the night shift goes, Oh, the Morning guys aren't doing it right. Or the person to my right is doing it wrong. And the guy on the left is doing it right. Well, guess what, everyone? Nobody's right. It's just in the video. And whether it's our video, or you shoot your own video and upload, it doesn't matter. You're creating what I call brand standards, or as you said, SOPs for that operation. And that's what's so important.

Joshua Miller  18:55  

Yeah exactly. And, and I think one of the key things there is you like you said, everyone has their ceiling where in terms of education of how to do something, how to run a station, how to run an operation specifically. Now you may be a great chef, you may know like all the cooking techniques and preparations and all that but what is key here is that every operation has their little nuances, right? Yes, that's where you start to create site specific content or company specific content that's correct. They're not going to know they know all this great stuff from the technicality standpoint, but from your actual company or your actual brand, your dining program what is specific to them that they may not know coming in off the street, right? 

Greg Gorgone 19:40  

That's exactly correct. You know, is so it's so important to have brand standards. I don't care if it's a hotdog stand or fine dining, white tablecloth, dining room, in the city. Everything as a brand standard, you have to have that consistency and needs to be a repeatable action. It needs to be able to be shown, you know, and so that people aren't confused by the direction. The other thing that I would throw out to you is, you know, there's, there's a big situation going on in this industry in the foodservice and hospitality industry, there's just not enough employees. So and that's not going to change, I hate to be the person delivering this message to you, but if those of you aren't aware of what's going on with demographics in this country, guess what we're getting old. And so and so it's just it is it is what it is. And so we have to understand that in order to to be successful and continue to progress in this industry, we have to increase productivity. And managers, particularly over the last like, say, four years or so have increasingly had to do task work, rather than do the job of managing. And so what does that mean? It means we're not getting knowledge transfer to the people that are coming in. And so you got managers running around, you know, doing dishes, or plating or serving, or doing your line work, which you have to do, I mean, when it happens is that's just the fact of the matter. But what aren't you doing, you're not training your team. And so it's problematic. And so it and then, of course, you run into this downward spiral with the managers getting more and more stressed out the managers are, there's more and more burden. And the next thing, you know, they're grumpy or quitting this, you know, there's conflict between the manager and the staff. And it's not anything other than stress, and the ability to transfer knowledge. And so by having these quick, simple, effective short videos, that you can, you know, assign to people and have an onboarding process and ongoing training, whether it's from a third party company like Pineapple Academy, or you shoot your own, and let our platform manage it for you, it doesn't matter, the point is, everybody then can start seeing this stuff. And now the managers can then see productivity start to go up by the staff, and they can start moving up the organization to do more of their job and what they were supposed to do in the first place.

Joshua Miller  22:29  

Absolutely. And for you know, some people might be listening and may say, we already have a learning management system or LMS. Right, you know, not getting into that too much. But, you know, what would you have to say for, you know, those individual managers, or those directors that are saying we have something we don't need this? 

Greg Gorgone  22:47  

I think I think the first thing I would say is, what's your engagement level? You know, what, how many, how many hours of training are people doing a month on this, you know, what we tell people, it's like, you know, give us 15 minutes a week, 20 minutes a week, you know, and so, you know, that's like five minutes a day that you just watch a video, by the end of the month, you're picking up another hour, hour and a half of training content, right, that's a sign. But then if you use the QR codes, which are trackable, by the way, these QR codes are unique, this is not the typical QR code that you see, you know, and restaurants and things like that, to look at a menu, that kind of stuff. These are trackable QR codes that you have to put an employee code in to go in, watch, and track. So it's not the same thing. And they have to be hosted. But this way, if you're the manager, or you're the chef, and you have let's just say it's Josh's meatloaf, and you're frustrated, because every time you know, you have to retrain everybody how to make Josh's meatloaf. Well, guess what, Josh, you shoot a video on how to how to make your meatloaf step by step. Then you assign it and now everybody has it. Now there's no the excuses are gone. Say, Hey, guys, you know, the meatloaf was a flunk today. Everybody's gonna watch this video again. And then pretty soon, it's like, that's just that's just your SOP. And things just get better and better and better. Day after day, week after week, month after month. It takes work. But you know, you're on a program like this for six months, you're gonna see a noticeable change and communication and the stress levels will come down and people's competencies and productivity will go up.

Greg Gorgone   24:38  

Love it, love everything about it. Thank you, Greg. And, you know, just in case people want to learn more, how can they connect with you and learn more about you and what Pineapple Academy is doing?

Greg Gorgone  24:50  

Yeah, thank you, Josh. So yeah, so our website is pineappleacademy.com. If you want more information, it's info@pineappleacademy.com And if you want to write to me directly, I'm on LinkedIn, very, you know, easy to find on LinkedIn, but my email address is Greg@pineappleacademy.com. And I love to hear from people in any way I can help them.

Joshua Miller   25:15  

Awesome. Well, thank you again for coming on for this show. And you are as everyone that is listening a remarkable academic food ambassador, you are helping to improve that industry, the workforce, so thank you for everything that you do. Thank you all the listeners for everything that you're doing day in and day out. This is your host, Joshua Miller and our guest, Greg. Until next time for me, signing off.