How Instant Tipping and Wage Access Helps with Retention at Sun Holdings

Tal Clark: Welcome to the Instant Payments Podcast. I’m your host, Tal Clark, CEO of Instant Financial. And we’re back for part two of our conversation with Laura McLand, the VP of HR for Sun Holdings, one of the largest restaurant groups in the US with more than 30,000 employees. Laura, thanks again for being a guest on the show.

I think we covered a lot of really good ground in the first part of this session, this podcast. Let’s jump right back in and talk more about HR trends in the restaurant industry. We’ll talk a little bit more about earned wage access and digital tipping. Just in general, have you, what have you heard directly from team members about getting their tips and wages quickly without fees? Has it, have you seen it influence satisfaction or retention within the workplace?

Laura McLand: Absolutely. It’s extremely important that they’re able to get those tips immediately. So even in the same day or in the same [00:01:00] evening, they’re able to get those tips and they see it immediately. What’s also really nice is that now it’s not just a card. So many, archaic was everybody had a card or and would always have to use that or wait until a check or get cash at the end of the night. And so this is much easier because in Instant you’re able to use an app and tap it on your phone. You don’t even need a card. And so that’s where we’re going in the future, is where does that entail? Are we gonna be moving to wearable cards, wear from your phone or things like that? So I think that’s where we’re gravitating toward is, just even Instant, as the tips are created or paid out, even those having be available to the employees is needed.

Tal Clark: Yeah, you and I are both aware. I’ve been around it for a while, the old days, and I mean, it still is happening, right, when you have plastics in the restaurants, which I was talking to a group today and we started doing that [00:02:00] 25 years ago in a program that I helped start, right? 25 years ago, we were putting plastics in restaurants for cards. You would think that we need to evolve that at this point, right? And so we are doing that, and you’re right, right? Plastics aren’t required anymore. Right? You can get it on your phone, you can have it on your Apple Watch. You can do whatever you need to do. So yeah, that’s an evolution in the space that we’re really excited about leading because of just, to me, again, it’s always for 25 years we’ve been delivering plastics to restaurants and that’s just not necessary anymore.

Laura McLand: You are right. You’ll always have those that’ll have want something tangible. They’re old school and they, they don’t believe it until they feel it in their hands. There’s gonna be some of those. But I also kind of envision, kind of the Jetsons, okay, how can we get to there? We’re already there. If you watch that program, you can already see a lot of those things we already do today. But I know that’s gonna continue to evolve, over the next, 10, 20 years as we watch [00:03:00] things.

Tal Clark: Yeah, that’s crazy. And actually, you’re right. I mean it’s, I think the Jetsons, the thing I remember from the Jetsons is flying cars and believe it or not I’ve got a little bit of interest in aviation and so flying cars are not that far away. Believe it or not they’re out there, which is crazy. I think once we get there, we will have completed the Jetsons journey probably Laura.

Laura McLand: I agree.

Tal Clark: So that’s good. Let’s talk about, you know, one of the challenges always in the restaurant space is retention and turnover. Talk about that in as much detail as you want to with Sun Holdings. What that looks like for you guys? Just kind of where it is in the market today? I know that it was tougher coming out of COVID, maybe it’s a little bit better now. So talk about where you see the trends in the restaurant industry as a whole, and then maybe for Sun Holdings?

Laura McLand: Oh, it’s so important. I mean, just in the hospitality [00:04:00] industry, you’re gonna have high turnover, and that’s because of different kinds of jobs. People go into the restaurant industry usually for short term anyway. It’s not normally a career goal. So a couple of things that we’ve done is: number one, be able to frame it so it could be a career, it’s somebody gets into it and then may find that they absolutely love it. And so we want to encourage that and say, yes, you actually can be a GM or even go up higher above that. But then also, what does our turnover look like? We wanna be able to retain employees because that turnover is of course expensive. And so we put some tools already in place over the last over two years that helps with that retention. Our retention has dropped 20% which is huge in hospitality. And it, part of it is because we’re giving them Instant payments, whereas before it was a card, the direct deposit aspect, but also employee engagement. That’s [00:05:00] really important to us. It’s gonna be a high focus for us in 2026, is in… encouraging employee engagement. What does that look like? And be able to work with each other and as long as they see each other every day. It’s more of a family during the day, right? Sometimes you, you see people, your coworkers more than you actually see your own family. And so we wanna make that a positive experience when they come into work. Something to look forward to, and then also continue throughout the day and through their shifts, throughout the weeks and years.

Tal Clark: Yeah. Yep. So you’ve seen improvement then based on some of those steps out over the last two or three years.

Laura McLand: Absolutely. And we’ll continue to do that for sure.

Tal Clark: And anything new that you’ve got planned over 2026, what does it look like for you in 2026? Any projects that you wanna reveal to us today that’s gonna either help with financial wellness or retention, or anything else that you got going on?

Laura McLand: Absolutely. We’re always evolving constantly. And so [00:06:00] our big push, like I just mentioned, in 2026 of course is going to be part of that employee engagement is education. So what, how to be able to work with guests, make it a positive guest experience, what to, how to handle a guest that maybe isn’t having a good day, you know how to turn those things around. Also giving them resources on how to do, how to roll out different menu items, how to discuss those to new people..some people, are comfortable talking about, something that, as a new menu item and some aren’t. So working through some of that, it’s all gonna be on app by the way. So we’ve already started implementing that and that’s gonna be our 2026 goal is putting all of that in their hands on an app that’s gonna be interactive. And so it’s gonna be engaging. That’s gonna be our focus. We already rolled out a new payroll system, rolled out new benefits at the end of last year, and so that’s [00:07:00] gonna be our focus and is training and development this year.

Tal Clark: Okay, that’s outstanding. So, so when you were looking at making changes to pay, making changes to provide Instant Pay and Instant Tips, what were the conversations like internally? Did any… because it was new at the time, right? And some of the things we were doing was, were new. How did you convince the rest of your organization to come along for this ride, whether it was your CEO or CFO and, because I know you guys sort of make decisions as a team over there.

What were those conversations like?

Laura McLand: We always try to do things where we roll it out with one brand first. And so in this particular instance, we did roll it out with one brand first and we tested it first and said, okay, this is something that is going well with this brand. Let’s go ahead and roll it out to all of our other brands. But that’s what’s really important is trying to focus on what [00:08:00] works, what doesn’t before we end up rolling that out on something such as pay cards. And that’s what we’ll continue to do in 2026, is also that same exact thing is that we’re doing: platforms that are brand focused first and then be able to roll it out to all the other brands. And that’s what makes it this unique too is that we’re able to do that and we targeted based on the type of service that we wanna offer to our employees, we started with a specific brand. Keeping that in mind let’s go with the complexity. Let’s try to pick a brand that maybe is gonna test us a little bit so that we work out all the kinks before we roll it out across all the other companies.

Tal Clark: Yeah. That’s good. That’s good. And, and I think that is something that we’ll learn from as well as we go forward. Right. Because, one of the things in the space that we wanna make sure we’re communicating is that the executive level, right, it’s connected. And you mentioned a while ago, you mentioned I don’t know if these are your exact words, but sort of living where your [00:09:00] employees live, understanding where they are. And I think you guys and you specifically do a great job of that and that, ’cause that’s a gap I find when talking to other executive leadership. They don’t quite get the need for access and the need for these solutions that are available now that maybe weren’t available five years ago. How would you communicate to a hypothetical, new CEO about the value of these benefits to employees?

Laura McLand: I would hope a CFO would understand, of course, the financial aspects of why it’s so important to get money into the hands of the employees immediately. And rolling out a new system or a new program, we always do our ROI, we always do the analysis ahead of time of course from the financial perspective so that they can see the hard dollars and the soft dollars [00:10:00] of what incorporates some of the projects that we roll out. But also I want, I do deliver how this impacts the employee individually because we do have to keep that in mind. Just like in HR, that’s our customer. And so we want to make sure that we don’t lose sight of who that is. And just like in operations, they focus on the guests we have. That’s half of the equation. But the other half of the equation is of course the employees. And if the employees weren’t there we would not be here. Right. And this is the thing, with our departments, if we weren’t here, we wouldn’t have employees either ’cause they wouldn’t get paychecks and things like that. So I, as I talked to operations it’s a partnership. We rely on each other so that we can provide the best guest and customer service that, we can for all of our restaurants.

Tal Clark: Hundred percent. That is so good to hear. And that is, you know what? Because if your employees are doing well and [00:11:00] enjoying their work, then you’re more than likely going to have happy customers as well. Right?

Laura McLand: Exactly right.

Tal Clark: So, that’s outstanding. You touched on AI just briefly while ago. Let’s go back to that, just for a minute. I’m curious to hear if you, all are using AI or other specific technologies or automations. To sort of help streamline your operations, can you tell us maybe what that tech is and what you’re evaluating in that area?

Laura McLand: Absolutely. And all the time I’m definitely a ChatGPT and all those users too. I, I’ll sneak over there and use that sometimes, but we do folks of course we have it in recruiting. So that definitely helps us get in the resumes, just kind of do a cursory look but we still have some eyes on that as well. I don’t want AI to take that over. I want it to be a tool, and that’s what I tell with all the employees in our department is that AI is a tool, but we are right at the very beginning and I definitely see [00:12:00] that it’s definitely gonna blossom as we go forward. The other thing that we’re at, definitely, so we rolled that out last year on the recruiting side of things. And then now we just rolled that out on the payroll side of things with the new software that we just implemented. And what’s really important is now that we have it, how do we use it? And we know it has these capabilities. We also wanna stretch this software, so we wanna say, hey, I know it can do these, but let’s see what else it can do. And part of that is that AI function. And so as I’m showing the software to all of our brand leaders I’m typing in things in there and showing them the AI aspect of it, and they’re like oh, I didn’t even, it didn’t even occur to me that it could even do something like that. And so what’s really nice is, typical software is you have to be very specific when you look for different things in there. Whereas this tool I’m able to type in who is the GM and my Applebee’s in Ohio, and it is able to [00:13:00] populate that. And which makes it much easier to use much quicker. And I know that we’ll definitely be able to roll out in, some of our training that we’re going to be bringing out in the future.

Tal Clark: Okay, it’s outstanding to see you guys making use of those tools and continue to evolve and move Sun Holdings forward. Let’s end with a round of rapid fire questions, if you don’t mind. And we might, they may be rapid fire, but we can expand on these if we want to. So is there a habit or routine that you follow every day?

Laura McLand: I wanna learn something every day. That’s my whole focus. It, it may be something on LinkedIn, it may be a five minute podcast. It may be, some, trying to learn a little bit of new language where it’s a new word. But that’s my goal every single day is to learn something new.

Tal Clark: Outstanding. That’s a great one, Laura. What is one book or podcast that you would recommend reading or listening to?

Laura McLand: That’s a great question, and I don’t have one off the top of my head.

Tal Clark: Okay.[00:14:00] 

Laura McLand: I read so many different ones when I have time. I do work many hours, and so I really don’t have one focused right now, one focus podcast or one focus book that I’m reading. I finished one, but it was last year, so I’ll have to get back with you.

Tal Clark: Okay. let’s adjust that. Do you watch any Netflix or Amazon Prime or anything like that? Any show you are watching now?

Laura McLand: Oh my gosh. Oh, I have to watch. But, some of the Texas based ones, so Landman, in my own backyard, so I have to watch a little bit of that.

Tal Clark: That’s great. Yeah, Landman is pretty good. I’ve got, and I’m behind on that actually, so, that’s a good one. What is your favorite menu item across all of the brands at Sun Holdings? We don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings there, but I think it’s fair for you to pick one.

Laura McLand: Oh, I can definitely do that. So what’s really nice at corporate is I know what the new menu items are coming out, and so sometimes we get to taste ’em ahead of time. I will have to give a huge plug right at the moment. Don’t tell the other brands, but Uncle Julio’s newest [00:15:00] Guadalajara Fajitas and Bacon Wrap Shrimp. Oh my gosh. You gotta try it.

Tal Clark: Yeah, that sounds great. I don’t know if I have Uncle Julio’s local. I’m going to have to look that up next time.

Laura McLand: Definitely check it out. It’s fantastic.

Tal Clark: Great. Last, what professionally speaking, are you most excited about for Sun Holdings in 2026?

Laura McLand: Gosh, what are we most excited about? In 2026, we’re gonna be bringing on new, probably new entities. It’s, that’s what we’re excited about, is what is the future gonna be? So you never know what’s gonna come down the pipe, but I have a feeling there’s definitely gonna be some new things that we’re gonna see in 2026, new brands and things that I’m looking forward to.

Tal Clark: Yeah, they always keep you hopping over there because you guys are definitely bringing in new businesses and brands at a great pace. So. Good. Laura, thanks so much for joining us. This has been fun. Really enjoyed catching up on the Instant Pavements podcast. You, so you have so much hands-on experience that I know this will be [00:16:00] valuable for other leader leaders across the hospitality industry.

To our listeners, you can learn more about Laura’s work at sunholdings.net and follow along with new podcast episodes at instant.co/podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcast. Laura, thanks again, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in to the Instant Podcast.