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Your Culture Shouldn't Be Right for Everyone
6 Plays3 years ago
Advice for creative talent practices on the internet abounds. How can you know if these practices are a fad or if they'll generate success? To answer that, we're talking with someone who has adopted several unique initiatives for his team, including the famous four-day workweek. Join us in today's conversation with Jamie Baxter, Founder and CEO of Qwick, and investor Curt Roberts of Kickstart (a VC firm for startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West) as we bring you both sides of a Perfect Pitch. In this episode, we'll talk about:
Why Jamie believes his company culture shouldn't be right for everyone
What happened when Qwick implemented a four-day workweek
Curt's advice for founders considering a shortened workweek
Jamie's hack for difficult conversations in his work and personal life
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Creative Talent Practices
00:00:00
Speaker
Advice for creative talent practices on the internet abounds.
00:00:04
Speaker
How can you know if these practices are a fad or if they'll generate success?
00:00:07
Speaker
To answer that, we're talking with someone who has adopted several unique initiatives for his team, including the famous four-day workweek.
00:00:14
Speaker
Join us in today's conversation with Jamie Baxter, co-founder and CEO of QUICK, and investor Kurt Roberts, as we bring you both sides of A Perfect Pitch.
Meet the Guests: Jamie Baxter and Kurt Roberts
00:00:33
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Perfect Pitch is a podcast from Kickstart that reveals the minds of both investors and entrepreneurs throughout a startup's journey.
00:00:42
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I'm your host, Karen Zunlick, and I'm excited to introduce you to today's guests.
00:00:46
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Jamie, in 2017, you co-founded QUIC, a staffing platform that serves the hospitality industry.
00:00:52
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And before QUIC, you worked for an impressive 18 years at Willis Towers Watson, a financial services company.
00:00:59
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You enjoy outdoor activities, traveling and hiking with your wife, and you have earned your private pilot's license.
00:01:05
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That's amazing.
00:01:06
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What else should we know about you?
00:01:09
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I'm almost complete with my commercial license as well.
00:01:12
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So aviation is probably one of my biggest hobbies.
00:01:16
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I actually wanted to be a pilot when I was growing up and my dad told me, no, son, you're going into computers.
00:01:22
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He was in the Air Force.
00:01:22
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And so he's like, you're going to computers.
00:01:24
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And so that's kind of the way my household ran.
00:01:26
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So I went into computers, but I love flying.
00:01:28
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And so I got my pilot's license about six years ago and try to get up whenever I can.
00:01:33
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That's amazing.
00:01:34
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My grandpa had a runway in the back of his house.
00:01:37
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I remember going up in his plane with him and it's so fun.
00:01:40
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That's amazing.
00:01:41
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That's really cool.
00:01:42
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And Kurt, it's always great to have you back on the show.
00:01:45
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We'll have a link to your bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:01:49
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And you're known at Kickstart to be a collector.
00:01:52
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We've talked about your shoe collection.
00:01:54
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We've talked about your book collection.
00:01:56
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Is there anything else you collect?
00:01:58
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Well, part of the challenge with me is that when I get passionate about anything, I find myself collecting.
00:02:03
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So I collect watches.
00:02:07
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I probably have
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50 or 60.
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Oh my gosh.
00:02:14
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Yeah, I'm passionate about cycling.
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So I'm now up to five bikes.
00:02:18
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I'm passionate about skiing.
00:02:19
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I have four pairs of skis.
00:02:21
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Photography, I have five camera bodies and probably 12 lenses.
00:02:24
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So yeah, just watch what I start to get passionate about and the goods will start to pile up.
00:02:30
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You'll know that a collection is forming.
00:02:32
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Yeah, yeah, it's forming.
00:02:35
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Well, if Jamie did that, he'd have a collection of airplanes.
00:02:37
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So probably best.
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Yeah.
00:02:39
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Mine are cheaper.
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Yeah.
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They may not be a lot cheaper in some cases.
00:02:43
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Yeah, that's amazing.
00:02:45
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Well, I'm excited to dive into the discussion today.
Transitioning from HR Tech to Hospitality
00:02:48
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And Jamie, as I read through your professional history, I was surprised to see that you don't have experience in the hospitality industry.
00:02:55
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I don't know why I assumed that you would have.
00:02:58
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What triggered your switch from your 18 years in the financial industry to founding a tech startup in hospitality?
00:03:06
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While I don't have experience in the hospitality industry, what I do know really well is how to build HR tech, human capital technology.
00:03:16
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That's what I spent 18 years doing at Willis Towers Watson was basically being an intrapreneur for them, developing all sorts of HR technology products from concept to revenue.
00:03:28
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Before that, I started two other companies and went in 18 years as an entrepreneur.
00:03:33
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So I really wanted to get back out and do another company on my own, but I didn't know what that was.
00:03:40
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So after taking time off, after leaving Wells Towers Watson and exploring a lot of hobbies, that's when I got my pilot's license and
00:03:48
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tried to learn how to surf and was quickly reminded that this body was built more for computer keyboards than surfboards.
00:03:55
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That's when I was like, okay, maybe it's time to go in and get serious about starting another company.
Founding QUICK: Solving Hospitality Staffing Issues
00:04:01
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Ultimately, I ended up meeting Chris, my co-founder, and he's like, oh, well, I have an idea for you.
00:04:08
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And he described this idea of Quick and it was solving his problem.
00:04:13
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with the hotels that he owns.
00:04:15
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And so he was struggling with all the staffing at his hotels, people not showing up to work, constant turnover.
00:04:21
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And he was using all these temporary staffing agencies.
00:04:24
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They all were charging exorbitant fees and were unreliable themselves.
00:04:29
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And I said, well, it sounds like a human capital problem.
00:04:33
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You need to manage performance management.
00:04:35
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You need to manage recruiting.
00:04:37
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You need to manage compensation.
00:04:39
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Those were all three systems I had built for Fortune 500 companies in the past.
00:04:43
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But you're right.
00:04:43
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I didn't know anything about hospitality.
00:04:45
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So I thought about it.
00:04:47
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I think it was like eight or nine months later after we had this initial discussion, I flew out here to Arizona.
00:04:52
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I was living in San Diego at the time.
00:04:53
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And
00:04:54
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I said, Chris, I want to take that idea and I want to make it into a company, but I don't know how to do it exactly within hospitality.
00:05:03
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So will you go in with me and be part of this company?
00:05:07
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And I always love an unfair advantage in anything that I do.
00:05:10
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And so I thought a great unfair advantage would be to incubate the company inside of his hotels.
00:05:15
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And to learn exactly from his management team.
00:05:18
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So I sat down first, foremost, and just talked to people on his leadership team, talked to the people that were working in the food and beverage industry, talked to the struggles that they were having, talked to the struggles that the managers were having, and just learned as much as possible about it.
00:05:32
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And then we did all of the initial shifts with his hotels.
00:05:35
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And so that's where I learned about the actual problems.
00:05:39
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I knew I could build the HR side of it, but you have to know exactly the customer you're building for.
00:05:45
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And with us, we have two customers, really.
00:05:47
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We have our freelancers on one side that are the bartenders and cooks and servers and dishwashers.
00:05:52
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And then we have the business partners on the other side.
00:05:55
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So we had to learn about both in a lot of depth.
00:05:58
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When we started building, we knew exactly who we were building for so we could match what they needed from a value proposition, but also their pain points as well.
00:06:06
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Yeah.
00:06:07
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And that's something we've talked about a couple times on this podcast is the importance of obsessing over your customer and who you're building the company for.
00:06:14
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And what that is, like, really understanding that and getting into the trenches, so to speak.
00:06:18
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So I love that you highlighted that again.
00:06:19
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And I also really appreciated your ability to pinpoint, like, hey, I actually think the problem here is this human capital thing.
00:06:26
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It's a staffing thing.
00:06:27
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Let me actually solve it from this angle instead of what might traditionally be thought of as a way to fix that.
00:06:32
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Kurt,
00:06:33
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I would love to hear from you.
00:06:34
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What about Jamie assured you that there was a founder fit with Quick and addressing the hospitality industry?
00:06:42
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So I met Jamie in late 2018.
00:06:47
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Does that sound right, Jamie?
00:06:49
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Yes, it was late 2018.
00:06:50
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Yeah.
00:06:51
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And Jamie was in the process of raising his seed round.
00:06:55
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I went to meet with Jamie and a few things were evident.
00:07:01
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One, just in the process of conversation and
00:07:05
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It was clear that he knew the business.
00:07:08
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He knew hospitality customers.
00:07:10
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He knew what problem he was trying to solve.
00:07:13
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He knew how to segment the market into different customer types.
00:07:18
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He had thought about how to do labor acquisition on the supply side.
00:07:22
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And so there were almost no questions that I could ask of Jamie that he didn't already have the answers to or that he hadn't already thought about.
00:07:31
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And that's always a good sign, right?
00:07:33
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Whether someone has...
00:07:35
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a background in the industry or not.
00:07:37
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The second was that Jamie already had at the time on his team, some ex Uber people.
00:07:44
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And as I sort of thought about building a marketplace company, having folks on the team that have done it before and have seen one of the world-class operators actually pull that off, felt to me like another thing that stacked the odds in Jamie's advantage.
00:08:01
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We talk in this business about funding entrepreneurs that have experienced the problem they're trying to solve firsthand.
00:08:09
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And that certainly can be a factor that stacks the odds in the favor of the entrepreneur succeeding.
00:08:16
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But we've interviewed on this podcast before Frank Wooten, who was a hedge fund manager who built a company to herd cattle using an Internet of Things device.
00:08:25
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And so Jamie's leap from what he was doing before into this business was nowhere near as large as the leap that Frank made in doing that.
00:08:35
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So you're assessing a bunch of different factors in assessing an entrepreneur.
00:08:40
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And direct experience in the industry is only one of those.
00:08:43
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It's not the only one that we emphasize.
Innovative Culture at QUICK
00:08:47
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And Quik has rapidly become the leading staffing platform solely dedicated to serving the hospitality industry, which is amazing.
00:08:54
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And there are so many lessons that we could learn from your success.
00:08:58
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But I want to dive in to the culture that you've built in your company because success like that doesn't come unless you have an amazing culture and having the background that you've got in human capital.
00:09:09
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I would love for you to tell us about Quik's culture and the intention with which you built it.
00:09:15
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I was very fortunate in my 18 years at Will Stowers Watson to work with just some incredible people.
00:09:23
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I mentor in particular, Tom Keebler, that taught me a lot about people leadership.
00:09:28
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And I also, during 18 years, I think I switched positions.
00:09:32
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into different products.
00:09:34
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I think I had eight different roles over that time.
00:09:35
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So unfortunately, I had a couple bad managers through that time period as well.
00:09:40
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But I think the amalgamation of all that is it taught me a way of thinking about motivating people to not only get the most out of them, but to get the best out of them.
00:09:51
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So I kind of took and said, all right, what are the things that I didn't like around some of the managers that led me in the past?
00:09:58
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What did I like about the people leaders that really inspired me to do my best, most creative work?
00:10:04
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And I tried to put all of that together when we started quick.
00:10:07
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I knew that that wasn't going to be the right thing for everybody.
00:10:11
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I think if you've created something that is the right thing for everybody, then you really created nothing at all.
00:10:17
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You have to be somewhat specific and somewhat polarizing in whatever you do in order to be different.
00:10:25
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I wanted to create something that was very different.
00:10:27
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And so our culture at QUIC, I don't want it to be the right thing for everyone.
00:10:32
Speaker
I want it to be a very unique culture that serves really smart, innovative people that want to do their most creative and innovative work, that are self-motivated to put their entire self into their work, that are grounded with good values and integrity, that also have a good amount of grit to them.
00:10:55
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They're not afraid to fail and make mistakes and get up and try again.
00:10:59
Speaker
And I think if you find that type of talent, then you can create a unique culture that doesn't rely on having a lot of rules and policies.
00:11:10
Speaker
You get rid of the red tape and the governance and you don't clip people's wings.
00:11:15
Speaker
It allows them to actually move really fast and innovate without necessarily needing permission.
00:11:22
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We've actually approached it and saying, you know what, we're going to create this kind of loose environment without lots of rules, hire the best caliber talent that we can possibly find, and then let them do their most creative work without necessarily a fear of failure, nor restrictions of, well, I've got to get my manager's approval to do this, or I'm not sure if that's going to get approved.
00:11:44
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Go out there and try.
00:11:45
Speaker
And if you fail, that's okay.
00:11:46
Speaker
Try again.
00:11:48
Speaker
And I think by creating that environment, it attracts...
00:11:52
Speaker
not only more people that want to do the same, but it gets more out of people.
00:12:00
Speaker
And we quickly weed out the people that don't.
00:12:03
Speaker
What we want to do is hire rock stars and give them a platform to do their best work.
00:12:09
Speaker
And as soon as you find out that you may have hired someone that's not a rock star, they're not in the culture, they're not performing, you have to curate that talent on a constant basis and get rid of the non-rock stars so that the rock stars keep being rock stars.
00:12:21
Speaker
And so we're very conscious around how we manage the team and ensure that we're always expecting high performance.
00:12:28
Speaker
And we can dive into different ways that we do that.
00:12:30
Speaker
But that's the core foundation and the basis of the culture we've created at Quick.
00:12:34
Speaker
And I think it's not only brought us amazing talent, but it allows us to out-innovate our competition and move really fast with a lot less capital than a lot of our other competitors.
00:12:47
Speaker
When you're talking about that loose culture, that loose framework, what does that mean?
00:12:51
Speaker
What does that look like?
00:12:52
Speaker
Because I think every founder or potential founder listening to this wants people with integrity and with grit and who are innovative.
00:13:00
Speaker
And there might be being like, okay, so does that mean I just have no rules whatsoever?
00:13:04
Speaker
Could you maybe give us a couple of concrete examples of what you mean by that?
00:13:09
Speaker
I'll start with a real simple one, like our expense policy.
00:13:12
Speaker
You would be surprised in lots of companies how much time is spent wrapped up in just analyzing, am I spending the right money on the right things?
00:13:22
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And you spend more time and money analyzing the actual expense policy than the expense in question itself.
00:13:29
Speaker
So our expense policy is act in quick's best interest.
00:13:34
Speaker
You better be ready if our CFO comes to you and says, hey, Karen, what was this charge?
00:13:39
Speaker
You should be able to justify that.
00:13:40
Speaker
That's in Quicks' best interest.
00:13:41
Speaker
But we're not going to set boundaries on what you should spend money or not spend money on.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's always in Quicks' best interest.
00:13:48
Speaker
If you want to experiment with something new, you submit a product idea, and then it goes through some type of approval process, and then ultimately it gets on the road about, if you want to try it, go try it out.
00:13:58
Speaker
You don't have to get permission.
00:13:59
Speaker
You don't have to get approval.
00:14:01
Speaker
It doesn't have to go through a process.
00:14:03
Speaker
Go try it out.
00:14:03
Speaker
And don't try it out next month.
00:14:05
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Try it out this afternoon.
00:14:06
Speaker
Take 15 minutes.
00:14:08
Speaker
Experiment with something.
00:14:09
Speaker
Try out this new messaging campaign and see if it works.
00:14:11
Speaker
And if it doesn't work, then we've learned from it.
00:14:14
Speaker
But the more things you try...
00:14:16
Speaker
the luckier you're going to become, the more successful you're going to become.
00:14:19
Speaker
So what we want to do is enable people to try a lot of those things.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so when you hire really smart people that have that good integrity and good communication and all that foundation, then you can remove those rules.
00:14:30
Speaker
Same with PTO.
00:14:32
Speaker
We don't necessarily track how many days of PTO you take, but we also don't track how many hours you work, right?
00:14:37
Speaker
Why would we track one versus the other?
00:14:39
Speaker
What we expect everyone to do is to get their work done and you're accountable for actually moving the needle and getting the projects done you need to work on.
00:14:46
Speaker
So...
00:14:47
Speaker
I think allowing for that framework and more self-governance and ensuring that every manager, every people leader is actually in the role of serving the people that are reporting to them versus monitoring and managing their work, per se, allows people to step up and rise up and actually do their best work without necessarily, well, my manager said to do this.
00:15:08
Speaker
No, I want people to use their own minds and think outside of the box and challenge the status quo.
00:15:13
Speaker
Just because we're doing it this way today doesn't mean that we have to do it that way tomorrow.
00:15:17
Speaker
I think when you remove that red tape, that governance, and just say, go try it.
00:15:22
Speaker
Even if your manager disagrees with you, it doesn't mean that you can't do something.
00:15:26
Speaker
What we do encourage you to do is if it is a big idea that you're going to try, and if it fails, there are some severe consequences, we encourage you to go and actually seek dissent.
00:15:37
Speaker
So go farm for that descent and actually get people to challenge your idea and poke holes in it.
00:15:42
Speaker
It doesn't mean that you need that approval, but it helps you think through it more thoroughly and ensure that you've thought through it in all angles.
00:15:50
Speaker
So you're really creating this culture of very strategic thinkers.
00:15:54
Speaker
Kurt, what have you noticed about QUIC, about its culture, about the way Jamie has set this company up?
00:16:02
Speaker
I've spent a good chunk of time in the quick offices, both during due diligence, during board meetings.
00:16:10
Speaker
We did a strategy session together with the executive team.
00:16:14
Speaker
And I get the chance, because of the number of companies we support, to spend a good amount of time in a lot of different offices.
00:16:20
Speaker
And you get a pretty good sense of the culture of a company from what you see and observe, if you're paying attention.
00:16:28
Speaker
The energy...
00:16:30
Speaker
of quick is different than I think any place else I've been.
00:16:37
Speaker
And it isn't just walking around seeing smiles on people's faces or having a well-stocked snack area.
00:16:45
Speaker
The office always had a lot of people in.
00:16:49
Speaker
And that's very unusual, I found, at least in the current environment.
00:16:53
Speaker
There's so much default remote work these days that to see so many people that were actually in and almost every desk full, it was just impressive to me that people wanted to be around each other and work off of each other's energy.
00:17:07
Speaker
and be more productive and creative as a result.
00:17:11
Speaker
That's the sense that I've had from having observed it firsthand.
00:17:15
Speaker
I get asked by other founders as well, like, how do you get everyone to come into the office?
00:17:20
Speaker
And again, it's not a policy thing.
00:17:22
Speaker
It's when you get really smart people all working on really hard problems on a mission that they really believe in and an environment that they feel like they're actually contributing to and are adding value to.
00:17:37
Speaker
And they like the people that they're around and feel like they're of the same caliber and mindset.
00:17:43
Speaker
They want to be together.
00:17:45
Speaker
They want to come together and actually spend time together and work on those problems together because that's also where real relationships were built.
00:17:52
Speaker
You don't have to force it.
00:17:54
Speaker
You just have to create the right environment and platform and the right people, give them the ability and empower them to solve really hard problems on their own and a mission that they know that they're working towards.
00:18:04
Speaker
And I think that's one of the things I love about the strategy session that Kurt did with us is it enabled us at every layer of the organization to know that what you're working on is moving the needle on this particular area.
00:18:15
Speaker
And that's how it's affecting our North Star.
00:18:18
Speaker
As you're talking, it's very clear like how passionate you are about the culture that you've built and the team that you've put together.
00:18:24
Speaker
And I'm sure that your energy is contagious to the rest of the team.
00:18:28
Speaker
I'm curious to know, is there anything that you tried while building the team or as you were establishing this culture that you found didn't work?
00:18:37
Speaker
I think the core foundation of what I've described doesn't work when one of those components is missing.
00:18:43
Speaker
If you hire someone that is really hardworking and incredibly brilliant, but doesn't have the integrity or values or communication skills to operate in this environment, it's a disaster.
00:18:56
Speaker
I don't believe in or subscribe to the brilliant asshole philosophy.
00:19:02
Speaker
You can't have someone on the team that isn't a productive member of the team that isn't communicating and playing well or doesn't have the same integrity.
00:19:12
Speaker
Someone really smart and hardworking without that good integrity and communication can sink the ship faster than anything.
00:19:20
Speaker
So I think you've got to make sure that when you're hiring, that you focus on all those aspects.
00:19:25
Speaker
You don't get too caught up with just the brilliance or just this particular skill set.
00:19:30
Speaker
And you make sure that you're thoroughly vetting people out.
00:19:33
Speaker
And then when you get it wrong, you have to correct it right away.
00:19:39
Speaker
We say that we treat everyone like family at Quick, but we don't run the company like a family.
00:19:45
Speaker
We run it like a sports team.
00:19:47
Speaker
And when someone isn't working out, we trade them to a different team and get them out of your culture and out of your company and find someone else that will come in and perform at the highest levels that we expect with the integrity, with the communication skills, and all those things combined.
00:20:03
Speaker
You can't just do part of it.
00:20:06
Speaker
Kurt has talked before a couple times actually on the importance of hiring slowly and firing quickly.
00:20:13
Speaker
I appreciate that you kind of brought that up again and the impact that it can have on your company culture.
00:20:19
Speaker
And Jamie, obviously the way we work has drastically changed since 2020.
Implementing a Four-Day Workweek
00:20:23
Speaker
And you've switched up the game even more by introducing a four-day work week.
00:20:28
Speaker
We hear about it a lot, but we don't hear about a lot of companies who have actually done it, especially in the hospitality industry.
00:20:34
Speaker
So why did you make that change?
00:20:37
Speaker
We went through a really rough period with COVID and ended up having to lay off 70% of the team.
00:20:44
Speaker
Our revenue dropped 80% overnight when COVID hit.
00:20:46
Speaker
It obviously affected the hospitality industry, who we're serving in a drastic way.
00:20:50
Speaker
And early 2021, the exact opposite thing happened.
00:20:55
Speaker
The light switch turned back on just as fast as it turned off.
00:20:59
Speaker
And we were 54 people pre-COVID.
00:21:01
Speaker
We went down 19 people.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, we found ourselves with 19 people doing way more revenue than we were doing when we had 54 people.
00:21:11
Speaker
We've always been grinding really hard over the last five years, but the level of work effort that was going on in 2021 was just not sustainable.
00:21:25
Speaker
We were burning people out seven days a week, just trying to keep up with the volume.
00:21:30
Speaker
And we knew that something had to change because I could see it in people's eyes that we were wearing them down and this wasn't going to be able to last forever.
00:21:40
Speaker
But I was also seeing it in the work product.
00:21:44
Speaker
I was seeing people feel like they just had to get this thing done because there's so much else to do.
00:21:52
Speaker
And so they would take a shortcut or just get it done just good enough versus being able to come at it with a really creative solution.
00:22:00
Speaker
And we kept telling ourselves...
00:22:03
Speaker
all right, if we can just hire this person, or if we can just get this team to 20 people, or if we can build out this team, then everything will be better.
00:22:13
Speaker
And we kept doing those things.
00:22:16
Speaker
We kept hiring more people, and we kept building these teams.
00:22:19
Speaker
But then ultimately, we kind of came to the reality that it's not going to get better.
00:22:26
Speaker
no matter how many people we hire, it's never going to get better if we continue at the growth rate that we're on.
00:22:33
Speaker
We've had 10,000% growth over the last three years.
00:22:36
Speaker
If you continue that pace of growth and you get a group of people that are so energized at solving these problems as we have, it will never stop.
00:22:44
Speaker
You'll always find yourself in a position where there's so much more to do than the time in the day that you have to do it.
00:22:51
Speaker
So we said,
00:22:53
Speaker
Let's look at this as a way to solve this long term.
00:22:57
Speaker
And one of our values is hustle responsibly.
00:23:01
Speaker
We're going to hustle really hard, but we expect people to actually take time off and recharge and energize.
00:23:08
Speaker
That wasn't happening either.
00:23:10
Speaker
And what we were really seeing is, well, maybe you're hustling for...
00:23:14
Speaker
six months and then you take a week vacation and you come back recharged.
00:23:17
Speaker
But what about the six months you come back and then you're working again and then you're just burned out and you're tired and you go all week and then try to catch up on all the work that you didn't get done on Saturday and then try to get your life together on Sunday just to show up Monday exhausted and without a fresh brain.
00:23:34
Speaker
So we said,
00:23:35
Speaker
this is not one long sprint.
00:23:39
Speaker
This is a marathon of sprints.
00:23:41
Speaker
And what we have to do is to find a way to get the most and best out of people, but in a way that they can do this ongoing and hustle every single week.
00:23:50
Speaker
And so my chief of staff brought this idea to me of the four-day work week and said, imagine if people could come in every Monday and
00:23:59
Speaker
with the same fresh brain and energy and charge and motivation to go and just bust down any wall that was in front of them as they did when they come back from like a week-long vacation.
00:24:09
Speaker
Imagine if we could do that every single week.
00:24:11
Speaker
I was like, that would be incredible.
00:24:13
Speaker
How would we do that?
00:24:14
Speaker
And she said, I want to talk to you about the four-day work week.
00:24:18
Speaker
I immediately dismissed it.
00:24:19
Speaker
And I said, there's no way.
00:24:21
Speaker
We can't get done what we have done to do in five days.
00:24:23
Speaker
How are we going to do it in four?
00:24:24
Speaker
And then she presented the data to me of what other companies have done.
00:24:28
Speaker
Increases in productivity, increases in creativity, increases in customer satisfaction, increases employee well-being and engagement, both mentally and physically.
00:24:38
Speaker
And the data was really compelling.
00:24:41
Speaker
And so I said, we'll do it, but we're going to do it as a pilot and see if this actually works.
00:24:48
Speaker
And it took several weeks, maybe even a month before we kind of felt like we were getting our hands around it.
00:24:53
Speaker
We set up a lot of measures to ensure that, all right, let's do a control test of what this looks like before the four-day workweek and what it looks like after, but also do a control test of say, what does this look like for employees that were with us before the four-day workweek started?
00:25:06
Speaker
And what does this look like for new employees that are joining when we've hired them into the four-day workweek?
00:25:10
Speaker
Across the board, we saw improvements in employee well-being engagement.
00:25:14
Speaker
We saw improvements in people's attitude and their mindset.
00:25:18
Speaker
They come to work on Mondays and every day ready to hustle and hustle hard, but in a creative way.
00:25:25
Speaker
We also saw over a 200% increase in job applications.
00:25:29
Speaker
And all of a sudden, we're not just picking the best candidate that we have applied for a particular role.
00:25:36
Speaker
We get the pick of the litter now.
00:25:38
Speaker
We get the cream of the crop.
00:25:40
Speaker
And we were getting great talent before, but this is even opening up to even more talent.
00:25:44
Speaker
We've also seen our customer satisfaction scores increase.
00:25:48
Speaker
We've seen our fill rates increase.
00:25:50
Speaker
We've seen all of the metrics go in the right direction.
00:25:54
Speaker
So we ran it for a pilot period and got great results across the board.
00:25:58
Speaker
All of the things that we measured all went in the right direction.
00:26:01
Speaker
I think one thing that Kurt taught me is goodness is always in one direction, right?
00:26:05
Speaker
So some things we wanted to go down, some things we wanted to go up.
00:26:08
Speaker
And every one of them went in the right direction for us.
00:26:11
Speaker
And so the thing we didn't have enough time to see is how does this actually play out over a year?
00:26:18
Speaker
we look at revenue and where we're at on a weekly basis.
00:26:21
Speaker
And so until you can compare week 42 of one year to week 42 of the next year, you don't really understand because there's seasonality, it's on demand.
00:26:30
Speaker
So we decided to extend it for another year
00:26:33
Speaker
I think we may end up making some small minor tweaks to it, but this is something that has incredibly changed everyone's perception of the work that they do and allows them to be energized and feel like they can do this quick, but also maintain a life outside of quick.
00:26:50
Speaker
And that's the true longevity of this is that you can do both and feel like you can do both in a long-term way, and then you get the best out of people.
00:26:59
Speaker
both at quick, but also they can give their best at home.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I think that's another big aspect of this is a lot of our employees are doing a second shift when they get home.
00:27:09
Speaker
They've got kids, they have family, and this actually allows them to have more time with them, maybe even not even pay for daycare now on Fridays, right?
00:27:17
Speaker
And even if you do have to catch up some work on Friday, you still have a full Saturday and Sunday that you can fully re-energize and recharge.
00:27:24
Speaker
And so we've actually figured out how to do this
00:27:27
Speaker
and still support the hospitality industry.
00:27:29
Speaker
Because while it's a four-day workweek, we actually operate seven days a week from 5 a.m.
00:27:34
Speaker
to 10 p.m.
00:27:35
Speaker
every single day.
00:27:36
Speaker
So some people have different staggered schedules, but it's something that I think has dramatically changed us for the future.
00:27:42
Speaker
And I'm super excited about this being part of our DNA in the years to come.
00:27:47
Speaker
The company results and the impact that you've shown in the culture are so, so impressive, Jamie.
00:27:52
Speaker
But one thing I really appreciated as you were talking, you said that you really wanted to make sure an employee to be able to give their best to the company.
00:28:00
Speaker
But it's clear that you as a leader want to make sure your company is giving your best to the employees.
00:28:04
Speaker
And I think that is also something that really impacts your company culture.
00:28:08
Speaker
Something also that you mentioned in the beginning was making it a culture where managers are there to serve their employees and help them become better.
00:28:15
Speaker
And it's clear that you embody that as a CEO.
00:28:18
Speaker
So it's really impressive to me.
00:28:20
Speaker
Kurt, what were your thoughts when Jamie proposed the four-day workweek?
00:28:25
Speaker
One of the things I've noticed in board meetings is that nothing will light up Jamie's energy level more than talking about the culture at QUIC and policies or practices that he is passionate about.
00:28:39
Speaker
I remember when this came up in a board conversation once, and I was panicked.
00:28:46
Speaker
Not because I necessarily had a strong belief about whether a four-day workweek was a good idea or not, but because I've always experienced that once you give something, it's almost impossible to take it away.
00:29:00
Speaker
You have to be very cautious and careful when you decide to do something like this.
00:29:06
Speaker
It was positioned as a pilot, and I'm sure it was communicated well inside of the company that that was going to be the case.
00:29:11
Speaker
But I still suspected that if they ever decided to withdraw it,
00:29:16
Speaker
They would have some noise.
00:29:18
Speaker
So I'm glad that it's actually worked and that the company is seeing good results from it.
00:29:23
Speaker
I'm not sure this would work everywhere.
00:29:25
Speaker
Company cultures differ so much from company to company.
00:29:28
Speaker
And so it's hard to know how translatable it is.
00:29:32
Speaker
I think for other CEOs that might consider something like this, I would just encourage them to take it slowly, be careful, know that whenever you give something that is perceived and believed to be a benefit, pulling it back away again is always difficult and will have consequences that you might not like.
00:29:52
Speaker
And so just be super careful to other CEOs that might try doing the same.
00:29:57
Speaker
That was a thought of mine as well.
00:29:59
Speaker
We talked a lot about that when we rolled this out that, hey, this might not work.
00:30:04
Speaker
That was an important piece was to run as a pilot and to be very upfront about it.
00:30:07
Speaker
But I think it's also kind of part of our DNA where our employees have a lot of tolerance for knowing that we're moving fast and we will make some mistakes, but they're willing to forgive each other and us as a company when we get it wrong.
00:30:23
Speaker
And I'll be the first one to get on a rally is what we call our all hands and say, hey, listen, I screwed up.
00:30:30
Speaker
And it caused a lot of consternation and questions.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I could have done a much better job of actually preparing the materials, thinking through some of it, having something to follow up with.
00:30:39
Speaker
And I didn't do it.
00:30:40
Speaker
And I admitted that I was wrong and said, listen, I didn't get this right.
00:30:44
Speaker
I know it caused a lot of angst.
00:30:45
Speaker
I didn't prepare all of our managers to be well-equipped to answer these questions.
00:30:49
Speaker
And we're going to revisit this.
00:30:51
Speaker
And we rolled it out two weeks later and...
00:30:53
Speaker
It went amazingly well.
00:30:54
Speaker
So I think you have to have an environment that allows both for the four-day workweek, but also for a place that you can try something and pilot it.
00:31:02
Speaker
And if it doesn't work, you can pull it back.
00:31:05
Speaker
And Kurt, what other things should a founder keep in mind as they're considering a four-day workweek?
00:31:12
Speaker
Well, Jamie's company, Quick, actually would have been one of the hardest ones, I think, to do this in.
00:31:18
Speaker
The reason that's the case is because it's a very customer service-oriented enterprise.
00:31:23
Speaker
And you could logically guess that the highest volumes probably of shifts actually being posted and filled are occurring on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays.
00:31:35
Speaker
So it's a business where the natural cadence of a work week doesn't fit quite as well, even to begin with, with the cadence of where the volume actually occurs in the business.
00:31:46
Speaker
So
00:31:47
Speaker
That's even a compounding factor for Jamie and his team to very carefully think through who would need to be available, what types of roles in what quantity, at what times, in order for either the freelancers or the business partners to have access to someone when they need that person in real time.
00:32:08
Speaker
So more complicated than most companies.
00:32:11
Speaker
I think a lot of companies can operate on a standard business calendar,
00:32:15
Speaker
Software developers, whatever, can be on and off the clock at different times with greater degrees of flexibility than I think would be the case in most companies.
00:32:25
Speaker
But it's a long way of saying, make sure you really, really understand your business and when the customer demands hit and in what form.
00:32:35
Speaker
Because if you know that, then you can at least staff with precision for the times in which those folks are needed.
Challenges and Strategies in Workweek Implementation
00:32:44
Speaker
The other thing I would think that is really important to take into account is the question of who needs to collaborate with whom to get their work done.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's one thing, I think, to do a standard four-day week.
00:32:57
Speaker
Let's say it's a Monday through Thursday.
00:33:00
Speaker
That's probably easier to coordinate other than with the customer support staff we talked about, not to overgeneralize there.
00:33:07
Speaker
So let's say you allow a person to say, I'm going to choose the four days of the week that I want to work.
00:33:12
Speaker
One week, I might want to take a Wednesday off.
00:33:14
Speaker
Another week, I might want to take a Friday off and so forth.
00:33:17
Speaker
It makes the coordinating challenge, I think, for meeting scheduling and teams and critical interactions significantly more difficult.
00:33:26
Speaker
And so I think the way you design it also matters a ton.
00:33:32
Speaker
I 100% agree with that.
00:33:33
Speaker
And our core team at HQ is all Mondays through Thursday.
00:33:38
Speaker
And we went through the exercise of what would I look like if it was Flex?
00:33:41
Speaker
But we have to have everyone together the same days in order for that collaboration to happen so that someone in marketing can collaborate with someone in product, with someone in sales, all in the same meeting.
00:33:53
Speaker
And in many ways, the four-day workweek has actually made that better because now what we actually do is...
00:34:00
Speaker
all right, you have a doctor's appointment.
00:34:02
Speaker
You now do that on Friday.
00:34:04
Speaker
Everyone does that on Friday where other times, well, Karen is at a doctor's today and Kurt's got Dennis tomorrow.
00:34:11
Speaker
And then I've got this meeting that I've got to take with someone on Thursday.
00:34:15
Speaker
Well, I guess the meeting is now going to be next week because we can't actually align all of us that are together this week to get it done.
00:34:21
Speaker
Now all of us are doing that on Fridays.
00:34:23
Speaker
So Monday through Thursday,
00:34:26
Speaker
Wow, we get 110% of everyone because we're all locked in on the same schedule and we can just move so much faster.
00:34:34
Speaker
I have one question for you on this though, Jamie.
00:34:38
Speaker
Is the executive team exempt from this policy?
00:34:41
Speaker
You and your direct reports.
00:34:43
Speaker
We're not exempt from it.
00:34:44
Speaker
And I think if we were, then it would quickly be known that it wasn't really a four-day workweek.
00:34:55
Speaker
It was a four-day work week with a flex day on Friday.
00:34:59
Speaker
The same goes with PTO.
00:35:02
Speaker
If the executives don't take PTO and openly demonstrate that it is okay to take time off, you don't take vacation, right?
00:35:10
Speaker
Because if they don't see the CEO taking vacation, is it really okay to take time off?
00:35:16
Speaker
If I am working every single Friday, I'm role modeling that that's the behavior I want.
00:35:22
Speaker
So we're not exempt from it.
00:35:24
Speaker
Do I work on Friday sometimes?
00:35:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:35:27
Speaker
That is something that I do share openly with people.
00:35:30
Speaker
I use it as a catch-up day sometimes.
00:35:32
Speaker
But then I'm actually able to fully take off Saturday and Sunday.
00:35:37
Speaker
But there's times where I'll take all three days off as well.
00:35:39
Speaker
And if I don't role model that behavior, it truly isn't.
00:35:43
Speaker
something that we're actually supporting.
00:35:45
Speaker
And so if I am working on one of those Fridays, I make it known that, hey, I'm working.
00:35:51
Speaker
But just because I sent you a message, Kurt, doesn't mean that you actually have to respond to it.
00:35:54
Speaker
And a lot of the messages that I may end up sending on a Friday, I'll actually schedule for a Monday to go out.
00:36:00
Speaker
Then I'm not setting the expectation because as soon as you get a message from the CEO, sometimes people expect, well, I should actually respond.
00:36:08
Speaker
I think that's logical.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:11
Speaker
And so I've got to make sure that people know, listen, my timing and availability to get caught up on something may be different than yours.
00:36:18
Speaker
You may have Tuesday evenings that work really well for you when you want to catch up on stuff.
00:36:23
Speaker
I might be Friday mornings, but we all have our own times.
00:36:27
Speaker
I cannot be the only one who's leaving this conversation, Jamie, with a renewed desire to be more like you and really practicing the policies or practicing what you preach, basically, of how consistent you are with being intentional about your company culture.
00:36:41
Speaker
And that is something that I really admire about you and about QUIC.
00:36:45
Speaker
No wonder your applications have increased 200% and you're able to really draw really great, great talent.
00:36:51
Speaker
You have really created an amazing culture.
00:36:53
Speaker
And we like to end these podcasts by asking everybody the same question.
00:36:57
Speaker
So I'd like to now ask you, what's an effective practice you've implemented in your work or personal life that you think has had a great impact on your success?
00:37:06
Speaker
Not being afraid to have the hard conversations.
00:37:10
Speaker
And knowing how to do so with the right amount of EQ, right?
00:37:14
Speaker
That you can do so with good intent and face something that's really challenging without having the other person think that you're just completely tearing them apart.
00:37:23
Speaker
But I don't beat around the bush.
00:37:25
Speaker
I say exactly what I mean.
00:37:26
Speaker
And I do it in real time.
00:37:28
Speaker
And I think it allows for people to truly know where I stand on something and knowing that I expect the same back from them and that it's okay to come to me
00:37:39
Speaker
anyone in the organization to come to me and say exactly how they feel and talk to me and tell me if I've done something wrong and let's have a conversation around it.
00:37:49
Speaker
I love Brene's saying in Dare to Lead, it's just like bull riding.
00:37:53
Speaker
it's eight seconds.
00:37:55
Speaker
Just get through the first eight seconds of that hard conversation and the rest of it's going to be just fine.
00:38:00
Speaker
And so I go into those conversations knowing, yeah, this is going to be uncomfortable for about eight seconds.
00:38:05
Speaker
But then what comes out of that, my gosh, not only do you clear the air, you have great communication around what was bothering you or what happened, but then you actually, anytime you have those, I find that it brings you closer together.
00:38:21
Speaker
tough conversations.
00:38:22
Speaker
I think that's the thing that has personally, professionally, my wife and I practices a lot of having those tough conversations and having them in real time so that we can work through it.
00:38:33
Speaker
I'm sure that creates such a foundation of trust for you, for your team, for your entire company.
00:38:38
Speaker
And thank you for sharing that insight.
00:38:40
Speaker
Kurt, do you have any reaction or thoughts on that?
00:38:43
Speaker
I do.
00:38:44
Speaker
I am certain that Jamie is much better at this than I am.
00:38:48
Speaker
I found over the course of my life, I was going to say career, but what Jamie just described applies to every relationship in life.
00:38:57
Speaker
And so it's not just career that I am far too hesitant personally to allow the gate to open for the bull to come charging out and for me to have to survive those eight seconds.
00:39:11
Speaker
If you ask me to go back and think about circumstances where I have gotten it right, were those eight seconds worth it?
00:39:21
Speaker
Every time.
00:39:23
Speaker
Jamie is reminding me of something I need to do better.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, I basically did that the entire podcast.
00:39:29
Speaker
Like, oh, I need to be more like Jamie.
00:39:31
Speaker
And something you said, Jamie actually reminded me, you said that it actually draws people closer together.
00:39:36
Speaker
And there's a really fascinating study done on when people make the strongest connections.
00:39:41
Speaker
And it's when they're feeling a little bit of apprehension, a little bit of fear, and just chemically, your brain bonds and builds stronger connections to people that way.
00:39:49
Speaker
it's actually science too.
00:39:51
Speaker
It's as much of an art form as it is a science.
00:39:53
Speaker
And so thank you for that reminder.
00:39:55
Speaker
And it's really been fascinating to talk to you today.
00:39:57
Speaker
Thank you for the insights that you've shared and for being with us today.
00:40:00
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:40:01
Speaker
It's been a lot of fun.
00:40:03
Speaker
Always good to sit down and chat with Kurt and love being part of the Kickstart family.
00:40:08
Speaker
So thank you very much.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, well, we love having you.
00:40:10
Speaker
So thank you.
00:40:12
Speaker
And of course, thank you for listening as we dive deep into what it takes to create the perfect pitch.
00:40:17
Speaker
If you want to learn more about our investor, Kurt Roberts from Kickstart or our CEO, Jamie Baxter from Quick, we'll have a link to the company and a longer bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:40:27
Speaker
You can listen to more episodes of Perfect Pitch wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:40:30
Speaker
And if you like what you're learning, leave us a reviewer rating.
00:40:33
Speaker
We'll be back next time with more entrepreneurs and the investors who fund them.
00:40:37
Speaker
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.