Food & Beverage by MarketScale

The 9-to-5 work schedule has been defining the American workforce since the late 1800s, when labor unions first fought for fair working hours. But, over 100 years later, the average workday has hardly changed despite the evolution of contemporary society. Coleman Consulting thinks its time for scheduling to adapt to the diversity of the employees who make businesses run.

MarketScale explores the astonishing benefits of creating custom schedules built around employee needs on this episode of MarketScale's Food & Beverage Podcast with Taylor Donnell and Marco Juarez of Coleman Consulting Group. From increasing business revenue to boosting employee happiness, custom-built schedules benefit everyone involved.

Whats more, curated scheduling performs better than offering employees monetary raises, providing a long-term solution to covering shifts.

Coleman approaches the schedule-building process with acute attention and a concerted investigation into the needs and preferences of individual employees. By taking this personalized approach, Coleman crafts a schedule that suits the needs of its workers, producing long term satisfaction and work-life balance.

Be it an eight-hour shift to accommodate more family time or 12-hour days to provide more days off, Coleman takes the time to learn how each employee best operates.

“It’s really got to meet the needs of the people,” Juarez said.

Change management is a term used to describe a systematic approach to changing an organization's processes, leadership or approach, but, for employees, it means absolutely nothing. It does nothing to address the pain points they experience until an organization gets buy-in from everyone affecting the change.

Today on the Food and Beverage podcast, host Shelby Skrhak sat down with Coleman Consulting Group's Jim Mertz and Frank Pereira to discuss the change management obstacles that companies face in all layers of the organization.

Executive leaders bring in Coleman Consulting when they realize they don't have the bandwidth to handle the change and need help.

"(It could also be that) change is something they're not accustomed to doing," Mertz said. "If we work with a plant that manufactures chickens, yes, they're awesome with chickens, but that's not a skill set that necessarily translates to change management."

In their consulting work, Mertz and Pereira often see top leadership recognize the need for change, but middle managers have more trepidation about how the change will affect their teams. Among the many reasons plant managers fear change are insecurity, turf issues and the fact that they're often the front line for complaints from their team.

"We never go in without buy-in from someone in the C-Level, but there are many people in that office, the plant and others that can have issues with change," Pereira said.

Christopher Blomquist, Director of Marketing at Parlevel Systems, and Dustin Seetoo, Director of Product Marketing at Premio, Inc., spoke on this episode of MarketScale's Food and Beverage Podcast about the emergence of micro markets in the self-service vending machine industry. Technology and the increased desire for healthier choices are two drivers of micro markets.

“Micro markets came from being able to offer more diverse and healthier options,” Blomquist said. "Micro markets are different in vending in that it’s an open-product concept, including self-checkout with flexible storage to store items such as salads and sandwiches."

Seetoo highlighted what's at the heart of these micro markets.

“The back-end business analytics tied to the hardware are driving the whole micro-market industry,” he said.

The collected data helps determine customer purchasing behavior and which food and snacks make the most sense to stock. This information is essential when stocking quick-spoil items, as it is critical to know which of these items will sell quickly and which will not.

Blomquist saw the growth in micro markets leading to a movement toward self-service as a whole.

“Our company goal is to connect multiple areas, where one may purchase individual food and beverage items at one self-service kiosk," he said.

Beyond food and beverage, Blomquist believes other services could be ordered through micro markets, as well.

Employee turnover affects every business and industry, large and small, but turnover is highest in the retail, customer service, hospitality, and service industries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. How do you combat turnover when the robust job market gives employees their pick of positions? Today on the MarketScale Food and Beverage Podcast, host Shelby Skrhak answers that question with Frank Pereira, Managing Partner at Coleman Consulting Group.

"If you've ever been in that manager position where someone comes to you and says 'I'm leaving,' that's usually your best employee because those are the ones in the job market that can find a new job," Pereira said. "That terrible feeling you have... How do you think their peers feel?"

When a team member leaves, they take not only their labor but knowledge and a piece of the company culture away with them. Those are the intangibles, but there is a very tangible cost of replacing an employee, which can range from $8,000 upwards to $15,000 in candidate searching, training, and other on-the-job costs.

How do you prevent turnover? Focus on retention.

"The best way to retain employees is the schedule. A good schedule can go a long way," Pereira said.

"You have to remember people build their lives around their work schedules," he said. "We spend over half of our waking hours at work. And after serving hundreds of thousands of people, we know the number one thing people want is more days off."

Well-rested employees make for less turnout, fewer incidents of mistakes, and lower absenteeism, Pereira said. "It's the difference-maker."

Disrupting something as large and enduring as the beef industry may seem like an impossible task. Alternative meat provider Impossible Foods is planning on doing just that.

Today the company’s burgers will be sold in grocery stores for the first time. They can be found at 27 Gelson’s locations in California, and plans are in place to expand to the East Coast soon. Fast food chains including Burger King and White Castle currently host the Impossible Burger on their menus, and alternative meat competitor Beyond Meat is already sold in grocery stores. Overall, Impossible Burgers are sold at more than 17,000 restaurant locations.

University of Denver Professor of Lodging Management H.G. Parsa has spent more than a decade in the food industry. He joined Business Casual to discuss what challenges and opportunities await Impossible Foods as it hits grocery store shelves across the country.

Hear Daniel Litwin and Geoff Short discuss this story on this excerpt from Business Casual.

Tune into MarketScale Radio LIVE every Wednesday and Friday morning at 9 a.m. CT for Business Casual with Tyler Kern and Daniel Litwin. From interest rates to eSports – we’ll be talking all things B2B.

You may have noticed the surge of CBD products on shelves near you. Whether it’s at your local pharmacy, drug store, or even coffee shop, CBD is popping up everywhere in lotions, lattes, gummies, and oils. But how healthy is it, and what sort of quality and production standards are being set?

Here to answer our burning questions about this burgeoning industry on today’s Food & Beverage podcast is Kate Kinnison, vice president of sales and owner of RAD Extracts, a Colorado based B2B CBD supplier.

CBD (short for cannabidiol), is most commonly derived from the hemp plant. Hemp has gotten a bad rap because of its cousin, the marijuana plant, known to contain the psychoactive compound THC. But marijuana and hemp share another compound—CBD, which is completely legal and has shown positive health benefits in initial studies.

Kinnison explained how there’s more to CBD than just the compound itself. RAD Extracts looks at the hemp plant’s benefits holistically, utilizing all of hemp’s cannabinoids to create a product with the utmost benefit.

It comes down to, “All of those compounds in that plant working together in a synergistic feature, to really have the maximum benefits for individuals who are using it,” Kinnison said.

CBD is still rather unregulated, with no guarantee of the quality, purity, or efficacy of what’s hitting shelves. RAD Extracts aims to be ahead of the game, exercising the highest quality practices in their production to produce full-spectrum CBD, not a less-potent distillate.

“By creating a premium full spectrum product we really feel like we’re doing the plant justice,” Kinnison said.

So who could benefit from CBD?

"The amount of different applications it has is amazing,” Kinnison said, with some patients reporting it helping with conditions as varied as acute pain, chronic pain, epilepsy, anxiety, Alzheimers, and even acne.

The future of CBD is still unsure, but Kinnison projected that hemp’s popularity will increase as studies continue to come out touting the benefits of CBD.

McDonalds made their third substantial investment in new technology for 2019 earlier this week, acquiring artificial intelligence company Apprente to help automate the drive-thru process. 

The renewed focus on technology represents a new direction for McDonalds, who appears set on charting the restaurant's path forward into the future.

The company has said that the hope for the new technology will be that it creates “faster, simpler and more accurate order taking." The financial terms of the deal haven't been released.

Hear what Tyler Kern and Daniel Litwin had to say about the purchase in this snippet from Business Casual.

Tune in to Business Casual, MarketScale’s live radio broadcast, every Wednesday and Friday at 8 a.m. CST.

The typical eight hour workday is one of the most popular and widely practiced labor schedules in the country. But the truth is, these hours aren't suited for everyone. Many industries and companies are finding that adjusting employee hours leads to happier workers and more productivity.

Today on the Food & Beverage Podcast, we were joined by Marco Juarez, senior partner at Coleman Consulting Group, who broke down alternatives to this outdated labor schedule.

The issue of employee scheduling is particularly pertinent in California. In 2000 California passed an act to limit employees to a strict 8 hour day. This act, commonly referred to as the "Overtime After 8" act, disgruntled employees who needed flexibility in their schedule. The state had good intentions, but according to Juarez, the act resulted in poor results.

This is where Coleman Consulting comes in. Coleman designs employee schedules with a holistic eye, Juarez said.

"We look at it from business needs, employee desires, and health and safety," he said, adamant that each schedule should be on a "case by case basis," keeping in mind the desires of the employee.

"Nobody ever thinks about giving the employer choice," Juarez said.

With a traditional eight hour workday, employees typically get 13 days off per year. But Coleman Consulting has overhauled schedules to such a degree that employees are getting up to 26 weekends off, the equivalent to 3 months a year, with no sacrifice to pay or company productivity.

"Our job is to help companies save money and make their employees happier," Juarez said. His real examples of Coleman's emotional, empathetic approach show a solid bridging of the communication gap between employee and manager.

What is seasonality in marketing and why does it matter? To help answer that question MarketScale's senior director of marketing Lauren Farrell joined Business Casual to discuss the concept with Daniel Litwin and Tyler Kern. 

Hear the full interview and learn why seasonal offerings can often be a very effective tool.

Tune in to Business Casual, MarketScale’s live radio broadcast, every Wednesday and Friday at 8 a.m. CST.

On this jobcast, host Daniel Litwin dug into the open role of Customer Support Manager for Greenstone, a Cultura Company, with Client Success Director Tracy Curtis.

"We're looking to grow our support team," Curtis said. "We have tenured folks that we need to have a training program and career paths for new people, as well as improving our metrics for our customers."

Greenstone, located in Alpharetta, Georgia, is a leader in agricultural accounting & management tools, powering the backend agribusiness across the nation. The 8 to 5, Monday through Friday position of Customer Support Manager takes on the responsibility of managing a team of customer service representatives to deliver quality and consistent levels of service.

They'll establish efficient and balanced workflows for them and their team, maximizing efficiency and measuring service metrics to develop standards, improvements, or changes to the process.

Curtis said she's looking for a candidate with a bachelor's degree and 3-5 years experience managing people. For this Customer Support Manager position, up to 10 percent travel may be required, and career path potential exists.

"Ideally I'd like them to move up into my role as Client Success Director or a general manager of one of our companies," Curtis said.

Give this jobcast a listen to hear why Curtis thinks Donkey's (yes, from Shrek) brand of optimism perfectly captures this role. Click here to apply for the position.