Name: Recognition Without Limits: Serving Up Culture with Texas Roadhouse
Uploaded: 2025-10-08T16:16:09.230Z
Duration: 59 min 16 s
Description: Recognition Without Limits: Serving Up Culture with Texas Roadhouse

Transcript for "Recognition Without Limits: Serving Up Culture with Texas Roadhouse": Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. We really appreciate you being here. We're excited for the conversation that's going to be held today between Nick and Megan. My name is Bronson Dameron. I'm the director of content at Awardco, and I'll be moderating behind the scenes. As you have questions, please pop into the chat and let us know, and I will pose those to Nick and Megan after, the content of the webinar has been held. Also, please feel free to get into the chat and let us know where you're watching from. It's always fun to see, where across the globe we have people attending from. So, as we begin here, I'm going to just give you a few little, logistical things. So at the end of the webinar, I will come back on, facilitate q and a, and then also provide that SHRM credit that a lot of you are are hoping for. So, don't don't leave at the end. We wanna make sure you get that SHRM credit. And at the end of the webinar, you will also be emailed a copy of the slides, and you'll also be emailed, this recording so you can view it later. So, as we begin here, I'd like to introduce our speakers. First off, we have Nick Frazier. Nick is our senior director of client success and operations for Awardco e m e or EMEA. I always say that wrong. And he brings years of operational expertise and global leadership to Awardco center of excellence. With a background in human resource management, data analytics, and a tenure of over seven years at Awardco, Nick has played a pivotal role in scaling service operations across regions. His strategic oversight and cross functional insight into client success operations help the the center of excellence deliver scalable, sustainable processes that meet the evolving needs of a global customer base. And then Megan. Megan Spalding has been with Texas Roadhouse for over seven years, where she currently serves as the recognition and partnership specialist. In her role, Megan is passionate about celebrating team achievements and creating recognition programs that reflect the company's core values of passion, partnership, integrity, and fun. And now I'd like to introduce, Nicholas and Megan. We'll have them come on stage, and then I'll go off. And, Nicholas and Megan, please take it away. You might need to unmute yourself. There you go. Alright. Thanks, Bronson. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Alright. Hey, Megan. How's it going? Going good. How are you? Good. Good. Yeah. Doing well. Good. So just to give a little bit of background here for everybody who's joined us, and as we've been talking, I I'm I'm really excited for the conversation today because like we've been talking about, Texas Roadhouse is a it's a special program for me, as I was the CSM of record when I first joined the workhouse. So, it's been, like Bronson said, like, eight years now. And so being able to think back to the way that Texas Roadhouse was running things and see how much you've grown involved has been really cool as we've had these conversations. But, yeah, I'm glad we get to share that story today, and provide some insights on your culture. Before we dive in, I there there is a poll that I wanted to start with today. I think it's always good to get a little bit of involvement from everybody. But, when we discuss challenges in any form, we wanna make sure that we're remaining solution oriented. I think getting an idea for what everyone is, bringing with them today will kind of help direct our conversations. We talk about, where you've seen success. So we'll give everyone a a few chance or a few minutes here to just quickly respond to this. Let's see. Okay. We'll give everyone, like, ten more seconds to keep it moving. Okay. Well, thanks for, filling that out, everyone who did. Let's see how we can touch on that and okay. I think Bronson is gonna share that with us real quick. But, yeah, it'll be good to to hit on some of those options and talk through, what what we've done and seen as we, pass. Just but, anyway, yeah, let's jump in. So jumping forward into talking about Texas Roadhouse, you know, that's why we're all here today is chat about, what Texas Roadhouse is doing and and where you see its success. I mean, at this point, it's probably a brand that doesn't need much introduction, given that one today drove past one, at least in The States on the way to their on the way to the office. But, maybe just start by telling us a little bit about Texas Roadhouse and what it means to be a member of the staff in this roadhouse. Yeah. Absolutely. So, yes, just like you said, Texas Roadhouse is such a, you know, national brand, even worldwide brand, that has touched the hearts of so many people. But beyond our guest, it really has touched the hearts of all of the employees. So those that work at Texas Roadhouse, we are called roadies. So we always have this saying that once once a roadie, always a roadie. I like to tell the story of I was at a restaurant in, Florida, and we had this really great server. She was super knowledgeable. We got to talking to her, told her that I was in the restaurant business as well. She asked where, and I said Texas Roadhouse. She said, oh my gosh. I used to work at Texas Roadhouse. I was a roadie, and I it was the greatest time of my life. I loved it. So being a part of Texas Roadhouse, being a member, you know, an employee, a roadie, is it's such a a long lasting effect. I guarantee there is someone in your life that has worked for Texas Roadhouse at one point or another. And it just it means it it really does mean a lot. We really cherish that. But in being a roadie, the reason that it's so loved and that we do cherish that so much is the culture that that we've been able to to create. Yeah. That's great. And it's it's a culture that's existed for a long time just based on my understanding. You know, as we we've been and prepared for our conversation today, I I think I've always understood that there is a strong culture, that's embedded in really every avenue and every aspect of the organization, but that that goes all the way to the top and, kind of originated with the founders as well. So it's been cool to be able to learn that. I'm curious if you can say a little bit more about maybe where the legendary you brand came from. I I know that that's what you call your recognition program. But, yeah, maybe maybe talk us through a little bit of, like, how that came to be and, I guess, how how it tied into those original founding principles of the people first culture. Yeah. Absolutely. So, we actually started our legendary you program. So that is what we call our program with Awardco, is Legendary U, and we started that back in 2017. And really at the time, we were looking for something that could touch all roadies that could grow as our company grew, as our brands grew, because we are now three different brands. We have Texas Roadhouse, Bubba's thirty three, and Jaggers. And so we were we were just looking for something that could grow with us, but that also helped us keep our roadies at the core. Something that I will probably say more than once in this webinar. Our founder, Kent Taylor, one of his most beloved sayings ever is we are a people first company that just happens to serve steaks. So we that is the principle that we live on. We've always you know, the hear you hear the saying of happy wife, happy life. Well, we kind of live by that happy roadie, happy guest. So if we can continue to come up with new ways to recognize our roadies, make them feel special, then they in turn are gonna are gonna make sure that our guests are taken care of. So that's kind of where this relationship started. I did actually just because I was curious, I pulled some numbers. So like I said, we started in 2017. Our total number of recognitions in all of 2017 was only 4,000. And our goal this year is to hit a 100,000 recognitions. So it has the platform has definitely done what we, were hoping for. It has been able to grow with us as we grow where, you know, we've got over a 100,000 employees, worldwide that participate in this program. And, yeah, it's just it's been a a great partnership, and it it's done exactly what we've what we've hoped for. So Well, that's great. I it's great to hear that that that scaling has happened and, you know, people have really leaned in and adopted the tool. Before we talk too much more about how the tool is used today, I'm I'm curious to get a little more context around, like you said, the the the founding team, put that people first culture kind of at the center of what they wanted to create with the organization and, you know, the the founding of Texas Roadhouse in 2017. There's a there's a huge gap between there. Mhmm. So how did the organization start to embed some of those people first culture principles, without a digital tool like a Awardco. Because I mean, any any solid recognition strategy is gonna go beyond the bounds of any one tool or any one medium that's ingrained in who people are and the way that they interact with each other. Mhmm. Would be I'd love to hear a little bit more about what was done before and how it kind of has built up into, what it is today. Yeah. Absolutely. So we have a a kind of a mentality that our managing partner, which is your general manager of each one of our restaurants, they are the owner of that restaurant. And they they are in in every sense of the word. They are an owner of that restaurant, and they own everything that happens inside and outside of those four walls, including the recognition. So we have, you know, as we've grown, we were trying to find some way to just kind of, bring everyone together. So in the beginning days, when we were just waiting to see if this company was gonna happen, if it was gonna get off the ground, you know, that was over thirty years ago, about about thirty three years ago. And we actually had two restaurants that didn't make it. And, you know, it was it was really tough in the beginning. And so every managing partner really had the power to do what they felt was the best for their employees, to you know, whether that be partnering with different companies here and there, whether it be doing small things inside their four walls, they were kind of just able to do whatever they wanted. And while that's still the case now, you know, obviously, as you grow, as your company gets bigger, we do try to streamline some things. So that was really kind of the thought process was to get something that is already built, that is easy easy to use, that kinda can just be handed to those managing partners, that they can use that tool, and it keeps it fairly consistent across the the different stores, you know, the different restaurants and across the brands. But really just offering something that they could, just dive right into and use. But even with offering that, they still have the power to use the platform and the program to whatever extent they want. And we do have some managing partners that use it strictly for anniversaries. We have other managing partners that use the platform. They may they, I mean, they may send out 5,000 points, which, you know, for us, we have point for dollar. That I mean, that could be $5,000 a month in just straight recognitions. So it really kind of it it allowed us to give our managing partners that freedom to use the platform, but also give them a platform to use, so that they didn't have to they didn't have to search for something new. Yeah. We we hear that story a lot of organizations who have, an understanding for these baseline behaviors or, baseline programs that they wanna put in place, but still allowing local flexibility and that local autonomy to be able to bring in a little bit of flavor. And, you know, the best people managers are the ones who put their heart and soul into it, and they interact with their people, and they come to know their people. So giving them that that ability, I think, is really important. So So it's it's good to hear that you've been able to maintain that. Do you find that those managing partners tend to lean on certain programs over another? Or, like, what what are the the tools that they really looked to corporate for to be able to take maybe a little bit of work off their plates? And what are the programs that they're leaning into? I'm like, no. I I really wanna own this. I really wanna continue to push this individual program forward. Yeah. Absolutely. So definitely the the legendary you program is one that they've all, you know, for the most part have all leaned into, and have really taken ownership of. But another kind of unique thing that we have at Roadhouse is that our recognition so we I actually, I live in the marketing world. So a lot of our recognition is based around events. It's based around our local store marketing. It's based around, you know, different contests that happen within the the restaurant. So, another kind of program that a lot of our stores that we push really hard and a lot of our stores lean into is that local store marketing, that really allows them to kinda have that grassroots approach, get out in the community. That's why when you hear about Texas Roadhouse, you hear about, well, that's my Texas Roadhouse. That's my local Texas Roadhouse. When you don't think of it as this giant chain, that has 900 restaurants. You think of, oh, that that's mine. That's my Texas Roadhouse, or I've I've known that managing partner for, you know, twelve years or fifteen years. So that's been another, another piece that our managing partners have have leaned into, and e even recognizing outside of just our employees. You know, a lot of managing partners have leaned into a bar regular program, where they will celebrate their bar regulars. They'll get a caricature made of them. They will do a celebration at the store for them when they come in. So there's a lot of different programs that we offer, and that the stores even will come up with themselves. But the legendary you program is one that, a lot of our stores have leaned into just for the, like I said, the ease of use, and having that just ready for them, without having to go look for it. Yeah. That's that's really cool. It sounds like the the priority is just on building community and helping people feel, you know, welcome when they come into that local restaurant. Are there I know that, I I guess inside of legendary you, are there specific programs that you find managing partners leaning into, like, an anniversary program being centrally run out of corporate? And, I guess, what what types of, ad hoc programs are some of the managing partners using that autonomy to set up and run with their local stores? Yeah. So, the anniversary program is a huge one. We call that our living legends program. So, if the stores sign up for it, it is an opt in program, so they don't all have to do it. But we have different levels of it. But one of the levels of that program is to receive legendary viewpoints on some of those more milestone anniversaries. So we start at three years, and then it's five, ten, and so on. So that's one that a lot of our stores lean into. We also have two other programs that, help train our, our trainers within the stores. So as they're becoming trainers and they become training champs, they have a chance to earn letters. And then we also we have a meat cutter in every single one of our restaurants. And that meat cutter as they grow, as they go to different meat cutting competitions, we have those. It's the coolest thing ever. If you've never most people have never experienced it, but it's the coolest thing. But they're able to earn letters for that. So that is also, two other programs that are kind of run through legendary you where they can receive points for receiving their letters, as they are reaching for, either that full champs or full hero is what we have our meat, meat cutter program. And then another program that we've really, really leaned into is the Awardco. So we actually, we started that program. We started rolling that out in 2023, and we pulled some numbers on this too because I think it is so incredibly interesting. So in 2024 alone, we had a little over 478,000 points that were given out, which that's almost a half a million dollars in points that were given out through Awardco, which is just incredible. But year to date, so we're only in October, and we've already given out over 500,000 points, and we still have three months left of the year, and that's just in the Awardco. So that has been a program that a lot of our managing partners have really been able to lean into, because it has solved the the issue and and the the problem of how do you recognize those deskless workers. And I know that was, you know, part of our our poll question. But that's really a way that we have worked to reach our deskless workers because at the end of the day, the vast majority of our employees are not at a desk. They're in our restaurants. They're they're working the lines. They're our servers. They're our bartenders. You know, they're they're even our even our managers, out there, you know, they have they may they may sit at a desk a little bit, but their job is to be in the restaurants. So that's been one of the ways that we've really been able to kind of combat that deskless, worker. Yeah. It's it's interesting when you say that. I remember when I was supporting Texas Roadhouse. We've largely leaned on and used the the workstations in the manager offices at the Texas Roadhouse to enable those managers to be able to give out those points and to recognize. And that's, that can be tricky. You have to set time aside to be able to, like, come back and sit on a computer to do that. But like you said, the the award code on the go, it's as simple as handing someone a slip of paper. I'm curious what you've heard from employees, and and the the roadies as you deploy those award codes over the past two, almost three years now. Mhmm. The I mean, the the numbers alone on on the volume that you were talking about indicate that they're popular among the managers. It's easy to do. It's easy to give out. But what are the recipients generally saying as you use those? So they love it because a big reason, which is another kind of obstacle that we have faced and and even continue to face is, you know, for instance, when when an Awardco when one of those cards is given, it makes the employee when they scan it, it takes them directly to the site. Whereas for us, you know, they they would have to go into our kind of our hub. So we call it our TXRH live, our hub. They'd have to go into that, go to a tool, go, you know, click there's a bunch of different clicks that they have to do to get to it. So it's been able to take them directly to the site when it loads those points on. And then because they're on the site, we have noticed that they are spending more points. You know, that's another thing that we're working with our CSM on is how do we how do we encourage our employees to continue to spend their points. But I think the award codes has been a huge step in the right direction on just, first of all, getting them onto the site. But they have I mean, they absolutely love it. Managers love it. Employees love it. I actually give a presentation in we have a monthly. We call it our legendary learning, and it's an opportunity for some of our newer managers to come in and just learn everything about what we do here at the support center at our corporate office, and just to learn all kinds of things. It's a week long, process that they do, but marketing has a, chunk of that. And so I've been giving the presentation on recognition, and every time I bring up the award codes, I ask, you know, how many people have these? How many people have used them? Over half the room always raises their hands, and they always tell me, oh my gosh. We absolutely love this. Our employees love this. It has made it so much easier. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. So we've heard such good feedback on, on implementing that. That's really good to hear. What what do you I don't know. As you've asked that question and and kind of done those, in person polls, have you have you heard any interesting stories about what some of the contests are that people have won those Awardco codes for? How are how are people using those out in the business? Yeah. So we have we have a lot of contest within our, within our restaurant. So, you know, one of the things that we offer is it's called, smothered. So if you go to a Texas Roadhouse and they say, do you want your server says, do you wanna smother your steak with mushrooms and onions? So they may be running a smothered contest where whichever server can, sell the most smothered is gonna win that night's contest. And before, you know, it was, oh, here you won. Here's $20, but then you have to you have to account for that on the tax piece of it, and it it it ends up being where the employee is not getting that full benefit, versus the way we have our our legendary u platform set up is say, you know, say you won that contest and you're given a, an award code card with 20 legendary U points on it, you're gonna get that full impact, and you're gonna get those full that, you know, that full 20 points. But we have had I mean, there's there's smothered contest. There is, margaritas. We have, you know, we have our, our delicious margaritas. But we you can add a kicker in your margarita. So if you want an extra kicker of Patron or 1,800, so we may have a, contest that whoever can sell the most, kickers in a margarita, will get different you know, get legendary U points, get some, an award code card. I mean, it's the the list could just go on and on about the different contests that they have, but it is you know, they even use it for not just contests, but just for appreciation in general. If, you know, say we have a server that has a family emergency and has to leave and another server steps in to, you know, take their tables over, the managing partner, you know, may give them the points that, you know, for that or, say someone can't come in at all and someone picks up a shift. Like, there's a lot of different ways that that we do recognize. The contests are always super fun, but it also is is a big piece of just appreciation, and making sure that our roadies do feel appreciated, and that they do feel that recognition. I think that's one thing I've always been impressed about with Texas Roadhouse is it's, again, that that top to bottom appreciation culture where I I know you do huge events every year for appreciating employees and that I might be wrong in saying this, so keep me honest, but I I think that was kind of the backbone of appreciation and the culture of recognition for a long time at Texas Roadhouse. But looking for ways to get, you know, still still hold those president level awards and bringing people together to celebrate achievement, but then extending it down into the day to day interactions, and I think is is, notable. Not not every organization is able to weave it all the way through, you know, top to bottom in that way. So it's cool that you've been able to do that. Well, that that that's good to hear. I'm really quickly before we throw up another poll here, one of the questions that just popped into my mind as you were talking through how those award codes have started to be used, you said that whether it was a Smothered contest or just a quick thank you using cash in the past. So When people can be precious about cash sometimes, especially when it comes to kind of an incentive. Did you hear much from employees as you moved over to points in Awardco? Or is it So Is the options available, like, sufficient, I suppose? Yeah. In the beginning, it was, definitely one of the pushbacks of moving to a program like this because at the end of the day, it will end up costing the store a little bit more, but that's because they're taking on, those taxes, the fees, all, you know, all of that stuff. So, we did hear a little bit of pushback. And even to this day, I mean, we've we've had this program up and running for seven, eight years, and we still have some managing partners that are that say, you know, I I don't use use it much because, it costs me more. And so, really, the the way that we kind of combat that and the discussions that we have about that is really keeping that roadie first, keeping the people first and thinking about more people. And so yeah. And that that was definitely a pushback in the beginning. And like I said, every now and then, we do still have a managing partner here, there that will kinda still have that mentality. But for the most part, everyone has kind of been able to move on from that idea, and really been able to embrace that. Yes. It might cost your store an extra dollar 50, but in your grand scheme of your p and l at the end of the month, that may not be as, you know, as impactful as if the roadie was having to take that extra cost on. So Oh, that's great. Just pick picking up that burden and trying to simplify where you can. Mhmm. Okay. Well, I I have a quick question for everyone, so we'll throw up another poll on the screen here. Like we've talked about a little bit, the the ability by Texas Roadhouse to be able to weave that recognition culture top to bottom. It helps when it's executive led, but we recognize that it isn't always that case. Even in an organization like Texas Roadhouse where you have strong strong executive buy in for people first culture, you're still finding that, you know, certain managing partners are doing things their own way. It's all you you have to go out and continue to, churn up that support and that you you're all making the best case. It's a long worded for a long winded way to get to the question here of what powers your recognition strategy today. All different sizes of organizations, all different industries. It it's interesting that every organization is gonna have a little bit of a different approach to this, a different way that this is powered. So I'm just curious to see how people feel, driving it on my own. It's fairly common. We have a lot of recognition champions out there who are trying to get the rest of the business on board. Dedicated managers, I love that one. Yeah. You see the the executive initiative is is less common. A lot of times we're finding, you know, passionate people who are looking to celebrate, the the contributions internally, making those proposals and then trying to turn up that executive support from there. K. We'll give it another minute here. I mean, truthfully, at the end of the day, it's one of the reasons that I love this job. It's like this is a great little example, but despite sharing similar industries or organizational structures, economic similarities, every company has their own way of doing things and it's you know, there are recognition best practices but there are so many individual variables and components that have to be considered when you're building up this sort of a strategy that it is. You you'll always be facing a unique situation as you build these out. So I don't know. Prescribing best practice in the right course of action requires a very thorough review of the current state. But then at the end of the day, it's like you just have to start doing something, and then it's an iterative process. You, every year, come back to it and build a little bit more and, eventually find yourself with what you've been able to accomplish, a very mature recognition program. Okay. Well, let's let's we can go ahead and close that out, Bronson. Thank you for your help on that. Okay. So we we had a chance to talk through, how the recognition program at Texas Roadhouse sort of got its feet early on, what you've done in the past ten years to continue to democratize that access to give people the ability to come in and celebrate what they're seeing in the day to day. And we've talked a little bit about the how, how how the programs are being run inside of the stores, the different tools that you extend to your managing partners. I'd I'd love to spend a minute quickly just on the the impact that you've perceived. So as you built out this culture of appreciation and celebration, putting your people first, at the end of the day, executives and the the the people who, we'll we'll say executives. There is a lot of interest in the the metrics that drive, these sorts of programs forward or the the metrics that sustain these programs, but I think there's still incredible value in the anecdote. So you have you you collect the metrics that show the impact that the program is making. You collect those adoption. You collect, the retention rates for the employees, and and you paint that picture. You know? But then in my experience, it's the anecdote of the the individual story of someone who is impacted by recognition that helps to really drive home the point of these sorts of initiatives. So I was wondering if you can maybe share as you've gone through the effort of setting up these programs of enabling these managing partners. Mhmm. What it's seen as the impact of these efforts, whether it is at that macro, you know, metric level across the organization or maybe a little more of a personal sort of stories that you've heard? Yeah. So, you know, in our industry specifically, turnover is pretty high. In the restaurant business, you know, it's it's not uncommon to have, you know, well over a 100% turnover rate. One of the things that I think is really speaks to, especially our company and just that people first mentality in recognizing our employees. You know, like I said, we're about we're about 33 years old, and we have in 2026 alone, we are gonna have 11 people that are gonna be celebrating thirty years with the company. So that is I think that honestly speaks for itself. You don't see that very often, especially in a company like this. One of those people is actually our president, Gina Tobin. She's gonna be celebrating thirty years, but seeing the growth that people can have within the company just by feeling empowered. And I think a lot of that empowerment does come from recognition, you know, kind of beyond our our recognition, but keeping that roadie first mentality. We have a program. I know, Nick, you and I talked about this previously, called Andy's Outreach, and it is a program that we have set up. It is completely funded by roadies, and it helps roadies. So when you have, you know, when you have someone that maybe has an unexpected death in the family, Andy's outreach can cover the the funeral cost. When you have a if your house you know, if you lose your house in a fire, Andy's outreach can step in and help with that. So there's I mean, those stories can go on for days, but it's really just keeping the people first, and just our our tenure in general. We had I was pulling numbers the other day, you know, just for ten year roadies in 2026, we're gonna have almost 1,200 employees that are gonna be hitting ten years, in 2026. So, there are I mean, every you ask any managing partner out there, and they're gonna have some incredible stories about how that recognition has impacted their employees. But I think, honestly, that tenure just speaks for itself, because like I said, in our in our line of business, that just does not that's not normal, but it goes to that culture of recognition, appreciation, and then just continuing to, come up with ways to keep push pushing that forward, and like you said, having those really big, you know, really big celebrations, but then also bringing it down to where every single roadie has the opportunity to be recognized. Well, that's that's great. And I I do love Andy's Outreach. It's again, just puts another, it's another bullet point on the community building that you all do. It's, you know, making sure that people feel like they can come together and and be jointly united by a a single purpose. So that's really neat. Okay. Well, I know we have a bunch of questions in the the chat here, and I wanna be able to get to those, before we wrap up today. So, the last thing that I wanted to quickly ask you about is for anybody in the chat today who is running a program that they're looking at revitalizing or, is just looking to see I'll actually Bronson asked one more question. I'll have make sure a couple of points here. Thank you. I I would love to hear from you what you've learned over the past several years as you've developed this program, as you pushed it forward. What what are the the critical learnings that having gone through this, you wish you would have known a few years ago? What are the things that, you know, you have to do if you're going to create this sort of a program? I'd I'd just be interested to hear what you have to say on them. Yeah. Absolutely. So, kind of breaking it into, I guess, three kind of buckets, when really looking at developing a a program like what we have. I mean and I always say when people ask me, what do you do? And I say, oh, I'm a recognition specialist. They're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, isn't it so cool that there's an entire position at Texas Roadhouse that my whole job is to recognize people? But I think, you know, in order to get to that point, one of the biggest pieces of advice is gather feedback. Continuously ask the question, are, you know, are people happy with what you're offering? Is there specific things people wish that they, could, you know, could have access to or or or did have? But gathering that feedback all across the platform. So not just from your upper level, not just even from like, for us, not just from our managing partners, but truly from every single, employee trying to find that feedback, and and gather all of that. Because from that, then you're truly able to find out where your gaps are, where your opportunities are, and where you're succeeding, so that you can continue to push those efforts further as well. The other kind of big piece of advice is just continue to be innovative. So coming up with new ways to reach all of your employees. If, you know, if you're a large company like we are, it is hard. It's hard to reach every single employee. But just trying to continue to be innovative, taking that feedback that you gathered and seeing if there's new programs, even adopting programs that you see elsewhere. You know, we're we're actually in the process. We we saw a really cool program. My boss actually saw it when he was out, at a at a conference, and he was like, this is really cool. I want us to look and see how we can maybe do something similar like that at Texas Roadhouse. And so, you know, we're in the process of of trying to implement a whole brand new program, that's gonna utilize Legendary You, but that's also gonna just further our our ways that we touch all of our employees, and engage all of them. And then just the third biggest thing is just keep your people first. You know, that's that's been our our bread and butter since day one, is keeping our people first and just keeping that in mind as you are pushing forward programs, as you are coming up with new programs, making sure that everyone involved in the process, your, managing partners to the recipients, to even our executives and to, you know, how that implements or how that affects all, all areas of the business, But just keeping the the people first in every aspect of it, it is just it's so key. So I think those would be my kind of three big, tips, I guess, takeaways of how to just continue to grow recognition programs. Those are the three things that, even though we have a pretty robust recognition program, that's that's still what we focus on. And that that's at the core of of, you know, our of my job, and of of our purpose of recognizing our employees. Well, I'm I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who notices recognition programs out in the wild as I'm going to my wife will make fun of me. I'll I'll, like, walk into a a gym or a restaurant and take a picture of the way that they're doing recognition and Okay. It's good to kind of source those ideas wherever you find them. One thing that you shared with me, previously that I I would love to do a a another little hit on here is as you talk about gathering feedback, I I think one of the amazing things that Texas Roadhouse does is the avenues of feedback and the channels of feedback. You mentioned making sure that you're getting perspective from all levels of management and all the way through the organization. Not everyone is interested in providing feedback in the same way, and I think one thing that you all do pretty well is collecting that feedback from a couple of different places and making sure that, you know, there there isn't one channel of feedback that everything has to come through. So maybe share just really quickly what what are the channels of feedback that you make available to people and even with the on-site coaches that you work with, how are you hearing back from your people, where the program's succeeding and where it could be improved? Yeah. Absolutely. So, we have different ways that we reach all levels of our employees. So one of the ways that we have couple ways that we reach our kind of hourly in the store shift employees. And one of those is a program that we call it innovative ideas, but it is a form that is available and out there, and it is taught in orientation that it is, available. But it's a form that any person within the entire company can go on. They can fill out if they ever have an idea on anything. It could be recognition related. It could be food related. It could be IT related. I mean, any idea. We give them that space to share that idea, and then we take that idea and disperse it to the right teams, and see if it's something that we've already looked at or see if it's something that we could, you know, push forward. But that's a a really big one, that we utilize. Like you said, our on-site coaches. So we have, we have coaches is what we call them. So we have our marketing coaches, service coaches, and product coaches. And so they will have a market of stores that they are focused on going in and working with your, with your local store marketers, or they're really focused on, working with your kitchen managers, making sure that the product that we're giving out is is to the caliber that it should be. Our service coaches work with our service managers to make sure that we are continuing our you know, service with heart is a big thing that we say. So we've got our coaches, but they are able to be in those stores, ask those questions, gather that feedback. So they they're a great source for me particularly. I like to just every now and then check-in with them and say, hey. What what are you hearing in the stores? Whenever we have new coaches come on, that's part of their training is, I talk to them about recognition, and they're able to give me their ideas, tell me what they're hearing in in the the stores. So that's a way that we are able to kinda gather that feedback. Another way is we have weekly communications that go out to all of our support center to our managing partners, and we utilize those very heavily. We put a lot of information in them every week, but it's a really great way for us to put a you know, even if it's a a simple poll in there, but just to be able to gather feedback on a large scale. Just like you said, not everyone wants to give feedback, and if they if they choose not to, that's fine. But we're giving that opportunity, for them to provide that feedback. But I would say those are kind of our our really big avenues. We've even utilized on our legendary YouSite, the survey at the end when someone, checks out. You know, we we we've been able to add in a couple of questions, you know, making sure that we're focusing on ease of use, the the selection of of items, you know, just all all of that kind of stuff. Getting a quick little poll, so so that we can make sure we've got an eye on all of it. But yeah. So those those are definitely some of our our big, big avenues for collecting feedback. Hold on a little bit. I'm I'm definitely one of those people that I need to be asked five times for my opinion on something before I actually go on and click it. So, yeah, that represents the creation of the different channels is important. Well, that's great. Thanks for sharing what you've learned. Just to reiterate, gathering feedback, innovating, and then, you know, keeping your purpose in mind, putting your people first. It's hard to go wrong with with those cornerstone. So, I think we have a few questions in here about, some of the details of the program. So I can, maybe run through these real quick, and we can answer those and then go to our final poll and and then open it up for q and a. Is there anything else that you wanted to hit on before we go through those questions, Megan? No. I don't think so. Okay. Well, the first one that I'll I'll highlight here is from Crystal. It it just asked, do you use peer to peer recognition? And if so, how do you get frontline staff to participate? Yeah. So that is definitely a struggle. We do, encourage the peer to peer recognition. It's definitely not used often, but that is one of those areas that we are recognizing as a is an opportunity. And that's actually been a big goal of mine this year and a big focus is to try to figure out how do we reach those, frontline workers and how do we promote the peer to peer recognition. We're very excited about the Awardco app that is on its way. We're very excited because for us, I feel like it's gonna be a really great way for our employees, to have more of that peer to peer recognition. We do have some peer to peer recognition within our support center, but, again, we're, you know, we're at our our desks every day, and it's it's easy for us. But trying to come up with that, how is it the easiest for our employees to do that, peer to peer? So it's definitely been a challenge. I think it's probably a challenge in all different industries, especially ones that have those frontline workers. But it is it's it's still a it's still an opportunity and a and a focus for us. Yeah. I'm interested to see how the the app helps to support that, especially combined with the Awardco. Because as you scan the Awardco, like you said, that's it removes steps out of that login process. You don't have to think about where do I go to access these points, how do I log in. You scan it, you're at the app, and then with that time safe, maybe with some prompts as well, you you jump in and recognize somebody. So, I'm just yeah. Some some flows there could be useful. From Amelia, kind of building on this, currently, Awardco are not a viable option for us. Would be interested in getting more ideas in how to get the peer to peer recognitions to reach deskless employees. I don't know if there's anything that you would add there about the way that things worked before the Awardco, how you try to initiate that involvement from those managers, for a situation where those Awardco aren't possible. Mhmm. The advice there? You know, that it's, like I said, it's tricky. It's it's an area of opportunity for a lot of people. One of the focuses that we have had is honestly communication. There I've been going into here within the support center, kinda backtrack a little bit. I think it's also important to start small and start realistic. So, you know, my goal initially has been to let me reach the support center group. Let me work on and focus on that peer to peer recognition, and let me educate in the fact that that's an option because I think a lot of people don't realize that that is an option, and that is something that you don't have to have you don't have to give points when you give a recognition. A simple, hey. Great job today goes a long way. So kind of starting small. So, you know, going in for me, it's been going into the different department meetings, speaking on Legendary You, giving the goals that I've set for the company for this year, but then also giving tips like you can go in and do a peer to peer recognition. You don't have to give points when you when you give a recognition, but just I think people just need to hear it, but kind of starting on that smaller scale. So for me, it's been starting on that support center scale. And then from there, working on, okay, how do we get that communication now out to our even our managing partners? Let's start with our managing partners. And then let's dive deeper and say, how do we get that to our our, hourly employees, for our frontline employees? So that's kind of been our approach to that. So I think that would be a good, a good just course of action for, you know, if award codes are not as easy, or not viable option, it would you know, it really just education and communication around that it is an option, and just trying to come up with ways to make it as easy as possible, almost kind of foolproof on how to, how to make that happen. Yeah. I love that. Start with something and then figure out how to how to build it from there. I I think that the only thing I would add to that is the the principle of starting with something. It is really all you can do, and, even if it's a nomination program and and it's, once a year, you're doing a highly visible nomination program where you're asking everybody in the organization to submit some form of recognition, and it's a highly publicized event. That starts to slowly build that recognition muscle, but at the same time, like you were saying, recognizing that it doesn't have to be this huge, thing. It it can just be the small thank yous that you're enabling. So no. That's great. And then the the last question that I would I would ask here before we, bring Bronson back in, I don't wanna stand in the way of everybody's SHRM credit, but, I think that this is a great question from Cindy. Again, just on the detail of programs, what what are you able to share or excuse me. Are you able to share the different program setups to give ideas? We don't have anything and would love to consider different programs that actually work. So for us, I think that the the different programs that we offer so I'll I'll first kind of touch on that anniversary program. So that is something with all of our programs. They're kind of the information is kind of built outside of the platform. So for our anniversary program, we work with a a company that helps, you know, within our HR system, that will create different spreadsheets for us. And then at that point, we're able to then send those on, upload those, into the queue and make that process easy. And that's very similar for all of the programs we offer. So like I I mentioned, our, our training champs are, meat cutter letters. Like, those are all of, you know, some of the different programs that we have within the company. And it's really coming up with the way on outside of of the platform, how do you get all of that information gathered and and ready to make it an easy upload into the platform. But, yeah, that's kind of how we operate currently for for our different programs. Okay. Well, thank you. Mhmm. I know we're running short on time here with a q and a still to go. So I'll I'll skip our third poll question today, then we we can move straight into q and a if there are any additional questions. I know that Tatiana just put in a comment that helps, answer Cindy's question as well. So thank you for crowdsourcing those responses. So, Bronson, I don't I don't know if you wanna lead out on q and a or, happy to take a few more questions from everybody. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We have been getting a few others. There's a different q and a tab that, other people can submit, and we have some that were submitted previous. So, a couple of questions here. Thank you both for your expertise. This has been a really great conversation. I'd love to hear how you're using Awardco, Megan. One question that we did get was, could you explain Awardco a little bit more? Maybe for those people that aren't, Awardco customers? How how do they work? Yeah. So they, it's a small card, actually. I have one right here. Super exciting. So we were able to brand the front of it, but it is it is just, as small as a as a business card. But on the back of that card is a QR code, and it is preloaded with points. So, how we have our setup is our, our managing partners can go on to kind of our accounting ordering site. They can place an order for our award codes, and then they we have a a printer that will print them for us. We've, Awardco has been incredible about working with, a third party printer for us because it has, quickly became a very, very large program as you can see. So we have a third party printer here that has been able to, provide that for us. But once the managing partner orders it, it's then shipped to their store. And so at the end of a of a shift or at the end of a contest, they can say, hey. You did a great job. Here's 10 legendary you points. The employee can then scan the QR code on the back of that card, and those points will then get automatically loaded into their account. So the nice thing about it is the those points are not, they do not hit the store's p and l until they're given out. So if a store wants to stock up on a bunch of of these cards, they can. They, of course, have to treat it like cash, so you have to make sure you've got your safety measures in there. But if they decide to give out a $110 cards, then that's what's gonna hit their, cost center or their, you know, their p and l. But it's it's a such a great tangible way for people to be recognized. And I think people feel it more sometimes when it is that tangible, especially for those deskless workers. I I love that it enables that handshake. Right? Like Mhmm. Recognition for a long time has been that very personal experience. And as that seems with everything in this world, there is now this digitization of that experience as well. And so the Awardco still facilitates that the the the important parts of the digital, transaction that points are being given over. It enables the log in. It it helps to support the steps that come next. But it starts with, hey. You did a great job today, and here's that card. Mhmm. Something I really like about it. Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing that. We have probably time for about two more questions here. One is that you said that, at Texas Roadhouse, about half a million points have been given out, I think, to date this year. Was that budget all set aside or did you have to get leadership to buy into recognition first and then it kind of expanded from there? So we we've actually, year to date, have given out, oh goodness, three about 3,000,000 points. So it's pretty high. So that that 500,000 is just strictly from the award codes, strictly from this program. So but it's still the the budget on our program is massive. But the way that we kind of operate it, yes, we did have to get some leadership buy in on some of our budgets that we, we as a company provide. But with our legendary you program, that is something that each person owns their own budget. So if a store, you know, if if if a restaurant wants to budget 2,000 points a month, then they budget that and they they acquire that, you know, that cost, and they kind of own that process. But even for our different departments within our support center, we're actually in budget season. We are, in the process of of, submitting all of our budgets for 2026. So it is definitely a piece that we do budget for. And for some of our programs that utilize the legendary viewpoints, yes. We do have to get some executive buy in on it, because it does hit, you know, the the company at the end of the day versus those kind of individual stores. But for the most part, we let everyone kind of be the owner of their budget and what they, spend on recognition. That's incredible. That's a a that that is a big budget, and I'm sure that your employees are benefiting a lot from that. And that kind of leads to our final question here is, was LegendaryU a program before you started using Awardco? And how what made you decide to go with Awardco to facilitate your recognition programs? Yeah. So that was actually all before I came into this role. So the transition from what we were doing previously, To my knowledge, it was not Legendary U. It was wasn't really a program much at all. But when we developed, or when we started that partner you know, the partnership with Awardco, we like to we like to kind of brand everything that we do, and really make it just special for us. And so, you know, part of our, part of our our statement is legendary food, legendary service. So that legendary is kind of where that part of it came from and then just that recognition part of that you. Like, you are legendary, and so this is something that is going to benefit our roadies, to benefit you. So that's kinda how we came up with that legendary you. But, yeah, that the transition of all of that happened before I came into this role, but that is from from everything I've been told. That is kind of how that came about. That's incredible. Thank you so much. I'm gonna put I really appreciate your expertise, Megan and Nicholas, and I'm gonna give you some time for some final thoughts as we kind of wrap up here. But I am going to put this SHRM credit up here for all of our attendees. This is so you can get SHRM credits and you can, provide this code on your SHRM account, and it will give you credits for this webinar so you can keep your certification live. And I will keep this slide up as you do your final thoughts, but, we'll start with you, Nicholas, if you have any final thoughts about, what we've talked about, and then Megan will will toss it to you after that. It's not for long. I I've already said a lot today, so, not not much else to add. Just to say thank you to Megan for, coming here today and and letting us have this conversation and, you know, given everybody who attended a quick peek under the hood on how recognition works at Texas Roadhouse. I I think that the principles you've shared about, you know, starting with a great recognition culture is is amazing. Not everyone is able to start that way, and I I think that no matter how you're starting the principles of doing something and then making an incremental improvement, stands true. So, I'm excited to see what everybody who attended here does to help evangelize recognition and and move that forward. It it's just great to be able to be here celebrating people. So, thanks again, Megan, for joining us today. Absolutely. Well, thank you all so much for having me. Like I said earlier, how cool is it that my entire job is recognizing people and teaching people about recognition? I never thought this is where my career would lead me, but I'm just I'm very, grateful for, you know, obviously, Texas Roadhouse for giving me this opportunity, but also, just for providing a culture that is so focused on recognition, and that allows me to do really awesome things like this. So this is definitely a a checkbox on the, you know, the career checklist. So this has been awesome. I have loved every minute of it. And, yeah, if if anyone ever wants to chat separately or or anything like that, I'm always available. I'd love to help in any way that I can, and, thank you, Nicholas and Bronson, for, asking me to be a part of this and for spending the last hour with me. It's been wonderful. Thank you, Megan. Thank you for your expertise and just for sharing all that. We really appreciate it. And thank you for attending the webinar today. You will receive a recording of this afterwards, and we hope you have a great day. Thank you.