Workstream

"You can have the best strategy in the world, but if you're unable to..." Jennifer Kaufmann, Chief of Staff at Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurants, has been part of three organizations that scaled fast. Two of them worked, but one did not. The one that didn't taught her something that had nothing to do with the strategy itself. "You can pivot on a dime, but only if one thing is already in place..." Swipe to find out what it is. Thank you Jennifer, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

Will AI replace restaurant workers? Jennifer Dodd, CEO of Main Squeeze Juice Co. (25 locations), says it can take the forecasting and labor math off a manager's plate, as long as someone still checks its work the way you'd check an answer an employee brings you. What it hands back is manager hours, and she's very clear about where those hours belong. Watch her honest take. Thank you Jennifer, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"The people just didn't care..." Rajiv Dinakaran, franchisee of 46 Bojangles' Restaurants, Inc. took over a store where the food was fine and the location was fine. The only thing broken was that nobody working there cared, and he had no budget for better pay or benefits to fix it with. Watch what he did instead, and how he's scaled ever since. Thank you Rajiv and Wilson Lee, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"They're waiting for you to get it wrong..." Michael Gomez, former VP of HR at Tasty Restaurant Group (Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbin’s, Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut), on sick pay rules that change from state to state. His team still hadn't finished mapping theirs across eight states when a labor investigator called about a $50,000 fine. Watch the interview with Wilson Lee to hear how that call ended. Thank you Michael, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"I operate one location 276 times..." That's how Nadeem Bajwa, CEO of BAJCO GROUP, talks about running 276 Papa John's. He learned it the hard way, at his very first store. His opening broke records, but by the dinner rush the kitchen was 100 pizzas behind and things only got worse from there. Swipe through to hear his story. Thank you Nadeem, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"Our guests call our restaurants 'My Mellow'. No one says 'my McDonald's' when you go to a McDonald's..." Ahsan Jiva, EVP of Strategy & Transformation at Mellow Mushroom, says that's by design. Every location gets built around the town it sits in, so no two dining rooms look alike across 160 stores. Swipe to see the example he gives from his own town. Thank you Ahsan, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"There's three skill sets that people don't really train in our industry." Amy Hom, COO of Barcelona Wine Bar, names all three in the video, plus the motto she runs her teams by. Hear her story here with Wilson Lee: https://lnkd.in/g3EQbnF8 Thank you Amy, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators!

"Anybody talking about saving labor, run away fast..." Joe Guith, CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc. (Carl's Jr. & Hardee's), has one rule for anyone pitching him on digital. He walks through what happened at McAlister's, and the metric nobody on his team thought to check until 18 months later. Swipe through. Thank you Joe, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators! Full video in comments 👇

"It's not who's right or wrong. It's how you handle it that the light shines on." Stephanie Wiggins, MBA, is the Director of Human Resources for MPH Dining, which operates 16 Culver's restaurants, with a 17th opening in just a few weeks and nine more planned over the next year and a half. She didn't come up through restaurants. Stephanie spent 14 years in HR across education, a PEO, and food manufacturing before joining MPH Dining, her first time in quick-service. The role was new when she took it. There was no HR department, no HR person at all, just the CEO and COO handling things as they came up. She built the department from scratch, the same way she'd done once before at a food manufacturing company that was still handwriting paychecks when she got there. "Five minutes into my interview, I knew this was unlike any other place," she says. "They genuinely care about people, and decisions for people always come before profitability." MPH Dining runs on Workstream for applicant tracking, onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, and ACA tracking, work Stephanie calls the smoothest payroll transition she's ever managed, done and running in about five weeks flat. She got into HR almost by accident, taking a job at her kids' school district while they were young, then falling for the work enough to go back for her master's while raising two kids under six. A mentor's advice from those years still guides her: it's not about who's right, it's about how you handle it. Nearly two years into quick-service now, she still thinks it holds. "People always people," she says lightheartedly. "You have to have real passion for it, or you won't be great at it."

"I'm giving you all my secrets on how you can drive growth..." Marissa Andrada, Chief Culture Officer at WUF WORLD and former Chief People Officer at Chipotle, has run the same four-part playbook at every company she's joined👇 GameStop mid-merger. Starbucks while the US was closing cafes. Chipotle right after the food safety crisis. She names all four C's in the video, then puts a revenue, market cap and stock number against each turnaround. Swipe through. Thank you Marissa, for joining us at On The Clock 2026 to share your stories and insights that make a real difference for fellow restaurant operators! Comment 'Workstream' for the full video!