Caroline serves as Chief Operating Officer of Tupelo Honey and is a champion of high-growth, employee-centric workplaces. She joined the company as part of the initial senior leadership team in 2013.

In Caroline’s nine-year tenure, she has been responsible for Tupelo Honey’s workforce expansion efforts, founding and leading its human resources and training teams and growing the brand from two locations and less than 100 employees to 22 locations and more than 15,000 employees.

Tupelo Honey’s goal is to be at the forefront of the employee experience and at the forefront of what can be the new experience for restaurant workers.

Sixty percent of Tupelo Honey’s management positions are filled from within the company. .

Like a lot of restaurants, many Tupelo Honey managers started as servers or dishwashers, which helps them relate to entry level employees and makes them better managers.

Communications methods like text alerts for younger workers (instead of email) work well for Tupelo Honey and its employees.

It’s important for companies to initiate conversations with employees about culturally significant events that might impact employees, even if those conversations are difficult to have. Those conversations build trust with employees and show that a company cares.

QUOTES

“The restaurant industry is being required to level up in how we’re looking at the employee experience.” (Caroline)

“We have to add the human element back (in restaurant employment) and care about people holistically. They have a life outside of work and they want support beyond just a paycheck.” (Caroline)

“Entry level workers want to stay. They want a path to grow their careers.” (Caroline)

“Younger workers and millennial workers learn differently. We’ve had to recognize that there’s a different way to communicate with them.” (Caroline)

“Every employee is different and restaurants can’t have a one-size-fits-all program. You have to have options for everyone.” (Caroline)

“What we do is simple. At the end of the day, it’s about one guest, one relationship and one experience.” (Caroline)

TRANSCRIPT

00:00.00

vigorbranding

Everyone today I’m joined by my new friend Carolyn Skinner she is the Ceo so Ceo oh not yet although Carolyn there has been a history of people on this show getting rapidly promoted. So don’t want to dangle the carrot it could happen.

00:10.69

caroline

Hello that.

00:14.32

vigorbranding

Ceo of tupalo honey which we’re going to dig into the concept a little bit throughout this episode talk a lot of other things as well for now Carolyn say hello and give a little backstory.

00:24.80

caroline

Yeah, thank you Joseph for having me. Um I am Caroline Skinner chief operating officer I am a native of Asheville North Carolina which is also the home. Um, an original location for Tupelo Honey um and our restaurant brand has been around for about 20 years we really started to grow in the last ten years I’ve been with the company for 10 years and seen pretty much all of the last twenty of our 21 locations launch in open so I’m really happy to be here.

00:53.85

vigorbranding

I awesome yeah and I appreciate you taking the time out so we work together put together an awesome production sheet I think there’s so many great things to talk about and then Harvard b