Giving Out Jobs -- and Hope

Would you hire somebody to work at your company sight unseen? No resume, no background check, not even an interview? That would be crazy, right? Then again, fellow Rule Breakers, it might just be Foolish!

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This video was recorded on Jan. 19, 2022.

David Gardner: Greyston Bakery. Heard of it? It's a Bakery that makes brownies and blondies and in so doing it supplies some of my favorite food purveyors, Whole Foods, Carver, Ben & Jerry's. Greyston Bakery, heard of it? Well if you hadn't before this week, I believe you will never forget it after this week's podcast because how the brownies are made, who makes them, and why that is the case, are really beautiful examples of capitalism at its best. What many of us call conscious capitalism. I want to introduce you this week to one of my fellow Board members at conscious capitalism, who also happens to be the CEO of Greyston Bakery and a friend of mine and now yours too, only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. I've said this many a time over the years, we spend about a third of this podcast on investing, a third on business, and a third on life and when I think about the first couple of weeks looking back this year, there was essays from yesterday, Volume 3, I feel like that was about life. There was definitely some investing in there but anytime I do essays from yesterday, we were talking about the world and how it's progressed over 10 or 15 years and what we were thinking back in the day. Last week, certainly in investing, one is we talked about NFTs with Aaron Bush, but it's almost hard to separate NFTs from business and really life these days as well, it seems, well, I can tell you this week's podcast is squarely focused on business. I'm speaking to an entrepreneur.

I'm speaking to a businessman about a really compelling business and as we do so this week going forward, I'm reminded how many of you are in business, entrepreneurs yourselves, or just working professionals, and what we're going to share this week really can be relevant to almost any workplace of a significant scale. So I'm really excited to have my friend Joe Kenner join me. Before I welcome Joe on, I just want to mention, of course, next week is the January mailbag. So [email protected] is our address. If you find yourself inspired by any of the things I said a couple of weeks ago, essays for 2005 or maybe you were challenged or titillated by something that Aaron Bush said last week on the subject of NFTs and or what you're about to hear this week, I'm really interested in hearing back from you any takeaways from these January 2022 podcast. So again, Rule Breaker Investing mailbag next week if you want to be featured, tweet us at RBI podcasts, or even better, drop us an email, [email protected]. Now we welcome him from Yonkers, New York or somewhere nearby, Joe, I understand the power went out. It's what's happening this time of year. So you are at home, welcome to Rule Breaker Investing.

Joe Kenner: So good to be with you David, we improvise, we are leaders. We know how to do things.

David Gardner: I wanted to start with a leader who is not going to be part of this conversation today because he's the founder of Greyston Bakery, Bernie Glassman, and he clearly was a leader. Somebody who had real foresight. He was a thought leader in addition to being an entrepreneurial leader. I thought we should start there with the founding story of Greyston Bakery. So Joe Kenner can you give us a little bit of chapter and verse there?

Joe Kenner: Absolutely. Again, a pleasure to be with you David, and I always enjoy telling the story of Greyston and I have to tell you, Thank you doing the interview today, we are actually recording on Bernie's birthday.

David Gardner: Wow.

Joe Kenner: So thank you so much for the opportunity to really celebrate Bernie and celebrate Greyston than what we're all about and I cannot think of a more apt example of conscious capitalism than Greyston Bakery, Greyston foundation and we'll talk about that. The history is quite interesting, David, and you'll appreciate this as an investor. We started based on the product per se and I'd like to say we have two products, but we do brownie inclusions within packaged brownies, but that is not the reason why we were started. In 1982, Bernie founded Greyston but became known as Greyston really on a question, an idea and that question and idea was, how do we give people hope? How do we create thriving communities? At this time, as you know, in the 1980s, the economy was not in the best shape, particularly where we are now located in Southwest Yonkers. Very economically challenged area, high unemployment, homelessness, was rampant and Bernie saw so many people on the streets looking for work, couldn't find opportunities and he saw that as one of the greatest injustices in this community where you have people that want to work, that have something to offer and they couldn't get the opportunity. That for him was the question that needed to be solved.

How do we give these folks hope? How do we get them off the sidelines and into the economic mainstream? He and this Zen Buddhist community that he was a part of at the time they actually lived in the Greyston mansion in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, which is how we got our name. They supported themselves baking cakes. So Bernie would literally pull people off the streets and say, Hey, David, you're looking for something to do. You want to learn a skill, you want to learn a trade, why wouldn't you come work with us baking cakes and we will teach you how it's done to have short for work, take construction and you'll learn a trade and hopefully this will improve your trajectory. That was the genesis of open hiring what we now call open hiring where it's no questions asked policy, no background checks, and so forth. But that's where it all started, David. How do we bring people into the economic mainstream? How do we get them hope? Bernie's firm belief was, you do that through a job one person at a time.

David Gardner: Joe, I think the year was 1982 and if that's true, that means it's the 40th anniversary of the organization that you lead today. I'm just curious, before 1982, who is Bernie Glassman that he would start asking that question, how do we give people hope and then I think a lot of people when they would try to answer that question, they might use some of the existing institutions in our society maybe a church or a synagogue, or maybe they would go out and be an inspirational speaker. But the idea of actually giving people hope through open hiring, which we're going to talk a lot more about very shortly. That just seems very unusual and very innovative.

Joe Kenner: Yeah. But it goes to Bernie's faith and as I said, he was a part of a Zen Buddhist community at the time but you really have to really dial it back and you think about someone like Bernie and how did he even stumble on to this. Bernie was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn, trained aeronautical engineer. He comes as a Zen Buddhist monk becomes a social entrepreneur. That's where it really starts. If you read, and I recommend this to your listeners, because I'm sure they're avid readers, read this book, Instructions to The Cook. There you will get a sense and I give this to all of our new employees when they start, by the way, because of this helps them understand the DNA of Greyston and why we got started. If you think about society in our lives as a meal, Bernie strongly believes that everybody is an ingredient that makes the perfect meal.

You have something to offer society, I have something to offer society, the next person has something to offer. When we use all of those ingredients, all those gifts, everybody benefits. That really forms the heart and soul, the DNA of Greyston. It's really about just bringing everybody in. One of our core values is collaboration and non judgments, another one, that's really what we're all about. How do we bring folks and how do I use what you have to offer to society? I don't have to tell you this, David, but there are a lot of folks that really don't know what their gifts are. They haven't been afforded the social capital that you and I probably had where folks could give us guidance and direction along the way and that's what Bernie wanted to do. Start here, work with us at the bakery for a little bit, figure out what you want to do, and we'll be a reference for you if this is not where you want to go, but we're going to give you an opportunity to get started.

David Gardner: Well, let's now get into open hiring then, and thank you for the note around Bernie's book Instructions to the Cook. So I think what jumped off the page to me it was, I guess, I should say off the screen because I think you were presenting at the Conscious Capitalism Conference and there was probably a big screen, an image PowerPoint something like that behind you. But what jumped off the screen to many of us when we first hear about Greyston Bakery. If we've not already counted the delicious brownies or blondies, which is often how a lot of us might first discover Greyston bakery. But we'll hear about open hiring and open hiring, I noticed has a TM on your website, so it sounds like this is a trademarked approach as well and we could talk about that, but let me just state briefly my understanding of open hiring.

This is the layman's reaction and then of course I want to understand exactly what is it and how does it work. Because we have a lot of entrepreneurs listening right now. A lot of people who may not be running their own business, but might be part of another business where they could wonder a lot within their workplace, what if we tried that here? I just bet some others are going to be copycatting Joe Kenner, Greyston, and Bernie Glassman as a result of this week's podcast. We'll see. I think it's a remarkable start to open hiring. So my understanding is that if you want to be hired by Greyston Bakery or any business that does open hiring it pretty much comes down to you feel out your name and your address, maybe you give your phone number. That's about it. There's a waiting list, so it might take a month or so, but all of a sudden, I get a call to that phone number I gave you and it will say, "Hey, David, come work 9 AM Monday morning. We'll see you then." That's open hiring, no questions asked, no background checks, no awareness of who I am, what my skills or talents are, what my past holds. Nothing at all. No questions asked, 9 AM Monday morning. How accurate is my layman's stab at describing open hiring?

Joe Kenner: I'm going to give you an A-minus on that, you did a very good job.

David Gardner: I'll take A-minus any time at any level in a school. Others are frustrated by the minus, I never was. Thank you.

Joe Kenner: But I would add and you're right. It really is. My background too, David, I mean, I came from Corporate America, Wall Street, and government and I tell people all the time if you had told me about open hiring and how you have some manufacturing entity during this 10-15 years ago, I probably would have laughed at you because it is very simple. As you outlined, you put your name on a list and you write your name, address, phone number, email so that we can reach you. We've now moved into the tech age where we have QR codes on postcards and you can do it on our website, greyston.org, so that's the way you can get added to our list and we have about 150 or so people on the list as we speak. But that is truly it. That's the simplicity of it. The radically different nature of it, as we've alluded to already is we don't do background checks, we don't even do an interview. We just call you up and when you get that call, you're essentially already hired. You just have to show up for orientation and that day is your first day on the job. That's the first day you're actually earning a salary when you show up and that begins what we call your bakery apprenticeship, which is about a 6-9month program.

David Gardner: Let's talk about that because again, shortly I want to ask some about the advantages of this and certainly the disadvantages too. I can imagine there's a good list of both. But clearly, this has been working because I think Bernie started this something like 40 years ago or so and here you are thriving four decades later. So it seems to me, proof positive that this does work, but it sounds like my first day of work, I am actually being trained as much as anything. I'm not immediately productive, which would make sense because it's a manufacturing business. Coming off the street, perhaps, how could I possibly know the right thing to do?

Joe Kenner: That's the beauty of the program. It's about a two-day orientation program that we'll walk you through. You'll hear from our supply chain folks, our R&D, and quality folks. The operations team, Greyston Bakery is owned by Greyston Foundation, which operates a lot of workforce development training courses and job developing services we provide to the community and to our bakers. You'll learn about all of these different resources that are available to you. One of the enhancements we've made to the program over the years is adding a social worker that we now call our resources support specialists to our staff and that person's job is to provide the non-traditional HR benefits and services. So what do I do if I'm getting evicted? How do I get child care subsidies or child care in general? I need to look for affordable housing. All of these non HR benefits that you probably wouldn't get in a normal work environment, we provide that, and it's to me, as I always like to tell people, this is the next evolution of human resources as we look at employment and hiring, but employment generally more holistically. So what are all the things that my employees need to be safe? Obviously, we've learned that in this COVID environment, but really understanding what is my trajectory here, how can I move up? In some cases we believe in this, how can they move out? Maybe they want to do something else after two years of working at the bakery and they realize they found what their gift is. They want to try something else. That's where our foundation can come in and just say, "Hey, we've got all these other great hard skills training courses that you might be interested in where you can get a nationally recognized certificate in something else. Let us help you."

David Gardner: Joe, we have a lot of business people listening to this right now. A lot of people who invest. I guess a natural question for me is, it sounds like your business model supports this additional support. Razor-thin margin companies wouldn't necessarily be able to afford extra support in the form of some social work, just helping advise people on the side. Can you remind me what is for profit here? What is not-for-profit and I'm assuming the for-profit portion enables this additional cost base.

Joe Kenner: I would say it's a reallocation of resources, David, as Greyston Bakery is actually the first benefit corporation in New York State. This is actually our 10-year anniversary of being a B corp.

David Gardner: A B corp.

Joe Kenner: Yes. So we got our 40th in existence, 10 years as a B corp and today is Bernie's birthday. So we've got a lot going on in 2022. But I would say that it's a reallocation of resources here. All of the time and the effort that we would spend essentially keeping people out of the labor force, we're diverting it to how do we one, bring them in, and keep them? Because it's about keeping folks and developing them so that they can continue to contribute to our organization and whatever product or service that you're providing. But also how can we develop them and help them find, like I said, their gift in terms of what they can contribute to society. It's really a reallocation of resources as opposed to an addition or I even say, I don't like to say cost-cutting is really just a reallocation of those resources.

David Gardner: Joe, as the CEO, who is your dream employee? Do you want somebody? I know transformation occurs. I know butterflies are born and that's part of the story of Greyston and I know that's got to be high up there in your list. I'm sure we're going to hear at least one great story of an employee. But are you hoping that that person is still with you 6-8 years later? Or are you halfway house bringing them in, in some cases, saving them as they save you, but then maybe they've moved on somewhere else three or four years down the line?

Joe Kenner: Well, I have to say you use the term transformation, which is another one of our core values. You've really done your homework on us, so I appreciate that. But the ideal employee is really anybody who has resolve they want to be successful. That's really it at the end of that. Let me say this, this is not a promise. This is not a welfare to work program where you are mandated to work with us. This is not some kumbaya moment that we're having. It is still a business at the end of the day and we have to operate as such. But if you want to be successful, if you want to learn something new and give it a try, this is the job for you, and we will give you all the support in the world. It's got to be reciprocal. I can't help you if we don't know what's going on in your life, so let us know. That's why we've got the resource specialist, that's why we've got HR, that's why we've got the team here to support you and everybody sees you as a colleague. 

You're not in some special class with the open hires. You are a colleague, and we want to support you. But truly for me, it's just somebody who wants to be successful, and I will not be upset if after a year or so you've realized that you want to go on and do something else because I always start with the premise and we have all these different KPIs and metrics for success. But really my metric of success is, what would be like for these people if we weren't here and if we didn't provide? We can get into stories later, but if we didn't provide employment opportunity to the folks who work for us, and really anybody. David, I'm talking about myself included here. I don't really consider myself working. This is like a labor of love, this is a calling, I enjoy what I'm doing here. When I left the office today, any person who I talk to, they're just so grateful and it's any level, whether it's finance, whether it's development, whether its operations. They love coming to work knowing that whatever job they're doing, it's contributing to giving some of the positive current trajectory.

David Gardner: Absolutely. Let me ask you, the Motley Fool is a private company, so I'm not out there sharing our numbers all over the place. I am happy to tell people we have 610 employees or so right now. That gives some people a sense of scale. Can you give us some sense of scale for Greyston Bakery. It sounds like you have a waiting list of about 150 people who would love you working there this coming Monday. But give us a sense of where you are right now as a business.

Joe Kenner: If you look at the bakery, we're about 110 employees, and 70 plus are open hires, and the rest are the administrative staff. All the R&D, supply chain, HR, finance folks make up the balance. But about 70 all the open hires.

David Gardner: The natural next question then as we talk more about open hiring, who are you hiring?

Joe Kenner: Anybody who wants to work, and I can tell you, we get this thing, it's written into our narratives somewhat unfairly because we hire anyone, we don't target any particular group. But formerly incarcerated, they're about maybe 30 percent of our workforce. But we look at barriers broadly, and you saw this when we had our conversation at the CEO Summit. There are so many other barriers that people don't think of that do inhibit folks from getting a job: single parenthood, child care, language, age, literacy skills, language, all of these different things are barriers to employment. That's who we hire, someone who has a one or more barriers to employment, someone who is just looking for that opportunity to work, and as I said, have resolved they want to be successful. That's who we hire.

David Gardner: It's as simple as that. I'm sure a lot of us somehow want to make it more complicated because that's what we do as human beings. But I think I just love the simplicity of Bernie's vision of how do we give people hope. Turns out 40 years later, a lot of people have gotten help. By the way, just a delicious product, I probably first had it baked into my Ben and Jerry's, whatever flavor I was having at the time years ago, but these days I see your brand right there. I mentioned Whole Foods, I mentioned Cava, I'm a big fan of Cava, a conscious capitalism company as well. Clearly, you are mixing with the very best, and that's something that I think is important to point out about Greyston and your brand. You are not a remedial dessert product front and up. This is totally unfair, a penny-stock fast food joint. I'm seeing you work with basically the treasured food brands, at least the ones I treasure, of our time, and that says a lot about Greyston to me. Let's talk some about the advantages of open hiring now. A couple of them are probably obvious, but could you give us some of the subtler ones? There have to be at least 5-7 advantages to doing open hiring.

Joe Kenner: It's really the business case that I talk about when I speak to different audiences about open hiring. First and foremost, and we can really get into the whole, I think I told you at the CEO Summit, I'm a suppressed labor economist. When you look at the climate that we're in now, one of the tightest labor markets in our history, where we're going through what I call a great reassessment with employee or employees, just reconsidering their own future and where they want to work. When you have 11 million unfilled jobs, we have the largest unfilled jobs to have employed ratio in a decades really, it's really a record number. The quit rate is at a record number. Name the industry, name the position, folks are struggling to find good people, find labor in general. 

We say, you need to think differently. Employers need to have a great reassessment and need to be bolder and really, as Suzanne Clark, that's the President and CEO of US Chamber of Commerce, said a few days ago, we've got to look for achievable solutions that can remove some of these barriers to employment. We're not going to be more competitive and grow this economy by moving folks around, we got to grow the labor force, and you grow the labor force by looking at that untapped talent that's out there. Again, those people that want to work but just haven't given that opportunity. That's a long way to say that the first and foremost benefit of open hiring is you get good people and they will be loyal to you. Because when everyone else said no, you said yes and they are going to be loyal. What do you get with that? One, just a good person that shows up and does a good job, but all the money that you are investing in hiring, firing, rehiring, all of that is safe now because you've got somebody working for you on a longer-term basis and those resources that you would spend constantly trying to get people, it's now going into keeping the folks in.

David Gardner: You mentioned reallocation of resources, a phrase you used earlier, actually I can only imagine how relatively cheap your hiring costs are compared to competitors, other national bakeries with 100 or more employees. Have you ever done the math there? Can you give us a sense of the cost savings of not having to have a huge HR hiring?

Joe Kenner: It's ridiculous, when you think about what is the cost to go to the list? Just say David Gardner, give him a call. We've seen and we've looked at showrooms numbers, which is about $4,100 per person it cost to hire per person. When you look at the partners that we're working with that are practicing open hiring, you use the term copycats. We work more copycats and probably the only business that doesn't want to be unique in that regard, I want people to do open hiring. But if you look at our partners, it's about 130 bucks to hire a person versus 4,100. Love doesn't lie, right?

David Gardner: Thank you for some sense of the scale. By the way, you mentioned SHRM which is an acronym for the Society for Human Resource Management. One of those leading lights looking at the workforce and issues around the workplace and it happens to be based right across the street practically from us in Alexandria, Virginia. But yeah, so that's sure. We do have a lot of international listeners who wouldn't understand an acronym like that. But those are the guys who look across the nation and say, what's working, what's not, what are the costs of things and that's a remarkable. So $130 did I hear versus $4,100? That's what I heard.

Joe Kenner: Correct. Like I said, that doesn't lie.

David Gardner: There are a couple of obvious advantage, what are some more advantages to open hiring?

Joe Kenner: Well, what you'll find in addition to, and we've seen this with our partners. I mentioned the turnover rate. One of our partners, another conscious capitalist employer is the body shop. They saw their productivity go up 13 percent while at the same time one of their distribution plants turnover rate went down by almost two-thirds. Productivity is up, turnover is down. You're making a product or service getting it out the door. Those are the types of things and the other piece of this is the people you're bringing in. You can't just look at that one person, that person is attached to a family that lives in the community that's part of our society. There is a multiplier effect that happens here particularly when you're bringing the folks that are on the sidelines because a lot of the people that we're talking about which I'm still trying to figure out how do we have a 3.9 percent unemployment rate, 11 million unfilled jobs, and then you have 10 million or 19 million if you look at the formerly incarcerated from the sidelines, there is some lost opportunity here and lost economic development here that I believe open hiring and inclusive hiring opens the door to if we can just be bolder in terms of embracing that. We can just start with one job David, it doesn't have to be your whole manufacturing facility or whatever.

David Gardner: Do you know the starfish story, the kid starfish back in the ocean. Do you know that one Joe?

Joe Kenner: Yes.

David Gardner: I mean, I'm sure some of our listeners will because it's one of those that gets retold but for anybody who doesn't, it's just the story about an older gentleman, he's walking down the beach, finds a kid tossing starfish back in because the surf went out and there was a raging storm in the day before and all the starfish got driven in so they are sitting there on the sand. The wise old gentlemen says, what are you doing? The kid is like, "I'm tossing starfish back to the ocean to save their lives." The older gentlemen looks up, sees about 1,500 starfish all down the coast. He said, "You're not going to make much of a difference there, are you?'' The said, "Well, it matter to that starfish" as he tosses another one back in the ocean. We really do value individual starfish and I know at the level of an individual new employee at Greyston you do that, but you're right, there is a multiplier effect. I think part of that multiplier effect is as some listeners are hearing this new story to them for the first time, they are starting to think, I've got a choice when I go into Whole Foods, let's say in terms of what brownie I might buy. You know what? I think I'm going to buy the one from the guys that are helping save their community.

Joe Kenner: Also think about it this way too if you look at the largest working cohort that's coming up there is the millennial population. It's not just the people buying your product but the people that work for you. It's actually a benefit to the company's other employees who are like, you know what? I am really proud to work for this company that is doing these things. This is a place that I can stay for the long term. Because they're not just about the profit, they're about the purpose as well. So we don't do things to the exclusion of profits, its purpose as well.

David Gardner: The purpose of what we're spending eight or more hours a day many of us, the purpose toward which we're working on behalf of whatever our organizations that means so much to us, it isn't necessarily what you're taught in business school or what people emerged from undergraduate thinking. But as we age and we look back, we start thinking am I proud of what I've done and I think it's really important to feel that way. I know the purpose of Greyston is a great example of that. Joe, I'm sure we could talk some more about the advantages. There are others. But let's go to some disadvantages. Now, I think the obvious question that I have to ask and I'm curious how you'll answer this, does this actually work and what happens when you have somebody who is really a bad egg or what happens when something really bad happens because some of them were incarcerated for reasons that might come back to serious violence that they perpetrate or mental health problems that they might have. Doesn't go wrong some of the time?

Joe Kenner: Yeah. I absolutely love this question and thank you for asking it. I thought back by asking a question and saying, what happens in any other manufacturing facility when you have a bad egg. What happens at a Fortune 50 company when you have a bad egg? You let them go. It's very simple and I get the other questions, do you have insurance? How are your liability rates? Yes, we have insurance, our rates are no different than any other manufacturer. This is a tough job and I want to be very clear about that, it's 12 hours shifts, a lot of heavy lifting and it's called Greyston Bakery. Don't think of it as time to make the doughnuts place. Some guy that looks like your grandfather baking doughnuts all day. It's a manufacturing facility and it's a tough job to be in. You're going to have attendance issues but you're going to have that anyway. You're going to have folks showing up late or if they show up at all, those things happen anyway. We try to work with those who do have. Look, I worked in corporate America and there were people that were alcoholics. There were people that had anger issues. Those things don't go away when you hire ''those people''. We have to think about what our own bias is around that. We've been doing this for 40 years. I've been in Greyston now for four years and since I've been here we haven't had any other issues than any other manufacturer would have. 

Again, folks that come to you are the folks that they resolve to make a difference, not saying we don't have problems but they want to be successful. They want to make a difference in their own lives and in their families live. They're going to invest in that and we're going to invest in you. We've had folks with substance abuse issues, we've had people with anger issues, we've had people that were going through domestic violence issues at home. Again, does that not happen in every other industry, every other company? But we're saying we're going to invest in you because if I can help you take care of the other issues that are happening in your life, that makes you a better employee. That makes you understand that, my company, my boss, they're investing in me. I owe it to them to do a good job and we're going to have a nice reciprocal relationship where we can figure out how we make things work. That's win-win. For me the disadvantages, its people do not see the benefit. The disadvantages, we can't get past our own biases because this is such, and I admit that, it's a radically different way of hiring, but it's a hiring system. It's a talent management strategy, a human capital strategy that's been working with us and others, for us particularly for 40 years, but others that are doing it.

David Gardner: I just bet some of us are being inspired by what we're hearing this week. I'm going to pin down just a little bit harder on disadvantages for a second in service of anybody who is hearing us right now, who's going that sounds amazing. It's worked for them for 40 years. Why couldn't I do that? Maybe not with my whole workforce, whoever's hearing us right now, but with one employee or five employees. I want you to coach that person right now because if they start on this journey, they need to know any other safe cards, any other potential downsides or disadvantages that they should be aware of, eyes wide open as they go forward.

Joe Kenner: This is the one thing that I would say, my biggest coaching tip that I would give to anybody is, and this is where people can get a little caught up, is when they think they have to make this a part of their entire manufacturing facility or anything. You've already said it, it start with one job. But first of all, understand that you want to invest the time, the resources, just all of the initiatives to make it work. The person is going to know their company better than anybody of my team will, so you tell us where we can start. Is it one job? Is it five? Is it 10? How's your HR team? What assessment do we need to do with them? Are they ready? Are your middle managers ready? Are you as a Senior Manager, ready to say, this is what we are doing no matter what, this is a company that I want to create. All of that has to happen before we even bring in anybody. Because the one thing I will say is people that we hire, they know when you're not fully invested. They know when you sell them a bill of goods and you don't want that to happen. You got to really be intentional about this and really want to take the time and then invest in it for the long term and not get scared if someone doesn't show up later or you find the person that has "this background." We can't have any of that. This is going to be an investment and the future investment in the employees, and you got to look at it from that perspective.

David Gardner: That makes so much sense to me. Really there's a whole context that you have to lay in and just make happen at your organization. Before you even start this, you need to be prepared for it. You need everybody to be prepared for it. Yeah, it can start with just one job and that's a lovely way to start. It's a wonderful win win win for everybody involved assuming that you've set things up properly and I appreciate you pointing that out, Joe. It feels to me sometimes like this should be a Netflix show. Where is the streaming show covering the story of the person who shows up day 1 at Greyston. Have you had anybody? Any one in the streaming wars poking around Greyston saying, hey, we want to tell a story here.

Joe Kenner: We had one group of amazing students from Westchester Community College who heard about Greyston in one of their classes and this has been my pet peeves since before I became President CEO because I didn't know about Greyston either until I stumbled upon it. They were just so really ticked off that they didn't know about Greyston and they are a bunch of film students. [OVERLAPPING]

David Gardner: Westchester community college it isn't so far away. For those of us who may not know the geography of New York.

Joe Kenner: We're part of Westchester County, New York and this group of film students they said that, you know what, we're going to tell the story. We're going to tell the story from different perspectives. What I really like about how they did this documentary, it's called Wide Open Dreams. If you just Google Greyston Wide Open Dreams. It's about a 20 minute documentary. The two-minute trailer is enough to have you in tears. I think you've seen it, David. But they tell the story from different perspectives, different barriers. You hear from a formerly incarcerated person. You hear from a single mom with five children, and you hear from somebody who had English as a second language and you hear what life was like before and after Greyston and how Greyston, again, not only changed their lives, but the lives of their family. It's just having the stories are weaved together and how it really becomes a personal documentary for the listeners, for the viewers. It's just amazing.

David Gardner: That is wonderful on just googling it as we speak here Joe. WideOpendreamsfilm.com is where, if anybody Google's it they'll find themselves on the site. It's been up some film festivals looks like it's won a few awards. I love the story of the local film students from the community college. A little ticked off that they didn't even know that Greyston Bakery was in their backyard and they want to tell the story. I have just seen the trailer and it was a great two-minute trailer, but I do look forward and I will watch in the week ahead, your 20 minute film, their 20 minute film. But I do feel like this is a story that can be told on an even bigger stage, so we'll see who's listening and what might happen. Joe, well you mentioned that you yourself didn't have a lot of association or knowledge about Greyston Bakery before you signed on some years ago. Joe Kenner where did you grow up? What was your background?

Joe Kenner: I grew up in Burlington, New Jersey, southern New Jersey, right outside of Philadelphia really. Only child, from parents from the south. But I was born in New York, of all places Westchester County. I came back to where I was born.

David Gardner: Westchester's own.

Joe Kenner: Westchester's own. I still consider myself a New Jersey because that's going to start a good chunk of my life. But I've been in New York now since really graduation. Since 1996, I have been in New York and as I alluded to earlier, spent most of my career in corporate America and some time on Wall Street and then in government before I stumbled, literally stumbled upon Greyston. As I said, it's been my pet peeve since I got here. It's like, how do you keep this place a secret? I even said that in my interview. I started at Greyston as a Vice President of programs and partnerships.

David Gardner: Okay.

Joe Kenner: I even said that in the interview, it's like before I came to Greyston I was deputy Commissioner for Westchester County Department of Social Services and part of my portfolio was employment. I had no appreciation for what Greyston did, who they were. Usually when you know about Greyston, you hear that it's that bakery that hires those formerly encarcerated people, but we don't really know how it works or you just didn't even know about open hiring at all. But you really had no a full appreciation that it's a foundation, that its fore-profit, they do all this great work in terms of getting people jobs. I didn't know about it and I was the Deputy Commissioner social services, so it bugged be to know that I didn't know about it. There were many people in the field that really didn't appreciate Greyston. I said when I get here, I'm going to change that.

David Gardner: You said couple of times. You literally you said, stumbled upon and I'm trying to picture a literal stumble. I'm picturing you on your phone like not looking ahead and banging into the corner of I don't know. But how did you first come to the knowledge of Greyston Bakery?

Joe Kenner: It was when I went to an event when I was deputy commissioner of social services and I met someone who actually worked at Greyston, she passed away right before I started. She was telling me her story. She was a single mom. She was actually one of our clients at DSS before she came to Greyston and got trained and got a job and all of that. I will never forget her name was Catherine. She said, the one thing that I want my kids to learn or not learn are the government acronyms in social services. Snap DSS. She said I don't want them to ever know those. I hope she was successful in that. She was an amazing woman. She ran our workforce, developed some of our programs. But she's the one that brought me to Greyston because I never understood I become my employees talking about Greyston, they would say that's the place that doesn't hire our people. Because we didn't understand how open hiring worked in, you have to wait. You just don't automatically get the jobs you had to put your name on the list. I went there and my mind was blown away. You see those professionally run bakery. You'll get to hear some of the other folks stories. 

That is my first introduction, the grace to them. The second time I was broadened by another friend of mine in the non-profit sector. That this is right after we brought on the social worker and they were looking for DSS to fund this position. That's what I really got to down deep into it and got to learn a little bit more about Greyston. But it wasn't until the third time I came to Greyston at this time, I was running programs for non custodial father's who are looking for work and having trouble paying their child support, so I was helping them get trained to get jobs and things like that. I used to run this conference. I asked Mike Brady, who is my predecessor, to come speak at one of our conferences. It was the following year that I ask Mike to see if he can bring some folks to do some workshops for us. This is late, late 2017. He said, we'll have somebody come to your conference next year. But all by the way, I need to find someone to fill this VP programs and partnerships job if you know, if anybody. Looking at the job description and I remember showed it to my wife. It was business background, financial management, expertise, connection to government social services. Who wish like you could do this I was like yeah, you're probably right. The rest, as they say, is history and started in February 2018, became President and CEO. April 2020 of all times. But I've enjoyed type dynamics targeting both jobs were at jobs that I could have written myself in terms of the job description was like, this is what I wanted to. This is perfect.

David Gardner: All right, Joe Kenner. Well, it occurs to me you've now been CEO of this authorization for two years. You've been there for four as you mentioned. I like to think I'm learning a lot every year, but I'm sure you learn an additional whole lot when you're actually leading something. I'm sure you learned in two different regards. One, you probably learning about other people in the world, and second, I bet you've learned something about yourself, so let's do those in order. Joe Kenner or what have you learned about other people and the world as a consequence of being CEO of Greyston Bakery?

Joe Kenner: That is the beauty of I don't know if I call it the beauty actually, but haven't become first-time CEO by the way, in April 2020, pandemic social unrest started restructuring the organization. A lot of different things where you didn't have a playbook to refer to, I had to really learn and do on my own. Maybe you have to think April 2020, it was about just wash your hands, wear a mask.

David Gardner: Wow.

Joe Kenner: You were going to die. That's how people were feeling family members could die. We were an essential business that ran throughout, we have not stopped running by the way since the pandemic began. Dealing with all of that fear, dealing with all the anxiety, the uncertainty, I really learned particularly when it came to our employees who were conscious capitalists here, I learned and this is why I had to have it be one of our core values which is compassion. Everybody has a story and you really have to step back sometimes. I actually issued an email, I would send emails periodically during the pandemic just to keep people's spirits up and encourage them and I said, "Sometimes you're going to have an employee who may just seem off that day, but that person might be worried about their 80-year-old mom who could get COVID, or they might have lost somebody who got COVID, or they're just having a bad week. Stop and think about that before you automatically judge them." We are all about non-judgment, which is our other core value. Everybody has a story and we have to be mindful of that when we're thinking about our policies, when we're thinking about leading, or when thinking about reacting and try and practice a little active listing and maybe ask questions and probe a little bit deeper because what you might be seeing is odd reaction, is just me processing something that's just got me feeling in a certain way.

David Gardner: Very well said, very empathetic. I'm glad that we've inadvertently I think touched on, seems like all of your core values at some point during our time together this week which I loved. Joe, everybody does have a story. You have a story too. What's something that you've learned about yourself as a consequence of being, wow, CEO of Greyston from maybe the hardest months of all of COVID, I can't imagine that transition.

Joe Kenner: Hardest two-years really.

David Gardner: Yeah.

Joe Kenner: But sure I'd like hard challenging. Because we now have this problem solved. It was challenging.

David Gardner: Yeah.

Joe Kenner: Again, another one of our core values. But then I've seen this throughout my entire life for me to get into all of it, but just private life. I love transformation, particularly seeing people transformed. When I can have somebody like one of our employees, Shawna, a single mum of five who right before she was thinking about giving up all five of her children, and this isn't wide-open dreams by the way, she got the call from Greyston and has now been with us for three-plus years with all her kids. You can't put a price tag on that. You can't quantify that anyway. We've literally changed not her life, but the lives of five other people for the better. She has done very well with us, I'm very proud of her. The other piece of that is I've got 69 plus other Shawnas' working for us. They all have names, human names. Marcel, James, Roy, Leroy, Dion, Maria. You can go through the list, April one. They're not all open hires either, but they are our employees. We are truly transforming people's lives for the better. We make brownie inclusions and package brownish. It's an amazing thing. But I love to see people's lives transformed and like I said, to me I'm hardly working. I'm just having a good time coming to a place that I get to see people's lives get turned around and I get a paycheck.

David Gardner: Well, I can imagine as a result of our conversation this week, we've got a few different instincts and some of our listeners, I bet some are thinking, "I didn't know there were over there and Westchester County, I didn't know they were there in Southwest Yonkers. I'd love to go visit and just take a look at the facility." Is that something people can do right now?

Joe Kenner: Yes, pre-COVID, David. I would've said absolutely, particularly if you're a significant donor to our foundation. But right now, we've closed off our bakery for tours for obvious reasons with Omicron running rampant. But in normal times we would absolutely have people come by and see the operations for themselves, which is quite fascinating. But if folks want to get involved, first go to greyston.org. As I always tell people, you can buy, you can donate or you can replicate. You mentioned copycats. I want to see people copy this model in their own context than their own way. Part of our 2030 vision is to have other companies working with us. We want folks to reach out to us and reach out to what we call the Greyston Employment Opportunity Center so that we can talk to you about open hiring, how it works, why it works, and how you can implement it in your organization. If you don't want to do it, you can still do it in buy brownies.

David Gardner: Yeah. Well said. Let's go one click deeper there, Joe. I do imagine some of us are entrepreneurs among us, are thinking that this might be a really cool thing to try. Nobody is going to try it lightly because as you pointed out, there has to be a whole context and a will there, and a communication there to really make it thrive. But I just do believe that it can and will thrive in other businesses too. If I'm somebody inspired by what you're saying, Joe, wondering how I can get more information, asking a tough question or two of my own, how would I reach you all and get some of those questions answered?

Joe Kenner: Go to greyston.org and you will see our tab for the Greyston Employment Opportunity Center. Just fill out the form and someone will be in contact with you.

David Gardner: Awesome. Then the last interaction I can imagine we've talked probably not enough about how amazingly tasty, and I'd love even just the texture. Because food texture matters almost as much to me, I think as taste but they're just great brownies and blondies. Let's say I'm running a high-end delicatessen in Seattle, I've got a good coffee shop outside of Denver, and I'd love to have some of that product in my store, how do I do that?

Joe Kenner: Two ways you can do it. You can go to greyston.org, which is our website where you can just shoot us an email at [email protected] and someone will reach out to you to get you connected. But again, go to our website. We would love for whether you're just running a delicatessen, or whether you're looking for a baked inclusion in your dessert products, we are here to service you because our free time you take a bite of your favorite is David, you are actually advancing somebody's career.

David Gardner: Well, in conclusion, if you were on the Gardner family Christmas gifts lists, some of you were very lucky this past holiday season because you got Greyston Bakery brownies from us. E-brownies changed lives. I think is there in the packaging. You and I talked about that off-air. Did I get that right, Joe?

Joe Kenner: You're doing well, David.

David Gardner: A minus, all I can ever hope for really, but E-brownies changed lives. It's not just about the branding, but you know what? It is also about the brownie. Joe Kenner, thank you very much for joining us this week on Rule Breaker Investing.

Joe Kenner: Very well, David. As we also say, we don't hire people to bake brownies, we baked brownies to hire people. It's about the people. Thank you for putting those folks on putting Greyston on the Christmas list there.

David Gardner: Love it, and happy birthday Bernie.

Joe Kenner: Absolutely.

David Gardner: The old man said, "Why are you pitching starfish into the sea, what difference will that make?" The young fool said, "Tossing another starfish into the sea hiring another fellow human. No questions asked." Young fool said "Made a difference to that one."