Our 100th episode is here, featuring Hot Chicken Takeover! Thank you for joining the People Helping People podcast on this journey, and coming this far with the show. We truly appreciate your participation, your sincere interest, and your shared enthusiasm. Today, we have another insightful conversation through a leader in the community who built a shining example of a hiring model: Joe DeLoss.

Joe DeLoss started the Hot Chicken Takeover restaurant chain that prioritizes fair chance employment. This fast-casual fried chicken restaurant uses business as a vehicle to create opportunity. No matter what somebody's resume or alternative resume from their past looks like, the intention is to offer an opportunity. Hot Chicken Takeover provides an environment for people who dealt with adversity to steady themselves.

Pillars to Building Culture

Three pillars help Hot Chicken Takeover maintain a strong development of the initiative: clear expectations, relevant benefits, and frequent feedback. Joe DeLoss explained where Hot Chicken Takeover places focus to match the needs of the employees. He spoke on valuing a positive work environment that offers more ownership of career trajectory. By using the three pillars, a more cohesive and clear company culture can be built.

“The best employment is about investing in people's personal stability because it yields professional stability.”-Joe DeLoss

In the service industry, many companies may experience a high turnover percentage that could be addressed if looking deeper into the challenges employees are facing. Some common factors are transportation or housing issues that can add additional strain on employee performance. Hot Chicken Takeover intervenes in these issues by providing assistance, such as having parental leave and a partnership with a local biking company. Understandably, Hot Chicken Takeover finds ways to accommodate the needs of employees by keeping open communication and securing relevant assistance.

Success through Iteration

Joe DeLoss discussed how his passion for the intersection of impact and entrepreneurship grew over the years. Success didn’t happen right away, but each moment created a chance at new information and insight. He gave his lessons on encountering new opportunities and problems along the way. With being so involved in the business, Joe talked through specific growing pains, like investors and media presence.

Since Joe has experience with mentoring budding social entrepreneurs, we discussed general tips for creating a career in social enterprise. Joe started off with learning about the business and impact model as an important point in developing an understanding of the field. He spoke about l the kind of transparent involvement social enterprise can require when first starting. To connect the ideas, Joe shared examples from the earlier parts of his journey.

Out of all the lessons he learned, Joe DeLoss emphasized the principle that connects almost every situation. While working through the early stages, he found that moving anything a step forward requires an iterative mindset. Alongside this point, Joe expressed his thoughts on adapting to new circumstances and letting go of ego. Social entrepreneurs will find that these mindsets are especially true when expanding an initiative.

Discover Hot Chicken Takeover

If you would like to learn more, visit them on their website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Yelp.

Read Full TranscriptAdam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host. Adam Morris. Today is our 100th episode of People Helping People. And I have so much gratitude for the people that have helped us share inspiring stories from Emily Savors at the Columbus Foundation to Jay Clouse and his Freelancing School and Suzy Bureau from GiveBackHack and countless others.