Dashboard: A Tale of Two Cities (Fort Myers and Philadelphia)

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard every Monday Gene marks and I talk about the issues we think business owners should be following welcome Jean hey Lauren it's great to talk to you been a little bit yeah I've missed you it's great to have you back although I know you're technically still in Florida um but I missed you uh I had no one to argue with [Music] um I want to talk to you about your trip to Florida but let's save that for a moment let's uh you recently wrote a piece suggesting that smaller businesses adopt a 4-day work week for their employees the idea being that it's a good benefit to offer in the middle of a labor shortage something that employees uh might find attractive am I right yeah it's exactly right I mean you the the you know the 4-day work week is right now there's such a you know Buzz about it it's in the news employees kind of know about it they get excited about it it's something like listen recruiting employees is like uh it's a marketing thing right I mean you're trying to sell an employee to come and join your company so you want to present that employee prospective employee with as much enticement as possible especially right now yeah so yeah I mean clearly I mean so so why not say to prospective employees yeah we offer a 4day work week now the thing about the 4-day work week is lots of people have lots of different definitions of what a 4-day work week is you know um on the you know on the one hand you know the 4-day work week is like a is like a um a 32-hour work week that's only you know where you're still paying the people 40 hours and in fact you know I interviewed you know one one Congressman uh from uh Mark Tano from California who actually introduced legislation this year in Congress he got about 100 progressives behind him to introduce um a 4day worker like mandating employer employers to limit their work weeks to 32 hours you know so there's that kind of extreme then there's like The Other Extreme Lauren like um you know like like four day work weeks are kind of common in some professions like don't you know like nurses who will work like four days a week and then you four 10hour days and then take three days off you know what I mean I think some nurses are working s 10 hour days now yeah that's also true okay right now but I mean you know what I'm saying like yes however you want to Define what that 4day work week is to me though the whole 4-day Work Week thing is a buzz word and really another word for exibility you know I mean we learned that during this pandemic you know I mean people were arguing for so long about wanting more flexibility in their schedules and you know us older guys that are running businesses are like no no no and then you realize that you know the pandemic comes people are working remotely and from home and from all over and the work's still getting done and you're like you know maybe we can be you know more flexible and offer a quote unquote 4day Work Week um when that 4-day work week really defines itself it's just getting your job done in as many days as as need be and if if a supervisor approves that good for them and you know rather than you know evaluating people the number of hours they're working you just you know evaluate them when they're deliverables you know what I mean so long as the work gets done yeah as long as the work gets done so I guess what I'm saying my my what I said in the guardian piece but I also am saying to my clients as well is that you know you should reconsider your scheduling and your flexibility call it a 4-day work week if you want to that's fine I mean you can say listen we expect you to get 40 hours in during the week but then again we're it's more important for you to just get your deliverables done and if you can get that done in 10 hours good for you go for it then you know we we officially have a 4-day work week policy you know I have to say I have run this idea by a bunch of owners and you know everybody's at least paying lip service toward flexibility at this point I think you know everybody understands at some level that you just the times have changed you have to be more flexible than you used to be but when you label it a 4-day work week people tend to I don't know I'm I'm I'm not hearing a lot of receptivity I'm wondering what kind of reaction you get from your clients when you raise it I have 10 employees on the payroll right and they um we're as you know we're a totally virtual company um nobody clocks in nobody clocks out like I don't know I don't see them in the office because we don't have an office so I don't know if they're working 40 hours a week or 60 hours a week all I care about is that they're chargeable to a certain extent to our clients do you know what I mean right and in addition to that we have other deliverables and goals that they all set so I don't care if they get how many hours it takes them to you know get their work done so it it is really a flexible Arrangement and you know I could call it a 4day work week but it's really just a flexible Arrangement you know what you know what I kind of like liking it to learn is like the whole work from home thing you know like you know just in the news this week Google is spending a billion dollars on office space in London and you know Facebook this this in January um is like made is the largest off at least ever in its history down in Austin and you know you know you think you're what are they think yeah didn't they get the memo that like everybody's working from home but people aren't working from home they're going to offer flexible Arrangements but they know that people need to be in the office so there's this whole work from home thing work from home work from home work from home and really it's not going to be that way well we should acknowledge that work from home and the kind of flexibility that you and I are talking about and to some extent enjoying ourselves it that's a particular slice of the economy I mean if you work in a retail uh store if you work in a factory it it's a little bit different you're absolutely right I mean there are some people that just have to be you know have to be on site to get work done which brings me back to that nursing example like you know why can't you know and I do I have I have one client actually that he does shift work um they make they make containers and um you know he says that he people work 40 hour shifts but they can decide when those 40 hours are and how long they want their shifts to be so he's got some employees that work like you know three and a half days a week you know they just they work 12 hour days and a half day and then they're done and then that's that's what their thing is you know yeah I think it's It's Tricky it can be done in a factory setting but it's trickier because there may be people whose jobs are dependent on other people's activities and they that has to be coordinated could be but I I guess my point is is that we we have to accept that the the whole flexibility you know discussion is a big discussion and it's a big benefit to offer and as an employer you can offer this without it costing you any money if it long as you just you know you you you match your deliverables from your employees to you know you to to to the employ to whatever the period is I think you just hit the most important point it's a it's a nice benefit to offer employees and it doesn't cost anything yeah it really doesn't and then the other thing is you can also you know you you don't have to offer it right away you can offer it say like you work for us for a year we can then give you more flexible scheduling you know so it's something you can award employees or reward them after they have some tenure with your business next topic I recently published uh a tweet actually in the morning report asking about the best way to handle a complaint about a website not being ADA Compliant uh the this business's lawyer recommended paying $10,000 to settle no suit had been filed it was just a a letter from a lawyer um this lawyers told the business to pay 10,000 10,000 to settle the Tweet asked if uh the lawyer should be fired what do you think so first of all uh you sent me this as well in advance of this conversation and I wrote about this whole Ada thing like I don't know a couple years ago because it it was you know it's been around this issue and now like a lot of specifically about websites yeah it's websites so like basically if you're listening to this your website's not in compliance with the with theer I mean you know who's really is I mean there there's a lot of rules around making sure that the fonts are big enough and you can click on things to get through and then you know there's also you you're delivering stuff by Audio because you know if somebody is blind and they want to come to your website there's like some rules involved that to be ada8 compli so we are all exposed to that you know I have to say every time I've read about this there's been some somebody has pointed out that either uh a government website that's relevant to the discussion isn't in fact itself ADA Compliant or the the lawyer that's suing has a website that isn't ADA Compliant that that's all kind of thing is always coming up and not only that so when you when you sent me um you sent me that tweet and whatever I was like you know I know my website's not compant my wife runs a nonprofit I know hers isn't so I emailed our web designer the guy emails back and goes like Hey listen man you know we have our contract we don't take any responsibility for any of these issues you know what I mean I like dude I'm not I'm not to you I'm just asking for your how do we get it know and in the example of the the guy that was tweeting that you said it was a Shopify e-commerce site and apparently Shopify has some plugin that can fix the issue you know so I was asking the guy like is there any plugins you have for WordPress he's like well you know you can you can look you know but listen I'm you know I don't know if I can help you so anyway like all right so now somebody said in this tweet they should fire the lawyer now I'm like should I fire my web designer I mean this guy is not you know I'm relying on him he's my web guy and I'm asking him for advice and he's like you know Running Scared the bottom line is this um if you're a small business and you're going to get notification from an attorney it's it is 99% chance that it's frivolous you know and you know it should just be ignored they're probably sending it out to a lot of different places um and it's and I think somebody even said it one of the tweets it wasn't a lawsuit it was just some threatening letter and that's what you know these types of attorneys like to do they send out a few hundred of these letters maybe even more hoping to get you know hoping to scare somebody into writing them a check so I wouldn't worry about it but at the same I do think it's worthwhile talking to your web web person whoever that is um WordPress does have plugins um as do some you know all the major Go Daddy there's plugins and we and we should acknowledge and I think this is where you're headed um we're kind of laughing about this because this is been uh abused but the the basic thought of making it possible for anybody to use a website is something we can all agree upon and I don't think it's in in many cases it's not that expensive to make sure that you are in fact compliant you know you know L you are absolutely right like here I am talking about you know protecting ourselves and you know avoiding frivolous lawsuits and blah blah blah and then I'm thinking like you know you're right in the end it's like this is designed to help disabled people and like here I am acting like oh my God you know I don't what do we you know you're right you're right I mean it we should be in compliance with this stuff because you know the the the regulation does have good intentions and we want our we want our websites to be in compliance first of all because you know there could be a blind or a deaf person that's out there that could be a prospective customer of ours and exactly why are we ignoring that that's why they're on the website yeah yeah exactly right okay uh so let's talk about Florida you uh you've spent a month there you wrote a piece for the hill I believe kind of comparing and contrasting your experience in Florida right now with your experience in Philadelphia before you left tell us about that so Lauren you you have to come here I know you're you're tentative about flying or or leaving home or whatever but I'm still in Florida uh coming back shortly but I I can tell you I've been here for a month now let me tell you what I did yesterday okay Lauren just just just just to let you know ahead in the morning I got up early I took my car to a Honda dealership in Fort Meyers uh because it needed some service there were like 20 or 30 people there I was there for about two hours in the waiting room with a whole bunch of other people got it fixed got the car you were all wearing masks right no masks masks uh we then go I stop at a Wawa on the way to get a cup of coffee uh go in there do my think no masks right I then uh go to a public supermarket made another stuff just to buy some groceries no mask by the way a couple of masks some older people were they you know were wearing masks but you know for the most part not employees were wearing masks by the way in all these places except for the Honda dealership that night you know I went out you know with with my wife to dinner on Santa Bel it's a nice seafood restaurant nobody asked me for a vaccine card or if I was vaccinated we ate indoors as we've been indoors for a lot of stuff the weather's been kind of iffy even this this entire month um and we did our thing right me Florida right now is just it's wide open I am not even carrying my mask around from the first day we got here I have you know I don't even have one and you feel comfortable doing that 100% I mean I'm triple vaxed so I'm not I'm just not covid worried I mean I'm just you know I know I'm vaxed if I for all I know I've had Co and if I get Co I'm not concerned I'm I'm healthy and you know I if I get sick I get sick but it's I don't feel I'm going to go to the hospital or any more than I have with the flu by the way two weeks ago in Florida just by coincidence there I spoke at a conference in Naples at the Naples Grand Resort there were like 600 people there I was there for two days in a row I went there and um you know I worked there no social distancing no mask the only people wearing masks at the conference were probably people like we're from New York you know or Princeton so thank you right nobody else you know whatever and you know the rooms are the it was all the same it was like 2019 and before there was no whatever it that's just what it is now I'm going to head back to Philly so I'm going to tell you another story right before I left Philly I went to my local grocery store and um the um I got a call while I was there I pulled out my mask and was talking on my cell phone this manager came over to me and really gave it to me because I was because I didn't have my mask on I pulled it down he said you know you're not going to be allowed to come back here again put your mask on and I apolog he was right 100% And I was wrong and you know and I apologized and I just feel bad because it's like this young kid he's a manager of a grocery store for God's sake and he's got to play cop and and yell at his customers I'm in there all the time you know because that's not part of his job description but in Philly if you're in any indoor spots if you're running a business your employees have to play policemen and get into fights with your customers if they're not wearing masks and if you're running a restaurant in Philly you know you you can't let customers in unless they show proof of vaccination and so when I talk to my clients in Philly I talk to one one guy he owns three restaurants in Philadelphia he says business is more than 50% off and I spoke to another you know another two clients that also said similar things their business is really down um you know it's compared year to year like compared to like winter of 2019 down um and they say it's because nobody's coming into town because they're you know they're they don't they're not a lot of people aren't vaxed so they just they they know they can't serve so it's it's just two different parts of this country two different approaches to dealing with Co I know you can figure out which now which approach I agree with let me think about that I guess I'm just being a reporter here I'm just reporting what I'm seeing well but but you've you you made clear in the things you've written and you've written about this a number of times now um I guess the the thing that I wonder about is that you have focused on uh Philadelphia's requirement of show proof of vaccination to eat in a restaurant and um you know you mentioned your clients whose business is down you know that's actually only really been in effect for about two weeks now um it well no um you're right except that they said it was a soft start so for the first two weeks they just asked you to show a test and I don't know that they even really did that uh it's only been the last two weeks that they really uh that anybody's really enforced it um but you the point that I would make is that I've also seen um a lot of um quotes from restaurant owners just talking about the the impossibility of keeping their Staffing uh up numbers up uh because people are just getting sick I mean that's what Omron is all about it's so transmissible um and um you know business may be off uh in these restaurants how do we know it's because people don't want to uh you know people who are uh not vaccinated can't get in or is it because people are just generally nervous about eating out at a time when Omron has been uh transmitting so rapidly uh or you know or or is it because you mean there restaurants that have had to close down because they just didn't have enough staff so a couple things there first of all I think you're right people are nervous in Philly um you don't seem to be very nervous in Florida every place we're going to well you know that's been true all along I think that that's been a very uh big difference part of it I think is that that you know in general the weather has been better I know not necessarily the past month that that you described um but I think the weather does play a part to some extent although I just I tell you I mean all the places I've been have been inside you know right I hear you Wawa the restaurants the supermarkets so but but the weather certainly should have an impact on that as well but there is a different attitude here the employee issue is is an issue in Florida as well as in Philadelphia um I mean the it really is a very nice and convenient excuse Lauren I mean I'm going to sound like that harsh Republican that I am but if you're you know you know you're an employe and you got the sniffles you know number one you've got the perfect excuse to just call up and say up listen I I might have Co I've got the sniffles so I just can't come in and there's no boss in America that can fight you against that because you know that's just not something that you do even in Florida well you know some of these people don't get paid if they don't come in so that's true but again you know it gets back to whether or not you know they they need to come in they can afford to take the day off they've got the savings they got the what I don't know whatever but you know they can take some a little bit of time here and there and that impacts the business plus you know if you take time off because you're sick it's not one of those things where like an employer is going to fire you because of it because my God you know you were sick or you had you potentially had covid so I think there's there's that going around as well you know in the end though we're never going to know you know la like it's going to take years to figure this out but I will take I will say this much you know my point in the hill column that I wrote and I wrote about this elsewhere there there's this attitude of our leaders you know at least in Florida regardless of what you think of the people that are running the state they are letting the their businesses decide how they want to run their businesses and how safe they want to run it there are some that's not really true though I mean I think it's more it's less true in Texas than Florida but in both places you can get in trouble actually for trying to enforce any sort of mandate well it's you know I mean so they're not really just letting the businesses decide on Santa Bel Island that that have requested that you wear a mask or they've had signs saying if you're not vaccinated please wear a mask I've seen that um I haven't seen anybody require proof of a vaccination card I've seen u a lot of businesses here in Florida like you go in the public supermarkets all the employees are wearing masks which is not something that you know you would have seen two years ago do you know what I mean so I you know and by the way I think employees should always if you're dealing with food behind the deli you know what I mean like you should probably always be wearing a mask forever um maybe the people checking you out you know don't need to but you know I I guess my point is is that the businesses themselves can figure out because they want their customers to come and they want their employees to feel safe at their businesses so you know let you know give them the respect of like making their decisions how to run their businesses they don't want to get anybody sick whereas in Philadelphia it's mandated like sorry you know you know these are the rules if they're not vaccinated you're not allowed to serve them even if you've got a separate area even if you're you know if you seat them outs nobody can be served if if People's coming into your store I don't care if the ceilings are 20 feet high and 50 feet wide you know everybody's got to wear a mask and if they're not wearing a mask we can find you and we will find you so therefore have that 26y old manager at the grocery store coming up to your customers and and yelling at them to put on a mask because God forbid if you get fined you know I mean it's just well you know we there is a public health aspect to this you know we do have more than5 200 people dying every day um hospitals in many places including Philadelphia have been uh have been full but that's the thing you know Lauren I mean like and again neither of us are epidemiologists or health experts I mean all we're doing is looking at the same incorrect game every day that the media feeds us you know well who who let's let's not blame it all on the media but it seems like the cases and and the you know and and the hospitalizations and the deaths are not that different in Florida than they are in Philadelphia and let me tell you something about Florida Garen I have never seen so many senior living areas so many Assisted Living fac this place is definitely God's waiting room you know I mean if there's any state that should be leading this country in covid deaths it would definitely be Florida well there is a difference I mean Florida has not done as well as Pennsylvania has um or certainly Philadelphia yeah I mean I don't know I look at the numbers it's not you know we we as a country are I think you know at this point uh if not the worst right at the top of the worst in terms of deaths per 100,000 y it's an ongoing discussion I guess like I said I guess my my takeaway is I listen you know Philly is just it's kind of it's really depressing right now it's just it's very depressing and Florida is extremely cheerful and you know everything is open and people are living with covid and the business owners are running their businesses even with covid whereas in Philly people are cowering from covid and businesses are not allowed to run their businesses unless they're following strict rules and I just don't know and we won't know for a while yet but I just don't know when you look back on all this does that really did that really make a difference all those rules we'll see well one thing um we can be hopeful about is the expectation has been from the beginning that based on uh the experience in other countries Omron would be something that burned bright and then faded and it seems to be fading now I think part of the argument for being as careful as possible was there's a finite period of time we're dealing with here and this is going to be over let's let's get through it and let's hope that um you know we don't get hit with another variant anytime soon and things can go back to if we do that you know the response may be a little bit more muted um Philadelphia Health officials just announced last week um that that these restrictions are going to continue and you know and I'm quoting them for months so that's really upsetting I think for a lot of my clients in Philadelphia so we'll see I hope that they will reconsider that you know if these cases really do start to decline and uh the variant starts to fade you know so and and also there's been talk in Congress about funding and it's not like I'm such a great you know supporter of like just you know just giving money away but uh these restaurants need it in certain cities I mean it's you know that restaurant revitalization fund got eaten up really fast way too quickly way too many places that needed the money did not get it so yeah I think you know a targeted you know uh refresh of that fund um would be really really helpful to certain restaurants in certain parts of the country um and put all politics aside it is what it is they need help so we found something that we agree upon to end on we agree on lots of stuff but we our websites are not ADA compliance that's Jean thank you for doing this have a great drive back to Philadelphia I hope it's not too depressing when you get there um but really thank you for doing this all right we'll talk to you next week bye now