Empowering Employees and Creating Meaningful Work: Lessons from a Successful Restaurant Owner

The Journey from Corporate Law to Restaurant Ownership

The path to success is often winding and unexpected. For one restaurant owner, the journey began in corporate law - a career that looked good on paper but left her feeling unfulfilled. She recalls, "I was doing something I didn't care about. I wasn't good at it. I was spending sort of precious years of my life doing something that I hated."

This realization came to a head when she was fired from her law firm job. While initially devastating, it became a pivotal moment that pushed her to pursue her true passions. She reflects, "It was a real wakeup call for me because I had always been just a super overachiever and it was the first time that I was like 'wow I am not doing well at this and it's not even because I couldn't do well, it's because I don't want to. I don't care enough to be good at this.'"

Rather than jumping back into another unfulfilling corporate role, she decided to take a risk and open a mac and cheese restaurant - an idea born from craving comfort food after a particularly rough day at her law firm. This leap of faith would lead her to create Homeroom, a wildly successful restaurant known not just for its food, but for its innovative workplace culture.

Creating a Culture of Empowerment and Creativity

From the beginning, the founder was determined to create the kind of workplace she had always wanted - one where employees felt empowered, engaged, and excited to come to work each day. However, translating this vision into reality proved challenging at first.

She explains, "Having an ideal of wanting to create an incredible workplace an incredible restaurant yet having never run one and also never worked in one that I'd want to emulate meant that everything I learned was really through trial and error."

One early lesson was finding the right balance between structure and freedom. Initially, she implemented very few rules or policies, thinking this would give employees the autonomy she had always craved. However, this backfired:

"We had no dress code, no vacation policy. It was very much like wear what you want, take a vacation when you need to. And these ideas, like honestly a lot of tech companies run that way, but a restaurant is not a tech company. You actually can't have people gone just whenever they want all the time. It's a disaster."

She realized that too much freedom without any guidelines actually created anxiety and confusion for employees. The solution was finding a middle ground - providing clear expectations and structures, but allowing creativity and autonomy within those boundaries.

She uses the analogy of a coloring book: "If you just give someone a blank piece of paper everyone's going to create art that's totally different. If you give people paint by number everyone's going to create something that is exactly the same. And I think my goal is actually to be like a coloring book where it's like here are the outlines of what I expect from you but within that you have complete creativity and freedom."

This approach allowed employees to feel both supported and empowered. For example, rather than rigid scripts for customer service, they implemented a system where employees were challenged to create an exceptional experience for five tables per shift. How they did this was up to them - from personalized artwork to surprise birthday celebrations. This fostered creativity while still providing clear expectations.

Open Book Management and Financial Transparency

Another innovative practice implemented at Homeroom was open book management - sharing the company's financial information with all employees and engaging them in improving key metrics.

The founder explains, "We would have a meeting every week where managers were required to attend but they were open to all staff members. So any staff member would be paid to come and just sit there and eat snacks and learn about numbers."

Rather than just the CEO or CFO reviewing financials, different employees were responsible for tracking and reporting on various metrics. This included not just sales and food costs, but also measures like employee happiness.

This transparency and involvement had a dramatic impact:

"We saw not just huge financial gains - I mean we were always in the sort of the top 1% of performance for the industry but we saw that number go up and up and up and up every single year for the decade that I was a CEO. We also saw huge movements in staff happiness. In restaurants in America anyway the average tenure of an employee is 90 days. Our average tenure was 2 and 1/2 years."

By giving employees insight into the company's performance and engaging them in improvement efforts, it created a sense of ownership and purpose. Even staff not attending meetings could see their suggestions being implemented.

The founder reflects, "When you get to be part of something that is bigger than yourself and like see changes that you suggest happening and see a place get better and better and better every week, every day, like that's something that's really magical to be a part of."

Addressing Sexual Harassment Through Innovative Systems

One of the most impactful innovations to come out of Homeroom was their system for addressing sexual harassment - an issue that plagues the restaurant industry.

The catalyst came when multiple female employees approached the founder about incidents of harassment from customers. She was shocked to learn how prevalent the issue was, even in what she thought was a positive work environment.

True to the company's collaborative culture, they brought employees together to brainstorm solutions. After some trial and error, they landed on the "color code of conduct" system.

Here's how it works:

• Yellow: A server feels a "bad vibe" from a table. They can alert a manager and choose to keep serving or have the manager take over.
• Orange: A bad vibe plus an ambiguous comment. The manager automatically takes over the table.
• Red: An explicit sexual comment or touching. The customer is immediately asked to leave.

This system empowered employees to trust their instincts without having to justify or explain the situation in the moment. It also created consistency in how incidents were handled, regardless of which manager was on duty.

The impact was significant: "It actually like dramatically reduced the red, the sort of highest level incidents. And the reason is like almost no one just walks into a restaurant and just sticks their hand up someone's shirt. They walk in, they start checking that person out, they start making some low-level comments and then they escalate. And it just prevented low-level incidents from escalating."

The simplicity and effectiveness of this system gained national attention. The founder testified about it before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and it has since been adopted as a best practice used in restaurants and bars worldwide.

Managing for Impact, Not Intent

One of the key philosophies developed at Homeroom was "managing for impact, not intent." This means focusing on the actual effects of one's actions rather than just the motivation behind them.

The founder explains: "A lot of people think intent is what matters but we would teach that actually it's impact. An example would be let's say that I see someone walking down the street and they have you know like a big belly and I'm like 'oh my God congratulations like when are you due' and they're like 'I'm not pregnant.' That is just so deeply embarrassing. My intent might have been really positive. I might be trying to like make them feel good about themselves, congratulate them on something, but the impact is super negative."

This principle was applied throughout the organization, helping employees understand that good intentions aren't enough if the impact is harmful or makes someone uncomfortable.

For instance, they had a manager who frequently complimented employees on their appearance, thinking he was being friendly and boosting morale. However, some employees found these comments uncomfortable or even creepy. Through a restorative conversation, they were able to redirect his positive intent toward more appropriate ways of recognizing employees, like praising their work performance.

This approach helped create a more inclusive environment where employees felt respected and comfortable, regardless of others' intentions.

The Power of Titles and Self-Perception

Another interesting insight from the founder's experience is the importance of job titles - not just for external perception, but for how we see ourselves.

She initially hesitated to call herself a "chef" or "CEO," feeling those titles were reserved for more established or larger businesses. However, she decided to experiment with embracing these titles and saw a significant shift:

"I started speaking at conferences for CEOs. There were like groups that I could not join previously because I did not consider myself a CEO that I now could be part of. That created a lot of like mentorship opportunities for me, but it just really expanded my network. It expanded my reach. It really affected how seriously people took me."

Beyond the external impact, she found that embracing these titles changed her own self-perception and behavior:

"I just found that I felt a lot more pride in myself. Those identities meant something not just to the external world but to me. I found them personally empowering, something that like when I would get a little lost I could come back to and think like 'what does it mean to be this?'"

This realization led her to encourage employees to embrace more empowering titles as well, recognizing how it could boost their confidence and performance.

Lessons for Other Business Owners

While the specific practices developed at Homeroom may not translate directly to every business, there are valuable lessons that can be applied more broadly:

1. Empower employees through transparency and involvement: Sharing financial information and engaging employees in improvement efforts can create a sense of ownership and purpose.

2. Find the right balance of structure and freedom: Provide clear expectations and guidelines, but allow creativity and autonomy within those boundaries.

3. Focus on impact, not just intent: Good intentions aren't enough if actions are having a negative impact. Create systems to address issues consistently and fairly.

4. Embrace empowering titles and identities: How we label ourselves affects our behavior and others' perceptions. Don't be afraid to claim titles that reflect your goals and responsibilities.

5. Be willing to experiment and learn: Many of Homeroom's most successful practices came through trial and error. Be open to trying new approaches and adjusting based on results.

6. Create meaningful work: Focus on building a workplace where people feel engaged, valued, and part of something larger than themselves.

7. Address systemic issues creatively: The color code system for harassment shows how innovative thinking can tackle persistent problems in an industry.

The Ongoing Journey

After a decade of running Homeroom and seeing it become one of the most profitable restaurants in its area, the founder made the difficult decision to sell the business. While this transition brought its own emotional challenges, she sees it as part of the ongoing evolution of her goals and impact:

"I think the truth is like dreams should evolve and change. We don't talk that much about like what happens when you actually like get to achieve your dream. Do you just do that same thing forever? No, like it grows and it changes as it should."

Her focus has shifted to sharing the lessons and practices developed at Homeroom more broadly, including writing a book about her experiences. She hopes that by spreading these ideas, she can help create more meaningful and empowering workplaces across various industries.

Conclusion

The story of Homeroom demonstrates how innovative management practices and a focus on employee empowerment can transform a business. By creating a workplace culture centered on meaningful work, personal growth, and collective success, this restaurant was able to achieve remarkable financial performance while also making a positive impact on employees' lives and the broader industry.

While the specific context of a mac and cheese restaurant may seem niche, the underlying principles - transparency, empowerment, creative problem-solving, and focusing on impact - can be applied in businesses of all types and sizes. As workplaces continue to evolve, these lessons offer valuable insights for leaders looking to create more engaging, productive, and fulfilling environments for their employees.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVjrtQycBHM