VOIS Special Edition: Education as Infrastructure in a Generational Business with TLS furniture

speaker-0: This is Hospitality Unpacked, powered by N.E.W.H.

Welcome to a very special feature we call Voice, where the voices in hospitality do more than inspire, they create real opportunity. Voice, the voice of impact scholarship, is powered by a single sponsor funding an elite $10,000 scholarship awarded through the conversation you are about to hear. This is where leadership meets action and where impact is not just discussed, it is delivered. This is the Voice of Impact.

Today's voice episode is brought to you by TLS by design. Dallas Bentley with any WH and welcome to hospitality unpacked I'm here with Jeff Day with TLS furniture Jeff can you tell me what a little bit about TLS furniture speaker-1: TLS has no minimums, yet can produce about any style of furniture that a designer can come up with. So we focus mostly on public space and restaurants in the hospitality world, but we also do multi-family, healthcare, and other markets as well, contract furniture.

Really the focus is on creativity, on making beautiful, comfortable furniture. I started TLS in 2004, initially as an imported case goods company, but by 2008, we had morphed into a domestic upholstery resource. And that's when Elizabeth came to run the operation as president. I basically have had sales and business development and marketing positions from the beginning.

And together we share kind senior leadership management. JP had been in the business for over 20 years now, and ⁓ he's our COO JP. speaker-2: I'm JP Day, COO, TLS by design. I head up operations, engineering, design.

speaker-1: Hi, I'm Elizabeth Day. I'm president. We're a woman-owned business and our daughter Grafton Day is in charge of logistics. speaker-3: Hi, I'm Grafton Day.

I am the vice president of sales for TLS Furniture. I live in Indianapolis, which is great. So I can really be integrated with the sales team who is headquartered in Indianapolis. My mom's the president of the company.

And so a couple of years ago, they decided through some family meeting, I'll be the vice president of sales. speaker-0: TLS has grown through a lot of economic shock, experienced industry shifts, and generational change. What role do you think learning has played in staying steady throughout all of that? speaker-1: Diversification has been important in our business.

A perfect example was during COVID when the world stopped for a minute and we had to figure out what we were going to do. First we started making masks. The group as a whole thought that would be a terrific thing to do. So we started making masks for the community.

Then we had to figure out who our customers were going to be. Offices closed and people stayed at home. So comfort became important. One of the new areas we worked with was the commercial dealerships who generally did not have comfortable furniture and all of a sudden now they needed to have comfortable furniture.

I think we learned during the financial crisis that we needed to be diversified because if you had too many eggs in one basket then you didn't have safety. So from the time of the financial crisis until COVID we had diversified our markets so that when the hospitality went down we were in multifamily and it more than made up for the decrease in hospitality. speaker-0: Great. Why do you guys believe that education has been more than a cultural value for you, but also an operational one?

speaker-1: One of the things that we do is we pay by the hour and not by piece rate. And education being in cross-training, being as prevalent as they are in our business, has helped us to be able to better serve our customers and allows us to redirect resources. When we've got a lot of woodworking, we can redirect people from upholstery into the mill room. Or if we have a lot of heavy upholstery, we can take people who traditionally do framing and have them help in upholstery.

Most furniture companies pay by piece rate, and we pay by the hour, and we pay an increased wage depending on the number of skill sets that our employees have. JP might want to comment on this. speaker-2: A lot of people that we would recruit may have one discipline that they are an expert at specifically, but they may not appreciate completely what the other roles are within furniture manufacturing that are vital to the success for everybody. And by training them in other areas, what we find is that communication quality is increased.

And the opportunity of understanding each other ends up increasing. So it improves the team mentality. It lowers the number of questions that one person might have. It increases their understanding of why something happens that may not have been planned.

And overall, it improves the quality of the product and the efficiency of the workplace. speaker-0: Pete, tell me a little bit about how cross training has been designed into a day to day reality with an example. Sure. speaker-2: So we had a design student from Boston this past year reach out to the company on the summer break that they had in between semesters.

And his goal was to better understand how furniture was made and was not afraid to get his hands dirty. So we brought him in, we gave him within that short period of time that he had, about two weeks within each department. to better understand our processes, better understand how things came together so that, you know, at the culmination of where all of the padding and all of the framework and all of the sewing would come together in upholstery, he would have a better understanding of how it got to that point, as well as then how to learn to apply the different cover materials to the frame.

So he took a base understanding of design and started to make things a reality within a space that he was learning more about. speaker-1: He also commented that had he not had that experience, he wouldn't have the appreciation of what it really took to make a piece of furniture. And a lot of designers and design students don't have exposure to manufacturing. So especially during times when there are tariffs and people are looking for alternatives, we get a lot of import only designs.

And the more education that we provide folks, the more they'll understand what can be produced here and what cannot be produced here. speaker-0: It sounds like that opportunity for learning on the ground through the factory and how things are made provided a lot of valuable insight for that intern that they probably didn't expect. And it sounded like you were pretty intentional about this. Two weeks in each department is quite a long time and I'm sure they learned quite a bit.

Why do you guys invest in teaching people more skills instead of narrow specialization? speaker-1: I'll address that to a point. Another program that we have is a high school internship program, both for engineering students to learn CAD, as well as production workers. And we now have a lady who started when she was 17 in her senior year of high school as an intern, and now she's in her early 20s and a mom and still working for us.

But this one person within less than five years has learned how to mill the frames, how to frame the frames, spring the frames, finish the frames. and run the CNC. And that is invaluable both in the investment in the person that they know they're important to us and that they're not pigeonholed into doing only one thing. Traditionally in furniture manufacturing, someone will do just arms or someone will just do backs or someone will just stuff cushions.

Number one, it gets boring. And number two, you're really not getting the most out of them and they're not able to learn and grow themselves. So over half of our people can do most of the functions in our factory and that just helps operationally. It helps with retention.

It helps with morale and it reinforces the quality that we need. speaker-0: You gave us a good example about somebody who was cross-trained and became really valuable as a result. Are there any other moments that you can share where cross-training has changed somebody's trajectory? speaker-2: Well, we had an individual that started in the mill room and spent quite a bit of time there, but had a desire to learn more.

And even more importantly had a desire to be valued at a high level. And so we gave that person opportunities outside the mill room and they quickly showed us that they could perform at a high level doing different tasks. So that went around the floor, including CNC operation. And one of the areas that we were in need of at that point was in product development and engineering.

The best person that we had at the time to be able to train internally, who had never had any type of CAD experience and relatively limited work experience on a computer, was taught how to do solid works and help us with shop drawings and designing the frames themselves. That person has been with us for over 10 years now and continues to be a vital member of our engineering team. speaker-0: personally find that really inspiring. We've brought people out of the manufacturing floor and brought them into the office and they understand how things get made and being able to transition from handwork to desk work is so critical.

It's so valuable. So I can empathize with you and I think that's fantastic. JP, I wanted to talk a little bit to you about growing up in the family business. How did growing up in that environment, how did it shape your view of learning?

speaker-2: Well, pretty early on, I understand that continued learning has always been integrated into work itself. You know, no matter the area of focus, it's never separated from one another. The process of learning by doing is something that, you know, we expect from the people that we hire. And it's possibly based on the fact that we've found, or at least myself, I've found the most success by doing so.

Being tolerable of, you know, early mistakes. You know, the patience of that is so important for giving people the opportunity to ask the questions that they need, but also see the small successes that they can build on pretty quickly to evolve their own understanding of what they're doing. You know, to my benefit, I was provided a lot of example from my parents and the exposure of the importance of determination and hard work. And if you're showing that you care, and if you're showing that you want to improve, then that's really all, you know, I need to be able to trust somebody and to be able to know that if I continue to make investment in them, that I'm going to see a return on that investment.

And all of those are building blocks to leadership, right? Leadership is really only established through example. And so I hope that if you create that type of nurturing environment for the different people that you have in these positions, that not only will they surprise you, they might surprise themselves and continue to build on that and really feel fulfilled. speaker-1: I think building on that a little bit about he mentioned the generational leadership that was provided him.

Elizabeth and I also had great mentors in our parents and my parents, for example, put a huge emphasis on education and training. And as an example, when we would move to a new area, we would buy the smallest house in the best neighborhood to have the best schools because my parents knew that the best schools were important. Even though we really may not have been able to afford that school district, per se, they did whatever they could do to get us into the best schools that they could.

So I think that kind of reinforcement of the importance of education has gone at least three generations in our family. speaker-0: Sounds like education is something that has been valued and part of your family's DNA for several generations. JP, what surprised you most about stepping into operations from a leadership lens? speaker-2: So leadership again is more based on showing by example.

So I think you really have to break yourself down and understand the processes, the materials, the systems, but then more importantly, the people. that are involved in these things. And I think maybe what surprised me is how quickly I learned some of the needs of the people, what was going to allow them to be successful and help that shape the processes so that we could maintain a high level of quality and then a continuous improvement of that quality and those processes together.

So it's a more of a direct relationship and relying on those individuals to help shape those processes. speaker-1: you speaker-0: Thanks, JP. I want to shift gears back to the multi-generational business. Jeff told a nice story about his parents and about buying the worst house in a nice neighborhood to take advantage of the good schools.

So it sounds like you guys have had this sort of good horse sense about learning in your family for a long time. From the business standpoint, what does a multi-generational business really mean to you? speaker-1: I think. One of the things is the element of trust is important.

And when you have a family business and you work closely together, it's not all rainbows, but we trust each other and we respect each other. So for example, when we wanted to start a new area of field verification and installation, we asked Grafton our daughter to spearhead that. Grafton has held multiple hats. She's helped with logistics.

She's helped manage sales. So it basically is having your family as the core team to then replicate your skill sets among other people through education. But we largely start new programs with a family member. speaker-0: does education help you guys prepare for the next generation of leadership as opposed to entitlement?

speaker-1: Our expectations are as high, if not higher, of the family members as they are the rest of the organization. And entitlement is probably one of my least favorite things. We're very much a meritocracy and people earning what they have, but also giving them the tools to help them succeed. speaker-2: think there's a bridge here, you know, in regard to what we were talking about earlier.

It's the perspective of running a business and how complex it can be, can only be understood if you have that good relationship with the different people that have either done it before or the people that besides you in the battle, trying to figure out how to solve the problems, how to continue to grow the company, how to build on the foundation and the strength of the company. So being exposed to it gives you that perspective and that appreciation for how complex it really is.

speaker-1: I mean, learning also helps expose what you don't know. So for an example, we had a situation recently where we thought a piece of equipment was causing a problem and the operators felt it was the piece of equipment causing the problem. And JP walked them through a process that they could prove whether it was the piece of equipment or not the piece of equipment, whether it was how we processed or the system of processing, not the machine we were processing material with.

There were three or four people who learned from that that it wasn't necessarily just the issue with the equipment, it was much broader. speaker-0: JP, are there any particular lessons that you've had to learn the hard way? speaker-2: You know, again, learning by doing really puts you in the line of fire to bring your perspective and what you believe is the right thing. But also again, to break yourself down and understand what you don't understand.

Ask questions as much as you can and be as prepared as possible, but also be flexible and be capable of not only changing your own opinion about something, but also admitting when you're wrong. And so those are all tools just as a part of learning. speaker-0: Were there any mistakes that happened early in your generational handoffs and what did learning help you fix? speaker-1: I didn't think we made many mistakes in that regard.

speaker-2: So my father and I worked together on a multitude of different things, right? But he has a background in business. Early on, I had just a little bit of experience, but also in education and engineering and operational understanding. So I was more technical and maybe a little bit more detail oriented while he was more big picture.

And when we were presented the same problem, we recognized in each other that we were approaching it from two different angles, two different perspectives. And the cool thing is, is when those two different perspectives come together and, even separately, we would come up with the same conclusion or solution. Mine might've been a couple of decimal points more accurate, but at the same time, that helped me understand that maybe I didn't need to spend as much time on solving the problem as accurately as I was, depending on the sensitivity of what the answer needed to move forward.

speaker-1: A couple dozen more. speaker-2: Right? So, you know, if your solution takes five times longer, it doesn't mean it's necessarily better for a particular subject. So there's a lot of learning by working with different personalities and knowing that those personalities have the same goal.

speaker-1: That's a great example. speaker-0: Thank you. Sounds like you two are a great compliment for each. One looks at the big picture and one fills in all the details.

Let's talk a little bit about the hospitality industry and knowledge. Why should the hospitality industry care about knowledge transfer like your company has so much right now? speaker-1: Well, I personally think one of the main reasons that there's a need for learning in hospitality furniture is the element of comfort. speaker-2: For 22 years TLS Furniture has crafted custom upholstered seating and other furniture in our Indiana factory, blending style, comfort, and function to match client vision no matter the size of the project.

In addition to our $10,000 Voice of Impact Scholarship, we are donating 3 % of specified sales to local chapter scholarships supporting future design and hospitality professionals in your area. We have seen the result of investing in the education of our community and are excited to promote this opportunity to strengthen yours. Visit TLSbyDesign.com to build inspiring spaces and make an impact today.

speaker-1: And I was really delighted to see that Daphne, who's the recipient of this first Voice of Impact, has a focus of holistic health, well-being, and comfort. And one of the things Elizabeth touched on it earlier, originally, most people just want very durable furniture for hospitality. We make durable furniture for hospitality, but we make it intentionally comfortable. We use the spring systems and the foam and the incline and the design to be able to offer comfort.

And we've talked to some major brands who were okay having foam on board for a banquet with no spring underneath the foam. And my point to them was, don't you care about your customers? Don't you care about the people coming and sitting down? Because whether they're sitting down in a limited service restaurant or in a five-star hotel, there's a level of comfort that should be afforded to those guests.

And so we spend a fair amount of time figuring out how we can deliver comfort in a cost-effective way. that more people can enjoy that comfort. speaker-2: And a lot of that gets rooted out during, you know, shop drawing phases. The customer defines exactly what they want, you know, based on either priors, or maybe it's just within a spec that they've used 150,000 times.

When we approach it from a level of comfort, seat depth, inside back pitch, obviously there are restrictions based on the confines of what space is available. But if we can make small adjustments. and they can receive a better product for themselves as well as the end user than that amount of time. And that perspective is appreciated.

And we'd like to believe that helps us retain business that helps make sure that these environments are inviting. speaker-1: I think the furniture will also last longer so it's more sustainable. speaker-0: And I think your scholarship recipient, Daphne, also agrees with you. She said that when you're comfortable, your guests feel valued.

And when your guests feel valued, they come back, which is the point that you were talking about with the brand. You want your guests to feel like they're welcome and they'll feel welcome if they're a little bit more comfortable. speaker-3: Hey everyone, my name is Daphne Chilaka. I prefer to be called Daphne Shontile because it means victory song and that's the story of my life.

But I'm a graduate student right now. I'm in my fourth year in the PhD program in interior and environmental design at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. I focus on design that emphasizes inclusivity, wellness and human connection. So for me, hospitality is simply about welcoming people.

I see hospitality as making people feel very valued and comfortable in a space. I see hospitality that extends beyond the core sectors, that's food and beverages, accommodation and travel and tourism. It's more of a deliberate practice of making sure everyone feels welcome. whether they are just visiting a hotel, dining in a restaurant or exploring a new environment.

So I also focus on wellness aspects of hospitality. For example, my project called Kava, I mentioned it in my essay and it includes sensory gardens, include adaptive guest suites and culturally responsive design to support people's emotional comfort and well-being. One of the design features we use and it's called like the community benches. So we were doing a, we had to work on use theories to ground our design features.

So the theory we found for the community benches is called the community based care. And basically it's talked about how you don't need a professional counselor to talk to you when you're facing like mental issues. It talks about how having lay persons to kind of like grandmothers, like people that just have lead to information about health issues, to just sit down with them on these benches and have discussions, that kind of like village kind of life can have an effect on your community health.

So that's that community-based care. So we integrated that into our design because it's aligned with that particular region we were in, that's the Atua Bo region. I also am focusing on a separate aspect called trauma-informed design, which is how spaces can mitigate the experiences of trauma that individuals have had. So I think the combination of the central aspects, the trauma and form design can help me ensure that the hospitality environments I create are more attuned to each person.

So there's something about being able to sit in a furnishing that just feels like it's giving you a warm hug. I think that's something that every furniture company should look into, the tactile stimulation. That's. It's a research that a lot of schools are working on.

Tactile simulation of the furnishings they use. It could be from the flooring. It could be to the sits that they sit on when they are waiting to be responded to. It could be to the wall coverings.

Some people like to run their hands across wallpapers that have like grooves and that gives them this sense of waves being moved. So it could be anything, but that's one thing I would like to point out to tactile, tactile, the sense of touch. when you are designing your furniture to achieve that. It's an answer to my prayer.

I termed this my Christmas miracle because it came on the 23rd of December. I'm sincerely honored to receive this scholarship, the N.E.W.

H. Voice of Impact Scholarship from TLS Furniture. This support will help me to complete my research, complete my education, and just have enough knowledge to be able to. understand how to make these hospitality environments truly welcoming to people, truly meets their needs.

And I'm very thankful for this scholarship because without it, I would not be able to complete my education. Just to encourage students that might think that they've been applying for a while without getting it. I have applied for this 12 times. This was my 12th time getting it.

And I just want to encourage these students that you'll get it eventually. Like, just keep at it. I trust that there is something good for you and that thing that's good for you will come to you. So just keep at it.

I am truly grateful to you, Taylor's Furniture, for this support because it allows me to continue my education. I don't know how I'll be able to continue my education without the support and I am very grateful. It allows me to continue my research. It allows me to continue my work towards creating restorative human centered hospitality spaces, environments that would help foster emotional comfort, cultural belonging and a genuine sense of welcome for all guests.

Thank you for this recognition. Thank you for this opportunity. I am very, very honored, very honored and I do not take it for granted. Thank you.

speaker-2: and then their success is our success. speaker-0: slowly and furniture plays a lot in how guests experience a space which is really important to hotels. Let's talk a little bit about the scholarship. Why a scholarship instead of a traditional sponsorship?

speaker-1: think it's having the ability to direct the funds to clearly impact an individual and their ability to grow. And there's nothing wrong with a sponsorship that can go to general funds or to help put on programs, but to really make a difference in an individual's life where they can learn and then contribute to me is another level of importance that a scholarship has over a sponsorship. speaker-0: What does the voice of impact scholarship represent to TLS? speaker-3: So as you've heard, our family has always valued.

scholarship and education as a whole, whether it's cross training, on the job training, or developing the future leaders of the industry. And as we speak to a lot of clients and ownership groups for hotels, for example, they're really interested in learning why people choose them, right? And so I'm really interested in the recipients research. Would love to read about it.

Every time we talk to someone in the industry, it's how can we keep people in those seats as long as possible, spending money or returning or the value of that. And then as my mom mentioned, you know, the value of not having to replace the furniture in a year. And so I really think that it's an opportunity to develop the next leaders of any WH as well as throughout the industry. And honestly, perhaps someone that JP will get the resume of eventually and can help TLS develop us in the future.

speaker-1: Thinking more about the Voice of Impact Scholarship, I mean it represents a belief that intentional education creates long-term value not only for the individual but for the organization and for the industry at large. And we feel that the efforts of NEWH to up the game of the industry across the board through these scholarships is crucially important. That learning is going to take us to the next level where the Daphnes of the world can convert their PhD theses on wellness and make it a reality for a brand or for a boutique hotel or for a restaurant.

TLS is a leading domestic manufacturer of custom upholstered seating with no minimums. We have always prioritized cross-training to strengthen our team. One lady started as a high school intern on the floor and in few years she learned to mill, frame, spring and operate the CNC all while starting her young family. Another production worker was trained to design new product using CAD without having previously been trained to use software.

TLS is excited to share this core belief in education and training and is donating 3 % of specified sales to local chapters for education and professional development. Head to tlsbydesign.com to support hospitality's future in your community. speaker-0: So I want to shift gears just a little bit and talk about the outcomes that came out of a lot of your learning focuses in your organization.

First question is, ⁓ how has education at TLS impacted retention and loyalty? speaker-1: Well, it's interesting. We have several people who have worked with us two or three times and they have personal reasons why they may leave or maybe they had an issue at work that made them leave. But then they realized that we were teaching them that it was a welcoming environment, that they had the opportunity to grow personally.

And so the top performing people who ended up going somewhere else have almost all come back. And I think that's the testimony to the kind of organization we have and how we want to run the family business with respect for the individuals. And I think that the training is a big part of it. We just recently hired someone who had worked for another upholstery company for a number of years and all he had ever done was an outside back, putting outside backs on sofas.

And now he has learned to cut and start to sew and upholster other things with a project. So I think when people are given the opportunity to learn, another thing is that most people at traditional upholstery factory, being upholstered furniture, the belief is you have to be in it five or ten years before you're an expert. Well, if you don't train people and if you don't give them exposure, that's the truth. But we have people who have worked with us for less than three years who are as good, if not better, than the experts in these other factories because they know what happened before them, the process before them.

They know what's going to happen in the process after them. So they can catch mistakes that might come to them and they can catch mistakes before they go to the next spot in production. And I think all of that makes for an environment where people feel productive and people know that they're contributing. The other thing is we make absolutely beautiful furniture for awesome locations and installations.

And we often share, whether it's ⁓ five floors on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, of all mohair and leather furniture that we just did that was in Vogue magazine, or it's Lady Gaga's ⁓ stylist who now is a residential designer, and she was in architectural digest in November with our product. All those things make our employees feel the sense of ownership that they did that, that they made that. and that we help train them to do it. speaker-0: It sounds like education gives your employees the opportunity to become better and keeps them interested and ultimately seeing the end result helps them discover the value in the work that they do.

How has the cross-training in education improved the quality and your trust with your clients? speaker-2: Overall, I think the cross training has provided us a reduction in errors that have been transferred from department to department. A lot of that's based on communication, but also there's a huge amount of it where someone who has experience in that area, when they receive the output from that department, they can more readily recognize if there is a problem. The opportunity to make the pieces similarly.

You know, from project to project, even if the chair style is completely different from one project to another, they'll have the understanding of what's necessary in order to make the type of quality that we have tried to train everybody to be able to make. So there's a confidence that builds for all of those people internally with their greater understanding of the different departments and what they're able to do. And we believe that all of that together ends up being received by the customer.

and with a greater level of quality and with a greater level of confidence that that's going to be able to last for as long as they want to keep it in that space. speaker-1: Most of our clients don't leave us and we have one client that has a portfolio of high-end hotels, 50 to 80 at any one time, and over 12 years we've done over 400 projects for them. So they recognized the value. went out, they have the Marriott in Phoenix at the airport, and we did an installation in 2017 of all the public space banquettes, statement pieces in the lobby, even pillows.

And I was out there in February, and I think because of our quality of our craftsmanship, as well as the suspension that we use, there was no puddling on any of the seats after more than seven years. And the pieces still look new. Again, that goes to sustainability. It doesn't have to be replaced.

And it goes to comfort. And it goes to value that we're providing. speaker-3: From a sales perspective, of course, we want to know that the end product is what we consider the TLS standard, right? And so everyone on his team has the ability to go through and evaluate the product before it is shipped.

And so it's really been cool to see kind of how that evolves. And so you might have people like myself on the sales team get an RFQ for something that, I mean, we all love Pinterest and, you know, Instagram and all the things, but when they take a screenshot and throw it in and the dimensions don't make sense for contract grade or the literal dimensions of the frame do not make sense. I affectionately call some of these chairs throwaway chairs. We really needed engineering to step in and beef it up in terms of all those dimensions, the wood quality, our standard is maple, just some things that you can't find on.

retail websites. And so I think it's really important that JP's engineering team is able to take hold of a design and make a contract grade. speaker-1: I think another point on quality is that our people are empowered to point out the mistakes that they see on the floor. We have little red holographic stickers that anyone can take and put on a piece of furniture if it has some issue that they've seen.

We also encourage our people to sit in the furniture to understand what it feels like not just to make it but to sit on it, feel it, understand what might be done better to make it more comfortable. So we try to give as much autonomy and power to the people on the floor because they're the experts. and we try to give them the ability to say, don't want this to get out the door. We have very few problems in the field and if you do have a problem in the field, it's a nightmare.

And we would rather find all of our mistakes and any of our issues before things leave the plant. I think another thing is JP and you you take a biomedical engineer and you put them in charge of furniture making and in 20 years with this developed packaging, we've had 11 shipping damages in 20 years. Some companies have 11 shipping damages a month. speaker-0: It sounds like it's a virtue though, as far as putting yourself in your customer's shoes.

And it sounds like you guys really do that. Think very thoughtfully about your product, how it's made. And you don't just hope it'll be around in seven, 10 years. It sounds like you designed it to be that way.

If we would want to ⁓ use TLS as a model or any company wanted to, if a company wanted to start tomorrow with trying to make education an integral part of their culture and their operation. What do you think would be the smallest first speaker-2: Well, you have to find the right people. There are a number of ⁓ intangibles that you might want to look for. ⁓ Because if you're building an actual team, know, did they play high school athletics or do they have other examples where they've come together as a team?

They've worked, they've worked as a team. Do they have interest in solving problems? How would they approach solving a problem? These are questions that we typically ask that You may not necessarily ask a woodworker with 10, 15 years of experience, but those are important factors for us based on the level of communication that we're hoping to expect, the level of care and commitment that we want people to have on the job every day.

Beyond that, think that depending on their skill sets and their flexibility, asking them what else interests them potentially within the departments that you have available, is there any desire to learn outside of their one specialty. And if not, you know, that's fine, but you just have to be direct and upfront and understand, you know, what drives them and what makes them want to come to work every day and feel fulfilled. But then as we had discussed with the design student who interned for us in the summer, I believe it's important to be able to provide at least some exposure.

for different people in different departments, whether or not they're going to help in that long term or not, it gives them the perspective of what it takes to be successful within that department or within the company as a whole. speaker-1: Learning needs to be very visible, it needs to be obvious, and not all the time will we think to ask an employee what they want to learn, but they need to feel empowered to say also what they want to learn. and what their interests are. We do ask people, as JP said, know, what do you want to be doing five years from now?

And how can we build a bridge to that? Because what they want to do may not be what we necessarily want them to do in five years, but if we treat them with respect and we try to help them accomplish their objectives, many times everyone's objectives can be met. Recently, we have a new team member that also said he was surprised how transparent we are as a company. And I think the other thing we do for education is we do factory tours.

And whether it's a client and or a sales rep, they learn a lot through factory tours and we explain things. They meet the people building the furniture. They see the equipment. They see the factory in person or by video.

We share great detail down to average piece price. People know our profitability. We do profit sharing. So people know what our profits are and what drives profits.

⁓ lot of companies, this one gentleman came from a couple decades with a major furniture manufacturer. He had never seen them talk about their pricing or their profitability. And when it came to profit sharing, it was kind of a black box. But with us, it's very transparent and it's very upfront and we communicate it frequently.

speaker-2: those are, those are the metrics that end up helping us make decisions. And the important thing is that if you want to make a change, that you get the buy-in from everybody within the company that has to do with that. And to get the buy-in, have to explain, you have to explain why you're making the change, because that's going to affect certain employees on a daily basis. But our intent is to make it better.

Our intent is to improve upon the profit. Our intent is to improve upon the quality. And so if these small changes can have a positive impact for how that person leaves work every day or in their bank account, then they understand and they get, you know, it's more easy to get the buy-in for those individuals to make those adjustments. speaker-0: sounds as though one aspect of education and learning is a certain degree of transparency with your organization.

And through that transparency, you're able to build trust. You're able to explain to people why certain things are important and what the intent is behind. And when you give people that level of trust, you build in them a desire to engage and help the company be successful. so education and learning seems to be the...

the underscoring of that structure is the support that goes under that. For the next decade, how do you see learning continuing to remain central to your organization? Is there a misconception about education and business that you'd like to correct? speaker-1: I mean, I think people look from a cost perspective and not from a benefit perspective.

Why do I want to spend the money to do this? I don't have the money to spend to do this training program or whatever a business may feel. But in the end, it's more expensive not to do the training than it is to do the training. So it's a cost savings, not a cost problem when you do education and training.

speaker-2: You need people to stay and then you need to build on their success. And you need to find other like individuals to be able to continue to, ⁓ to continue to grow. And so your investment in those people should be seen in a return for retention. should be able to be seen in a return for caring and understanding.

And so the near term costs can, can be easily outweighed by the future benefit. speaker-1: mean, during COVID, we didn't let anyone go. It's too expensive to let those educated, well-trained people go. And we realized that.

And it's all about the people who are making things happen. And we need to give them the tools. And so I think over the next 10 years, we just need to be mindful of continuing to offer that education and training. And basically, we're going to scale the model that we've had for the last 20 years.

speaker-0: I love what you guys have said. love what JP said. To be successful, you've got to build on your success. In order to get there, you have to have people stay.

And to retain those people, you have to involve them. You have to make them feel valued and valuable. Education and investment in these people is a way that you do that. And that really is the connective tissue between what TLS does with their employees and what any WH's mission is.

We really want to invest in the people who are coming up in the hospitality industry through scholarship, through education opportunities. We want to give them the support and the knowledge to be able to thrive and flourish. And in that case, we'll have people who will stay here longer, build on what they've learned, made the entire industry better. And we won't be starting from scratch every time there's a downturn.

They will have stuck here. and they will be able to pursue their wildest dreams in a great industry. your impact in terms of your scholarship has gone to help people stay on that path in the hospitality industry. And so I think that that's one way that TLS and your scholarship has been sort of ⁓ practicing what you preach in helping any WH ⁓ give these students the opportunity to earn these scholarships.

speaker-1: We're huge believers in the mission. of N.E.W.

H. and it's very much in line with how our family thinks. And after we turned 20 years, we were big enough to go recruit some better reps than we might have had early on in our career. When you're young, it's hard to get good reps.

And it's kind like we don't have anything to feed them. They don't have anything to feed us. But after 20 years, we went out and we used N.E.

W.H. as the first lens filter in finding reps. So we found leaders in N.

E.W.H. in the Northwest chapter and in the Washington chapter and in the Atlanta chapter and people who are active in NAWH in Florida and in Texas.

And that congruence basically gets everyone on the same page. Everyone is wanting education. Everyone's wanting training and everyone understands the importance of those elements in delivering a quality product. So prior to having this upgrade in reps, Our reps provided less than 5 % of our sales.

In 2024, 23, 24, we changed and had more professional reps and had people very much immersed in their NWH communities that gave them credibility. And this year, over half of our business is coming from those reps. speaker-0: Sounds like you've leveraged that hospitality industry to be able to find these great people that you need that JP talked about. You need to bring in great people as your fundamental starting point to be able to have a culture of learning and education.

You have to have people that are open and that are willing to adapt and have a growth mindset. And sounds like any WH has provided you guys a fertile field to populate your sales force with those people. speaker-1: Going forward also, we listened to our customers and one of things they needed was field verification. And nobody wants to do that.

Nobody wants the responsibility. It's expensive to travel. So that's the area that in the future we're growing and taking on. We were saying no and now we're like, why are we saying no?

This is perfect. So that's a new area for us. TLS started from a master's degree program project. A student needed a project.

And Jeff talked with him about starting a furniture company or sourcing furniture. And that's how TLS began in 2004. There was an entrepreneurship program at Ball State, which is one of the best entrepreneurship programs in the country. And I had had colleagues in my consulting business say I needed to get into furniture.

And I said, don't know anything about furniture. But then I had this entrepreneurship student who needed a case study to build to be able to graduate from his program. And so you're right, Elizabeth. mean, TLS came out of an entrepreneurship program, master's degree program, ⁓ where we ended up investing in the project that this student developed.

speaker-0: Well, that's exciting to see that some of the classwork and coursework that came out of an educational program like. Daphne, the ⁓ scholarship recipient did, ⁓ she designed a resort hotel that sounded very interesting that had community benches and all this deep research and to help people in the region that she was designing for what's most important to them. something like that, that Daphne work on could end up being the seed to build a design firm or a project going forward.

And it sounds like you guys are living proof of that. speaker-1: Definitely hit something. speaker-3: And. Quarterly rep meetings with the reps my dad was just discussing ⁓ have really allowed us to get a pulse on the hospitality industry as a whole.

And so we're able to make adjustments like what my mom said about the fact that we can now use field verification measurements to help people build their furniture. And we really identified some pain points through those meetings of, you know, my clients, they're just not quite sure about measuring for a custom bank head or what have you. Or, you know, we really don't have have the go-to source for installation that can work with the general contractor and so on. I've been doing the logistics for the last five years and I've grown a network across the country.

so we just, you know, during one of our weekly sales meetings, which I wanted to mention another advice thing for a new company, you know, make sure your sales team is touching base with production once a week, miscommunication on the backend, right? And so same idea with our reps sharing these. areas where they're hearing from hotel ownership groups, for example, we really need our, our bank heads done and they need to be done in this amount of time. We want them to be comfortable, all the things, right.

And JP and I work with each client to figure out their level of service they need in terms of sort of plot. send them that they can kind of fit in the space and tell us the difference of measurements and we can adjust accordingly through our shop drawing process, or do we need to send someone there? Right. And it totally depends on the project.

So perhaps. restaurants are a great example for where we've really been able to add value for clients as well as to our company and be able to not only increase profit potentially for everyone across the board by reducing issues, but it's honestly just a headache for a lot of people, right? And so they might not have the expertise. They know the vision.

I talk about TLS as literally you can draw something on a sheet of paper and we can make that. Our team has figured out how best to do that through all of our processes. you speaker-0: Well, it sounds like you guys are a model for a education first business and that's not only a good cultural thing to have in your organization, but it's going to help you with long-term resilience and quality and ultimately customer satisfaction. And it's something that other businesses like me can take a page from you guys.

Thank you so much for having us. speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-2: Thank you. speaker-0: ⁓ you got to work through those steps, you know, and what JP, what you said about having the right people who have that sort of mindset where they're willing to adapt, willing to take the next step.

Absolutely critical in my mind, in the back of my head, I don't mean to do it, but I separate some employees into how hard is it going to be to get this person to get with the program or to help me build the program? You know, if you're looking to make a change or go into a new market or have a new product, I need to have people that are with me that can think of the things that I'm not going to think. And some people. They're like, whoa, that's a threat.

You know, I already know how to do my job correctly. If you add something new, then success is a little fuzzy for me. I certainly feel that way, but we have a work, a floor, manufacturing floor, and we have a couple of what I call boomerang people, Jeff, the people that came for four or five years. And then they said, ⁓ I'm going to move off.

And they come back around and say, can I come back? And we say, of course, come on back. So we're in a similar spot. Well, thank you to everyone in the Day family with TLS Furniture, Jeff, JP, Elizabeth and Grafton.

We truly appreciate your contribution of the Voice of Impact Scholarship ⁓ to this year's recipient, Daphne Chalaka. Sounds like education is woven into the DNA of your organization and ⁓ we're grateful to have heard your story. And that's it for Hospitality Impact. Thanks guys.

speaker-2: Thank you, Donald. Thank you. speaker-3: Thank speaker-4: Perfect. speaker-0: That's a wrap on this episode of Hospitality Unpacked powered by NEWH.

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